Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Legal Literacy for Ensuring Justice and Equality

  13 June 2009, by Monica

  BOOK REVIEW
  Towards Legal Literacy: An Introduction to Law in India edited by Kamala Sankaran and Ujjwal Kumar Singh; Oxford University Press, New Delhi; 2008; pp. 211.
  A student of political science or law would know that the society is regulated by certain laws and one should have the knowledge of such laws. However, people in general are hardly aware of laws and this has often led to disconcerting events and happenings. This book has been written to make not only students but (…)

• At Home and in the Neighbourhood

  6 June 2009, by SC

  With Cyclone Aila having caused widespread devastation in south Bengal in particular, the Union Government deemed it necessary to assure the West Bengal Government that it would provide a Rs 1000-crore cyclone relief package directly to the State and not through the panchayats controlled by the Trinamul Congress in the region. This is being interpreted in CPM circles as a rebuff to the TMC chief and Railway Minister, Mamata Banerjee, who is justifiably irked by this development given the (…)

• Our Poverty + their Wealth=India

  6 June 2009, by T J S George

  Sometimes it takes a foreign eye to see India in perspective. Known statistics, for example, have been humanised by The Economist to paint a telling picture of the Indian reality in its post-election glow. The juxtaposition of facts goes thus:
  “About 27 million Indians will be born this year. Unless things improve, almost two million of them will die before the next general election. Of the children who survive, more than 40 per cent will be physically stunted by malnutrition. Most will (…)

• The Fine Art of Government Formation

  6 June 2009, by Sandeep Shastri

  The formation of the Union Council of Ministers is an exercise in astute political gymnastics. The Congress President, the Prime Minister and their close confidants have demonstrated their shrewd political skills in being able to stitch together a Union Council of Ministers which is a ‘please-all‘ Ministry. Allies have been accommodated, interests within the party have been appeased, regional needs have been acknowledged and youth has been accorded its due place. There are murmurs of some (…)

• Rebuilding the Left and Renewal of Socialism

  6 June 2009, by Chaturanan Mishra

  The heavy defeat of the Left, particularly the Communist Parties, in the general election to Parliament has posed a serious problem of renewal of socialism and rebuilding the Communist Parties. Ordinarily this defeat should lead to thorough and sharp inner-party discussion but it is difficult to say if that would be possible due to the democratic centralism of party functioning which restricts inner-party democracy.
  Any big change is possible only when it comes from the top leadership. (…)

• North Korean Nuclear Brinkmanship and its Global Impact

  6 June 2009, by Quaisar Alam

  North Korea, stunned the world community yet again, defying its perceived threat perceptions, sending jitters across the region by conducting an underground nuclear test. Thereafter this was followed, reportedly, by the test-firing a series of short range missiles—unmindful of international pressure—a move that could invite fresh sanctions and punitive actions against it. Nations across the world condemned the test. China, Pyongyang’s closest supporter, called it a “flagrant and brazen” (…)

• Global Economic Crisis: Lessons for India

  6 June 2009, by B P Mathur

  The global economy is today facing unprecedented crisis with falling production and job losses. Most advanced countries are already in the grip of recession and the economic outlook for the developing countries is deteriorating rapidly. To prevent economic collapse the governments of the US and other developed countries are giving massive bailout packages to their failing banks and other institutions and virtually nationalising them. There has been a return to Keynesianism even in the (…)

• The Rise and Fall of Prabhakaran

  6 June 2009, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran’s death circa May 19, 2009, in circumstances we will never quite get to know, concludes a morality play.
  As the curtain comes down and we leave the theatre, the spectacle continues to haunt us. We feel a deep unease and can’t quite figure out the reason. Something rankles somewhere. And then we realise we have blood on our hands.
  Not only our hands, but our whole body and deeper down, our conscience—what remains of it (…)

• The Naxalite Movement that was Not in Naxalbari

  6 June 2009, by J.J. Roy Burman

  Peasant movements have drawn a lot of attention among academics and social activists. The Naxalite movement too has gained a lot of acclaim as a peasant movement. The movement at present is very active in the tribal belts of Chotanagpur, Maharashtra, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. It is active in some places of Bihar as well, where the lower castes and under-classes have been mobilised. The name ‘Naxalite’ draws its antecedence from the movement that emerged in 1967 at the Naxalbari area of (…)

• Varied Muslim Projections in the Media

  6 June 2009, by Amna Mirza

  BOOK REVIEW
  Muslims and Media Images: News Versus Views edited by Ather Farouqui; Oxford Universiity Press, New Delhi; pages 354; price Rs 695.
  The debates on minority and majority, inclusion and exclusion are a fact of life in a plural multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual society. The fear of majoritarian overflow often haunts the spectre of existential realm of the minority. The media has been dubbed as the fourth estate of democracy, as a mirror of a liberal society which (…)