Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Multiculturalism and Coalition Politics: The Indian Experience

  2 June 2009, by Indrajeet Singh

  The decade of the 1999s witnessed a major transformation in the political and social realm of the Indian society. The Indian state changed its strategy. It took steps towards a more liberal state. Now India is a market-oriented society. The market system is more open in comparison with the earlier period. New social groups are making their present felt. This is a harbinger of future political and social base in Indian society. It is an index which shows that future trajectories will be (…)

• Verdict 2009 Interpretations: What Lies Ahead?

  2 June 2009, by Amna Mirza

  As we sit to ponder about the verdict of the Lok Sabha Election 2009, a tough battlefield lies ahead for the churnings in the Indian political domain. For the Congress, there seems to be no room for complacency that it has performed in a splendid way. With Rahul Gandhi as the star campaigner, the road is not going to be smooth in the coming days. He has given tickets to the scions of dynasty in the name of unleashing youth power, the party is yet to regain its strength in Bihar, Jharkhand, (…)

• Crushing Democracy in Myanmar

  2 June 2009, by Loveleen Kaur

  Aung San Suu Kyi is a living symbol of democracy and hope in Myanmar. In the last two decades the military junta has kept her under house arrest for more than thirteen long years. At a time when she was about to be released after completing her house arrest term on May 27, 2009, a new allegation of breach of detention has provided the excuse for the junta to charge her and to extend house arrest thereby crushing any hopes for democracy.
  Suu Kyi is barred from meeting any visitor (…)

• Alchemist (in Memory of fellow-activist Smitu Kothari)

  2 June 2009, by Sagari Chhabra

  A blind turtle
  – from the depths
  – of the ocean floor
  – finds its way
  – to the surface;
  – its mouth aquiver
  – searching for the
  – golden lasso—
  – the shadow of
  – the crescent moon.
  – So hard, they say,
  – to get human life.
  – But in this
  – short span,
  – you diffused the
  – golden lasso
  – into a thousand
  – iridescent beams,
  – rainbow coloured prisms.
  – Bridging a myriad schisms;

• Bargain

  2 June 2009, by Khurshid Alam

  I’ve seen many men of lesser quality rise upwards and have immense influence on the people around and many others of best quality fall down under the excuse of recession when job is badly appraised and responsibility blindly assessed and salary adversely reduced. A nude man barely in skin shies from people tries to hide everything so many secrets fears to share with others the poor chap letting no chance to disclose what he has, what not but poor in the effort he wears all that he has the (…)

• Election 2009 : The People For Ever

  23 May 2009, by SC

  Five years ago, on May 13, 2004, it was written in these columns under the same heading “The People For Ever” following the results of the 14th Lok Sabha polls:
  One of the famous poems of poet Bishnu Dey translated into English from the original Bengali by Harindranath Chattopadhyay is entitled “The People For Ever”. As the results of Election 2004 came in one was reminded of that poem as it had brilliantly projected the remarkable resilience of our immortal people in the face of heavy (…)

• ‘Major Hindrance to Democratic Movement among Sri Lankan Tamils has been Removed’

  23 May 2009

  In the following interview Varadaraja Perumal, the former Chief Minister of the north and east in Sri Lanka, speaks to Mainstream editor on the changed scenario in the island state following the killing of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE supremo, on May 18, 2009. Perumal was the CM of the north and east in 1988-90; he is one of the leaders of the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) that had to bear the brunt of Prabhakaran’s ire, and at present resides in India.
  Are you (…)

• Rise and Fall of Prabhakaran

  23 May 2009, by M R Narayan Swamy

  Even by the standards of the violent life he led, Velupillai Prabhakaran’s dramatic death was macabre and bloody. Pursued relentlessly by soldiers mandated to crush him and his Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Prabhakaran had taken his last stand with his most senior and trusted colleagues close to a lagoon in Sri Lanka’s Mullaitivu district, his home for years. All escape routes had been cut off although rumours, which it is possible the Tigers may have floated to blind the enemy, (…)

• The West Bengal Verdict

  23 May 2009, by Barun Das Gupta

  The verdict of the West Bengal people in the Lok Sabha elections is loud and clear: it is a decisive rejection of the CPI-M and the Left Front led by it. The Trinamul Congress—SUCI-Congress alliance or jote won 26 of the 42 seats-Trinamul 19, SUCI 1 and Congress 6. The Left Front’s tally came down from 36 to a mere 15—CPI-M 9, CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc 2 each. For the first time the CPI-M’s score was reduced to a single-digit. The Darjeeling seat went to the BJP.
  That the CPI-M was (…)

• Not that Fair

  23 May 2009, by Pulak Narayan Dhar

  COMMUNICATION
  The election in West Bengal was not as fair and peaceful as is claimed by the authorities. A cloud of fear loomed large over many places especially in the rural areas. But the redeeming feature this time was that people in many areas put up resistance. Nonetheless the hired goons of the CPI-M were able to do some mischief. The Chief Election Officer of West Bengal proved to be a failure. He could not assert his power appropriately nor could be dispel the doubt in the minds of (…)