Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Free Market—Disinformation of the West

  19 August 2009, by D G Bokare

  There is a constant effort to say the economy of the developed nations is in reality a free-market economy. This is not said by any ordinary person but even by recent Noble Laureates like Amartya Sen, Joseph E. Stiglitz and others. We cannot say that they have not read the economics textbooks or they have forgotten what they learnt and taught in the classes of economics. In case of Amartya Sen, one can say that he is infatuated by the knowledge of the West. Indian economists as well as other (…)

• India and the New Great Game

  19 August 2009, by M K Bhadrakumar

  I. Introduction
  The Central Asian question is no more the same as it used to be in the 1990s. No one speculates anymore that it was inevitable that the region would descend into anarchy. However, the problems endemic to a critical period of state formation linger on. The transition economies were just about switching gear when the global economic crisis struck. Growth slackened. Foreign investment dwindled. Commodity prices crashed.
  Regional cooperation has far from gained traction. (…)

• Dr Ambedkar—A Conscience-keeper of Gandhiji

  19 August 2009, by Shyam Chand

  Dr Ambedkar was against hero worship. But the Dalits worship him as a liberator, a social reformer and a great crusader who fought for their political rights. Dalits, who have read Dr. Ambedkar and Gandhiji, not only equally revered Gandhiji but regard them like two streams that meet at the confluence to merge with each other.
  It takes quite long to understand the Hindu social system and its vexing corpus. After matriculation Gandhiji went to England to study Law and then to South Africa. (…)

• Concern Over a Pernicious Agreement

  19 August 2009, by Ashok Parthasarathi

  A critical agreement finalised during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to India last month was the Indo-US End-Use Monitoring Agreement, or EUMA. It involves US Government inspectors continuously monitoring all hi-tech weapons and advanced electronic systems and equipment across a broad front imported by India from the US, to ensure that they are used by the Indian defence services and the Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Space only for the purpose—”end use”—for (…)

• Book Review: A Deeply Reflective Study of India’s Foreign Policy

  19 August 2009, by S D Muni

  Challenge and Strategy: Rethinking India’s Foreign Policy by Rajiv Sikri; Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi; 2009; pp. XX + 317; price: Rs 595.
  Those writing and researching on India’s foreign policy often are constrained by the lack of adequate access to authentic and reliable information. This constraint can be overcome, to some extent, through the writings of policy-makers who are willing and capable of sharing their experiences after retiring. There are courageous Foreign (…)

• Soldiers in the Nationalist Struggle

  19 August 2009, by Pritish Acharya

  The national movement in India was one of the longest and most widespread mass movements in the history of the modern world. Though it was initiated by a handful of newly educated persons, gradually more and more people got associated with it and made the process of nation-making very eventful in the country. It is in this context that an attempt has been made here to understand and analyse the role of soldiers in the movement. It purports to discuss how the soldiers as a social class had (…)

• Tribute: Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga and Vimla Dang - Pride of Punjab

  19 August 2009, by Chaman Lal

  Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga, the lone surviving Ghadarite revolutionary of India, breathed his last on May 22, 2009 at England in his son’s house. He had just completed 102 years of age the previous month. He was as alert as ever when I met him last on November 1, 2008 at the Desh Bhagat Yaadgar Hall, of which he was the President. He had unfurled the Ghadar Party flag on that day as usual to mark the Ghadar Party Memorial Day, formed in the USA, way back in 1913.
  Baba Bilga was born on April (…)

• Committing to Continuity

  19 August 2009, by Namrata Goswami

  When Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama emerged as a front-runner in the 2008 US Presidential elections, many in India especially in the policy circles were worried. The argument was that “the George W. Bush Jr years” had been one of the most productive for enhancing US-India strategic relationship after decades of distrust and suspicion. So, the related major question dominating Indian policy discourses was: will a Democratic President continue the upsurge in US-India (…)

• Was Partition of India Inevitable?

  19 August 2009, by R M Pal

  This article was sent to us quite sometime back but could not be used earlier for unavoidable reasons. —Editor
  On the black Saturday evening my family and I switched on the TV and heard the black and sad news of Pakistan coming under emergency rule, which meant Martial Law. We changed channels but all channels were telecasting the same news. I said, to the great annoyance of my wife, for she does not like my criticism of Gandhi, in Hindi, “Yeh sab Gandhi ki meharbani hai.” What I wanted to (…)

• A Sell-Out to the Powerful: History Repeats Itself

  19 August 2009, by Sudhir Vombatkere

  Introduction
  Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are not a new concept, but the scale, speed and socio-economic ambience in which these are being created are entirely new. Since the enactment of the SEZ Act 2005, 300 SEZs are functional and 560 more approved.
  While reading about the foundation of Madras (now Chennai) in 1639, and the manner in which the British received a firmaan from the local ruler for grant of land and trading concessions, its similarity with the creation of SEZs raised a (…)