Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• India’s Black Wealth in Global Tax Havens: Looking Beyond Elections

  13 May 2009, by Kamal Nayan Kabra

  Among the long-term outcomes of the 2009 elections to the Lok Sabha, besides the overall verdict of the electorate (likely to mark a watershed), it appears that the up-fronting of the malaise of gigantic amounts of wealth stashed away in various foreign financial institutions, by its very location illegal (save the declared amounts made possible by the recent decision to permit partial capital account convertibility of capital by Indians) is likely to be among the foremost. However, it (…)

• Global Financial Crisis, Health Care and Poverty

  13 May 2009, by Aasha Kapur Mehta

  The impact of the global financial crisis on growth rates, trade flows, remittances, jobs and incomes has led to a range of policy responses by the state. However, the fact that the crisis will reduce access to health care for a large segment of the population, has yet to receive attention. There are strong links between poverty and ill-health. Ill-health creates immense stress even among those who are financially secure and can drive those who are not poor into poverty. There is a gender (…)

• Joint Study on Secret Detention

  13 May 2009

  Two Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations—the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism and the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment—have initiated a Joint Study to examine the practice of secret detention from a global perspective.
  The Joint Study aims at producing new findings regarding the nature and scope of secret detention practices. The Joint (…)

• Globalisation and its Impact on Women: A Critical Assessment

  13 May 2009, by Bharti Chhibber

  Globalisation is a process of increasing interdependence, interconnectedness and integration of economies and societies to such an extent that an event in one part of the globe affects people in other parts of world. We have often heard of global culture and integration of the world economy. However, as this process is not consistent throughout the world, it leads to conflict and fragmentation.
  In 2000, the Beijing+5 Document, while reviewing progress made since the 1995 UN (…)

• India-Israel Defence Nexus Deepens

  13 May 2009, by Ninan Koshy

  The launching of an Israeli made satellite on April 20, 2009 came close on the heels of an opaque missile deal of India with an Israeli company under investigation both in India and Israel, raising further questions about India’s Israeli ties and its implications. A.K. Antony, India’s Defence Minister, found it hard to answer questions related to these deals while campaigning for the Congress party in the Parliament elections in his home State of Kerala.
  India signed a massive US $ (…)

• West traps Russia in its own Backyard

  13 May 2009, by M K Bhadrakumar

  In the normal case, pushing the reset button should not be a difficult thing to do. Yet, it is almost two months since the United States Vice President Joseph Biden offered to do just that.
  When he addressed the Munich security conference in February, Biden offered to reset the button in US-Russia relations. However, despite many positive signals and an overall lowering of rhetoric, the moves so far have been by and large symbolic. Across Eurasia, the signs are to the contrary. The (…)

• Mahatma Gandhi’s Inclusive Approach to Humanity

  13 May 2009, by Subhrendu Bhattacharya

  Mahatma Gandhi believed in the unique approach of inclusiveness, away from divisiveness of any kind. He wanted men and women to admire humanity in general, irrespective of race, religion, caste, creed, and tribe. The inclusiveness included feelings of goodwill and cooperation, beyond the boundaries of nations. Mahatma Gandhi was a true insignia of Indian culture, which has always believed in promoting peace, cooperation among its people and among people of different nations of the world. If (…)

• On Violence and the Question of Means and Ends

  13 May 2009, by Randhir Singh

  The following are excerpts from the author’s inaugural address to the Conference on ‘Emerging Trends of Violence in North-West India’ at Punjabi University, Patiala, on November 5, 2007.
  Gandhi remains central to any discussion of violence, and therefore non-violence in the world today. Presently his ‘non-violence’ is a matter of celebrations the world over. If his birth and death anniversaries are occasions for elaborate official and non-official functions in India and the UGC has gone (…)

• Crucial Ballot

  13 May 2009, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  Next week, as millions of India’s electorate go to poll, this nation will be turning a page in its history, whatever may be the verdict of the ballot box.
  If Indira Gandhi manages to bag the majority of seats—as the Congress has been desperately trying to do in the last lap of the campaign with massive mobilisation of resources—even then, the Lok Sabha will never be the same again. Already the spectre of defection on the morrow of the poll results, haunts the Congress leadership. The (…)

• The Great Pole (Poll) Vault

  13 May 2009, by S G Vombatkere

  Among Ex-Servicemen of the Army, Navy and Air Force (collectively called military veterans), the Congress-led UPA Government is widely seen as having given them as also serving personnel, a raw deal especially following the recommendations of the controversial Sixth Central Pay Commission (6 CPC). Veterans have been unprecedentedly demonstrating since mid-December 2008 in demand of one-rank-one-pension (OROP) and other key issues at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, with delegates from all over India. (…)