Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Yugo-Nostalgie

  17 October 2008, by Branislav Gosovic

  I. Missing Dimensions
  The past, present and future challenges and problems that concern the “West Balkans”—now used to denote the former republics of the SFR of Yugoslavia that have emerged as sovereign states from this country’s break-up—cannot be understood fully unless analysed within the broader context of world politics and with appropriate recognition of Yugoslavia’s post-World War II role and place in the global arena.
  When this complex and controversial problématique is (…)

• Quotidian Consequences of Terror-strikes

  17 October 2008, by Dev N Pathak

  It lasts until the next blast: the empirical-causal manifestations of a terror-strike. Everybody fears it while feeding on the gory details repeatedly dished out by every means of media. Everybody however grows exceedingly intimate with it. An exemplary oxymoron of our times: an awesome fear, akin to the thick plot of a Hitchcock drama, that springs from terror-strikes. Even though we dismiss the hyperbole in it, there is a chance validity for the question as to how any fear becomes awesome. (…)

• Godless in Kerala : Bitter Battle on Books

  17 October 2008, by N A Karim

  Malayalees call their State ‘God’s Own Country’, a silly claim but fully satisfying their national ego. Indeed Kerala is a beautiful geographical region with its lush green vegetation but rapidly dwindling paddy fields, palm-fringed lakes, lagoons, rivers all becoming rapidly polluted and bounteous sea that occasionally turns furious and devastating its fronts densely populated full of squalor and poverty. As the poet wrote, “Every prospect pleases but man alone”, to change the words of the (…)

• Sufism, Wahabism and Kashmiriyat

  17 October 2008, by Kunal Ghosh

  I enjoyed reading Badri Raina’ article, “J&K Heal and Renew” (Mainstream, New Delhi, August 30, 2008, pp. 11-13). He appears to write poetry in lucid prose, aimed straight for the heart, when he describes Kashmiri syncretism between the Muslim and Hindu faiths, its past and fraying present. I hope that his message touches the heart of the common Kashmiri man, but I am afraid it may not. Here are the reasons why I think the message may miss the mark. Raina says (ibid.):
  “...some Sunni (…)

• Exceptional Significance of Singur Movement

  17 October 2008, by Amitava Mukherjee

  Although there have been umpteen number of attempts to belittle the mass movement launched by the Singur Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee (SKJRC), it will certainly not be an overstatement if the Singur movement is described as one of the most important social developments in post-independence West Bengal that has the potentiality to influence the dynamics of change not just in the State but in other parts of India as well. The course of events has also brought into focus the irresponsible roles (…)

• On Somnath Chatterji

  17 October 2008, by G.S. Bhargava

  COMMUNICATION
  Permit me the following comment on the Lok Sabha Speaker, Shri Somnath Chatterji’s contention that since he had conducted himself in a non-partisan manner as the Speaker, he was not bound by the whip of his ‘erstwhile’ party, the CPI-M, to resign. . First, it has neither been the convention nor the practice for Lok Sabha Speakers formally to announce their dissociation from their party on assumption of Speakership. Under the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy in (…)

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  Nanavati Commission and Gujarat 2002

  8 October 2008, by SC

  With the economic crisis in the United States refusing to be defused, latest reports from Washington show that top Congressional and White House officials, stunned by the House of Representatives’ 228-205 rejection of a massive $ 700 billion rescue plan for the US economy on September 29, are desperately trying to structure a new, revised bailout proposal. Meanwhile PM Manmohan Singh (who could not witness the full materialisation of his pet project—the Indo-US civilian nuclear (…)

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  No Draconian Law, Please

  8 October 2008, by Rajindar Sachar

  The Delhi bombings resulting in horrible killings have understandably caused righteous indignation at the almost total failure of the intelligence machinery. The Prime Minister has commendably scotched the idea of a federal agency accepting frankly that in view of bombings having taken place under the so-called watchful eye of the Central agencies, the fight against terrorism requires the involvement of States as equal partners especially in the light of the autonomy of States under our (…)

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  Threat to National Integration

  8 October 2008, by Chaturanan Mishra

  Some people who come to me say that the country needs Mahatma Gandhi again. As a freedom fighter I feel that last time the partition of India and formation of Pakistan took place because of Muslim communalism but this time it is Hindu communalism that is leading us to a division of the country. The way the Jammu agitation was conducted, the road to Kashmir blockaded and buses going to Muslim areas attacked gave rise to mass anger of Muslims in Kashmir and this reached such a height that the (…)

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  Unfinished Revolution

  8 October 2008, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The following editorial of N.C. was published in the October 4, 1969 issue of Mainstream marking the birth centenary of Mahatma Gandhi. It is being reproduced on the occasion of Gandhiji’s one hundred and thirtyninth birth anniversary (October 2, 2008). Several other articles on the Father of the Nation and his relevance today are also being carried in this issue. —Editor
  The birth centenary of Mahatma Gandhi is not an occasion for rejoicing but for sorrow that the people of India (…)