Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Karl Polanyi and Globalisation

  25 October 2008, by Girish Mishra

  If one wants to understand the real nature of the ongoing globalisation, based on the Washington Consensus and its impending fate, one needs to turn to Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation, published in 1944. Polanyi’s formulations are more relevant now than ever before. Fred Block of the University of California is quite correct when he states that even after many decades, The Great Transformation remains fresh. Indeed, it is indispensable for understanding the dilemma facing global (…)

• Yugo-Nostalgie–II

  25 October 2008, by Branislav Gosovic

  The following article, being carried in two parts, is based on the author’s remarks at the conference “Human Security and Reconciliation” organised by the European Centre for Peace and Development (ECPD), Belgrade, October 27-28, 2006. The article was first published in Inter-Ethnic Reconciliation, Religious Tolerance and Human Security in the Balkans, Proceedings of the Second ECPD International Conference, (eds.) T. Togo, J. Levett, N.P. Ostojic, Belgrade, 2007. It is being published here (…)

• A Tragic Road Map

  25 October 2008, by Manas Ghosh

  The improper resettlement and rehabilitation package for 2500 agricultural households of Singur owning 164 hectares (400 acres) of rich multicrop land forcibly acquired by the Buddhadeb Bhattacharya Government for the Nano car project would surely lead to their loss of livelihood, starvation, morbidity, social and economic degradation, not to forget a high incidence of untimely deaths.
  This is the substance of a fact-sheet prepared by D. Bandyopadhyay, West Bengal’s former Land Reforms (…)

• Real Face of Manmohanomics

  25 October 2008, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  After the smart management of the Parliament debate on the JPC Report, which was neatly turned into a panegyric session for Manmohan Singh, raising the suspicion that his resignation offer was really a stunt calculated to pre-empt attacks in Parliament on him and his Ministry for their supreme laissez faire on the scam, one would have expected that there would be some effort on the government’s part to wake up and save the country from the seamy side of its free-market policy. It appears, (…)

• Time for Introspection

  17 October 2008, by SC

  Does the present crisis in the US economy herald the collapse of laissez-faire capitalism? Certainly not. But it does underline the validity of the concept of cyclical crises that capitalism is bound to experience over time thereby reinforcing the idea that Western style capitalism, especially in the current period marked by the surge of neo-liberalism across the globe, is far from being the ideal system that was advertised worldwide after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the (…)

• India and the World of Tomorrow

  17 October 2008, by M K Bhadrakumar

  This article was written prior to the George W. Bush-Manmohan Singh meeting at the White House on September 26, 2008. It is being published here, nevertheless, as the validity of its contents is unquestionable. —Editor
  Like Banquo’s ghost at Macbeth’s dinner table in William Shakespeare’s play, there will be an unseen presence in the Oval Office in White House on September 26, 2008 when President George W. Bush receives Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. That will be the ghost of the (…)

• Fighting the Flood Ravages of Kosi

  17 October 2008, by Shree Shankar Sharan

  A brave fight is on against the flood ravages of the Kosi in the Kosi division spread over Saharsa, Madhepura and Supaul districts which had been flood free for 50 years after the building of the Kosi Barrage and embankments because of a breach in the eastern embankment at Kusaha one km long and 12 km upstream in Nepal. The breach had been preceded by erosion and blame has been thrown respectively for failure for timely repairs on the State Government, the Central Government and the (…)

• Media: The Synergy that keeps Us Going

  17 October 2008, by Uttam Sen

  Pertinent questions have been raised on journalistic proficiency and an environment that makes light of the gravity of human worth and freedom. It could be a stern reality check for print journalists if they are rendered redundant save for the fact that the time has not come in India. The issue is what the reader thinks. Does the quality of coverage interest and impress him? The answer can come as a bolt from the blue for some, particularly those who have not had first-hand experience of (…)

• Indo-US N-Deal: US Power Elite Gains All, India Loses Every Way

  17 October 2008, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  The following article was written before the passage of the bill for the nuclear deal in the US Senate. —Editor`
  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his latest and possibly last meeting with the outgoing US President, has expressed the hope that the nuclear deal would be approved by the US Congress in a manner which will be “satisfactory” from both countries’ viewpoints. One wonders if his delusion is limitless. If he had any sense of dignity which a sovereign nation’s chief executive ought (…)

• Looking beyond the Summit

  17 October 2008, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  Summit meetings are not boxing rings which the public watch to cheer or boo at the players punching at each other. Most of the summits are meant for serious business either to thrash out differences or haggle over a coveted prize.
  Judging by this criterion, the Prime Minister of India’s summit with the President of the USA at Washington (May 19, 1994) could be regarded as useful as they noted in clear terms the points of difference on some of the major issues not so much of concern (…)