Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

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  Hindu Gods Spike Chinese Dragon

  18 September 2008, by M K Bhadrakumar

  India’s National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan made an astounding claim in a television interview on August 6 that “divine intervention” might have secured for the country a “waiver” from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG). The “waiver” allows India to have global nuclear commerce without formally signing either the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and paves the way for the US Congress to ratify a potentially lucrative civilian nuclear (…)

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  On Sikhs in the Freedom Struggle

  18 September 2008, by Prem Singh

  REJOINDER
  There are a few inaccuracies in Kartar Singh Duggal’s article on the above subject which appeared in the ‘Independence Day Special’ issue of Mainstream (August 16, 2008). For example, the Punjab Land Colonisation Act, 1907 did not concern the question of land revenue or water rates which were enhanced through separate measures taken by the then State Government. The Act was applied to colony lands and had the effect of restricting the landowners’ rights in such matters as cutting (…)

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  Conversions

  18 September 2008, by Badri Raina

  I
  Now, as Miss Austen would have said, it is a truth universally acknowledged that India is the world’s largest democracy.
  What, however, is less well-known is that it is also the most sinuously adjustable.
  Take any of India’s political parties—excluding the ossified Left which remains unprofitably wedded to principle, although the principle may change from circumstance to circumstance—and you will find that its elected legislators may, whenever the paramount “national interest” so (…)

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  Exploring Azad-Iqbal Synthesis

  18 September 2008, by Mehtab Ali Shah

  BOOK REVIEW
  Muslims of India since Partition by Balraj Puri; Gyan Publishing House, New Delhi; 2007; pp. 1-246.
  The book under review is mainly the collection of articles written by the well-known journalist, Balraj Puri, on the problems of the post-Partition Muslims of India. Most of these articles were published in the Economic and Political Weekly. His knowledge of the problems of the Muslims of India, South Asia, and of Islam as a religion, Arabic and Persian, is commendable. He (…)

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  Memorandum to CEC on State Assembly Elections in Chhattisgarh

  18 September 2008

  The following is the memorandum submitted on behalf of the Campaign for Peace and Justice in Chhattisgarh (CPJC) to the Chief Election Commissioner on concerns regarding preparation of electoral rolls for the forthcoming State
  Assembly elections in Chhattishgarh.
  Dear Sir,
  We are writing to you on behalf of the CPJC. The Campaign for Peace and Justice in Chhatisgarh is a campaign group formed by individuals and organisations who are deeply concerned about (…)

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  Hopeful Signs

  10 September 2008, by SC

  While the stalemate in Singur in West Bengal’s Hooghly district continues and the Tatas have threatened to pull out the Nano car project from the State in case the situation does not improve and favourable conditions are not created for resumption of work at the automobile plant, the West Bengal Governor has taken the initiative to act as a facilitator in evolving a solution to the problem. This has been welcomed by all sides and the State Government’s past distrust of Gopalkrishna Gandhi is (…)

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  Pentagon’s Loss

  10 September 2008, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  With the exit of President Pervez Musharraf from the political scene of Pakistan following his resignation in August 2008 we are reproducing N.C.’s memorable editorial, written precisely 20 years ago in August 1988, after the accidental death of President Zia-ul-Haq that month.
  __3__
  With the passing away of President Zia-ul- Haq, Pakistan enters a new phase in its chequered political career. His death is also bound to bring about a significant shift in the mosaic of regional politics (…)

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  Where is the Copywriter?

  10 September 2008, by H Y Sharada Prasad

  [(TRIBUTE
  Distinguished Gandhian freedom fighter, erudite scholar, noted writer and columnist H.Y. Sharada Prasad, 84, who was the versatile Media Advisor to two Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, passed away in New Delhi at 1.30 pm on September 2, 2008 after a prolonged illness. He was suffering from Parkinson’s disease and also a terminal lung ailment and was bed-ridden for the past eight months after a fall. Unassuming and soft-spoken, he was one of the last links with the (…)

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  Between Emerging Tiger and the Poor

  10 September 2008, by H Y Sharada Prasad

  Even the cricket matches in Colombo didn’t wholly eclipse Narasimha Rao’s doings in Tiger-land this month as a weekend topic of conversation. Quite a number of people saw the direct telecast of his lecture to the Singapore Institute. More than the lecture, it is the question-and-answer session that followed which seems to have won approbation, especially the unfussy way in which the Prime Minister put the Pakistan High Commissioner in his place. That gentleman asked for it, by behaving more (…)

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  Scuttling ‘Dangerous’ Integration Independent of the West

  10 September 2008, by Benjamin Todd

  In coordination with its powerful patron, the USA, Australia is trying to undermine the processes underway in Asia that they view as ‘dangerous’. Canberra intends, in the first place, to minimise the significance of the ASEAN, AFR, ASEAN+3, EAS by describing these as mere “bricks” of a future Asia-Pacific Community (APC). At the same time by branding these mechanisms as “insufficient” and “inefficient”, the Australians and Americans are seeking to pursue the well-known policy of “devide et (…)