Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Voice of a Responsible Citizen

  12 December 2008, by Reshmi Kazi

  Yet another terrorist attack on November 26 has rocked the entire nation. The country’s economic hub—Mumbai—was held hostage for over 62 hours leaving 195 dead and counting and injuring over 300 innocent people. Preliminary investigations reveal involvement of about 10-odd well-trained and well-equipped terrorists from across the western border in the blasts. The post-blast investigations will reveal several conspiracy theories. Some will be politically motivated while some might be (…)

• Strange Storm Brews in South Asia

  12 December 2008, by M K Bhadrakumar

  No sooner had the guns fallen silent and the terrorist carnage ended in Mumbai than a keen three-way diplomatic tussle began involving India, Pakistan and the United States. The two South Asian nuclear powers are locked in a race to get the US on their respective side.
  For the US, though, it is no longer a matter of acting as a fair-minded, neutral mediator. Today, Washington is a full-fledged participant with its own stakes in the South Asian strategic power equations, thanks to the (…)

• Challenges before the Human Rights Movement

  12 December 2008, by Nandita Haksar

  The attack on Taj and Oberoi Hotels in Mumbai by a group of militants has united the middle classes on the need for greater security measure, zero tolerance approach to terrorism and the corollary to that is a zero tolerance to human rights concerns. The discourse on national security poses human rights as a threat to security and the necessity for a trade-off between national security and democracy.
  In fact the need to uphold human rights values and build democratic institutions is (…)

• Denial of Right to Life

  12 December 2008, by B N Arora

  Even After Sixtyone Years of Independence, the Vast Indian Humanity Remains Sunk in the Quagmire of Poverty and Hunger
  Considerable rhetoric about violation of human rights is being heard all around us. But the negation of the most basic human right, namely, the right to life, fails to get the attention it deserves. In his historic speech in the Constituent Assembly at midnight of August 14-15, 1947, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said, inter alia, that the pledge that we shall take today is (…)

• In the Name of Ram

  12 December 2008, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The following piece, which appeared within a fortnight of the demolition of the Babri Masjid (December 6, 1992), is being reproduced on the sixteenth anniversary of that infamous event.
  To build a temple to mark the brithplace of Ram, a mosque was destroyed by deceit.
  Those who swiftly and competently did the demolition job on Sunday (December 6, 1992), did so before the very eyes of those leaders who had been assuring Parliament and the public that the disputed structure would not (…)

• Please Pay Your Bill Before You Leave, Mr Tata!

  12 December 2008, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  On October 3, 2008, at a press conference at Kolkata, Ratan Tata formally announced his decision to move out the Nano Project from West Bengal squarely blaming the agitation led by the Trinamul Congress for his decision to relocate the plant. This statement clearly reflected some of the discussions that he had with the Chief Minister of West Bengal with whom he was closeted for two hours before the press conference. He spoke persuasively with unwarranted venom.
  One cannot blame (…)

• Sonia Gandhi’s Unambiguous Pronouncements

  3 December 2008, by SC

  Congress President-cum-UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s spirited defence, at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, of bank nationalisation (carried out almost 40 years ago in the second half of 1969) and her emphatic assertion that ’’public sector financial institutions have given our economy the stability and resilience we are now witnessing in the face of the economic slowdown’’ reflect a fresh effort on the part of the head of the principal and premier national ruling party to reiterate (…)

• Extraordinary Times, Unexpected Happenings and Real Economy

  3 December 2008, by Arun Kumar

  These are extraordinary times, so strange and unexpected things occurring should not surprise us. The only thing predictable is that one cannot predict correctly (that also applies to the Indian cricket team!). The US Government, after promising under different heads a few trillion dollars, seems to be fighting a losing battle with the economy steadily declining.
  The Indian Government, after so much song and dance in the last few years about the need for strict adherence to FRBM, has (…)

• Relevance of Gandhi-Nehru Nexus

  3 December 2008, by P N Haksar

  November 27 this year marks P.N. Haksar’s tenth death anniversary. On this occasion we offer our sincere homage to one of the country’s foremost thinkers by reproducing the following piece by the former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. Haksar’s role as an eminent administrator and distinguished diplomat would remain indelible in the history of post-independence India.
  __3__
  The fundamental preoccupation of our distant and ancient thinkers was with three questions: First, who am (…)

• Indira Vs Syndicate: First Round

  3 December 2008, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The following piece appeared in Mainstream under ‘New Delhi Skyline’ shortly after Indira Gandhi carried out bank nationalisation. This was N.C.’s first contribution in this journal after that momentous step. It is being reproduced here after Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s latest speech underlining the significance of bank nationalisation for our nation in the light of the current global economic turmoil.
  From Man-on-the-moon to Morarji-in-mess, last week has been unusually exciting (…)