Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Withering Lotus

  11 October 2009, by S.K. Dutta

  The way things are happening in the BJP it seems it’s heading towards the doomsday. Two election debacles have had a catastrophic affect on the party. The unexpected defeat in 2004 and the near washout in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls have taken a heavy toll on the party and the BJP today seems to be a party which is rudderless.
  For finding out as to what has gone wrong with the BJP one has to look at it very deeply. The problem with the party today is that it is not headed by a single (…)

• President Obama in the Eyes of the American Left

  11 October 2009, by Sam Webb

  (The following commentary by Sam Webb, the Chairman of the Communist Party of the USA, on the first 100 days of President Obama, is highly significant in understanding the American Left’s view on Obama. —Editor)
  After the first, perhaps over-analysed, hundred days of the Obama administration, it is fair to say that President Obama is a reformer and we are entering an era of reforms, possibly radical reforms.
  Some on the Left (ignoring the Right-wing talk-shows and their fantastic (…)

• Chidambaram’s Dud Blows Up Strategic Deterrent

  11 October 2009, by V. Sudarshan

  Even though the Atomic Energy Commission certified that the dud thermonuclear device tested during Pokhran-II in May 1998 was no dud, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and R. Chidambaram, the AEC Chairman in 1998 and currently Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister, felt compelled to step out on September 24 to mount a fresh defence of their untenable claim. This was necessary because the previous attempt by the AEC did not find any purchase in the media. It was left to (…)

• Reasserting Nuclear Option: Need of the Hour

  11 October 2009, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  In the midst of all the demonstration of mourning for Princess Diana to those for Mother Teresa, came Prime Minister Gujral‘s refreshing reiteration of India‘s nuclear policy. On September 8, addressing in New Delhi a high-powered seminar of nuclear scientists including the representative from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at Vienna, Gujral has categorically repeated the well-known official position of India with regard to nuclear energy, which Parliament under Indira Gandhi (…)

• Chinese Threat on Border and India’s Defence Preparedness

  11 October 2009, by Amitava Mukherjee

  Notwithstanding the assertion made by S.M. Krishna, the Indian External Affairs Minister, that the India-China boundary happens to be one of the most peaceful of our borders, continued Chinese incursions along the Line of Actual Control and the series of strategic moves being undertaken by Beijing in regard to its relations with some smaller countries of the subcontinent, point to a sinister Chinese design of encircling India. It appears that Beijing still rues its decision of voluntarily (…)

• Unfinished Agenda of Gandhi’s Gram Swaraj: Fifty Years of Panchayati Raj

  11 October 2009, by Ranbir Singh

  Although the Father of Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, advocated for ‘a village based political formation fostered by a stateless, classless society’ for the creation of Gram Swaraj, the idea of Panchayati Raj did not find a place in the Draft Constitution of India. This happened because the Congress Constitution Committee rejected the idea ‘believing that the Congress could neither forgo its political role nor become so utterly decentralised’ as envisaged in the Gandhian concept of Gram Swaraj. (…)

• Open Letter to the CM of Bihar

  11 October 2009, by Shree Shankar Sharan

  Respected Chief Minister,
  I would put your by-election losses behind you and think ahead of the future. Elections reflect voter sovereignty It would be vain to expect the voter to line up all the time behind you even if your total score-card has been great but there have been some misses here and there. It is these misses that the voter picks on in by-elections with a view to drawing your attention rather than deserting you.
  Every government has two main problems, the party (…)

• Remembering Lohia: A Legacy for the Left

  11 October 2009, by C.N. Chitta Ranjan

  (October 12 this year marks the fortysecond death anniversary of Dr Rammanohar Lohia, the stormy petrel of the Indian socialist movement who, besides being one of the most versatile personalities in our freedom struggle, was a profound, innovative and original socialist thinker. Incidentally, his birth centenary celebrations have begun from March 23, 2009, which was Dr Lohia’s nintyninth birth anniversary. On this occasion we are reproducing Mainstream’s first editor’s tribute to the (…)

• Gandhi and Dr Lohia—Eternal Optimists

  11 October 2009, by S.R. Nene

  (The following is a chapter from the author’s forthcoming book, Lohia Remembered.)
  The twentieth century politics belonged to the endeavours of just one man: Mahatma Gandhi. Dr Lohia was one of the thousands of Indians who were inspired by Gandhi to dedicate their lives to public service beginning with the urgent task of India’s freedom from British rule. By his own admission, Dr Lohia was inspired by two men, fully by Gandhi and partly by Nehru.
  Dr Lohia was introduced to Gandhi (…)

• Great Loss to the Media World

  11 October 2009, by A K Dasgupta

  COMMUNICATION
  I am sorry to learn that the veteran journalist and media critic, G.S. Bhargava, passed away on September 22. It is a great loss to the Indian media world. I had been an avid reader of his writings in Mainstream and his Sunday column “Blue Pencil” in The Pioneer when Vinod Meta was its editor. The Editor’s Guild in a statement had aptly summed up his contributions thus: “The Blue Pencil column was looked forward to by journalists with both eagerness and uneasiness, as he was (…)