Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• 

  NSG Waiver : Hardball Diplomacy Needed

  3 September 2008, by Reshmi Kazi

  The crucial two-day meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on August 21-22 to grant unconditional waiver to India to engage in global civilian nuclear commerce ended inconclusively. The draft waiver circulated by the United States after intense negotiations with India was not acceptable to the certain members of the NSG. The positive aspect of the whole deliberations is that the reservationists did not outrightly oppose India’s bid to join the international community in civilian (…)

• 

  Trust Vote, L.K. Advani, Hindutva and RSS

  3 September 2008, by Amitava Mukherjee

  It is now bonanza time for political ‘pundits’, time for them to editorialise and pontificate on the political shape our country is likely to witness in the aftermath of the UPA Government’s handsome win in the Lok Sabha over the issue of the nuclear agreement with the US. As expected, most of them are prepared to sail in the same boat with the Prime Minister with one ‘pundit’, who had left his position of Assistant Editor in a leading Kolkata-based English daily, joined another so-called (…)

• 

  Anatomy of Atrocities on Dalits in Haryana

  3 September 2008, by Ranbir Singh

  It has been widely reported that there has been an increase in the incidents of atrocities on Dalits in Haryana over the years. This is evident from the media coverage of the happenings at Jhajjar, Dulina (Sonipat), Harsola (Kaithal), Gohana (Sonipat) and Salwan (Karnal) Therefore, it becomes essential to trace the factors behind the rise of this ugly phenomenon. It is equally important to suggest the ways and means for controlling such attacks.
  These have to be ascribed to factors such (…)

• 

  Left Must Do its Utmost to Protect Parliamentary Democracy

  19 August 2008, by A B Bardhan

  You have been supporting the Congress-led UPA Government for the past four years. On July 9 you formally withdrew support to the ruling coalition at the Centre by saying that the government went ahead to operationalise the Indo-US nuclear deal by approaching the IAEA to get the draft safeguards agreement, worked out by it with the IAEA, distributed to all the members of the international atomic watchdog’s Board of Governors even before it had been discussed threadbare in and cleared by the (…)

• 

  Best Tribute to Freedom Fighters

  19 August 2008, by SC

  As we approach our sixtysecond Independence Day, once again we cannot but remember our indomitable freedom fighters, drawn from all parts of this vast landmass characterised by unique diversity, who underwent superhuman sacrifices and shed their precious blood so that we, belonging to a different generation, live a better life unfettered by the ignominy of imperialist domination and colonial exploitation. The debt of gratitude that we owe to them cannot be repaid.
  Today, on August 11, we (…)

• 

  You Disrobed the Temple

  19 August 2008, by Suhas Borker

  Forget all the loot of the past Forget all the heirlooms and jewels Forget all the gold and family silver Stolen, sold, resold, melted, moulded and parked away.
  This time, Twentysecond July 2008 You went for the jugular of our faith You disrobed the Temple You stripped it of its dignity You pillaged its ethics You sacked its morality You pilloried its truth You hung its conscience upside down By stacking naked greed on the table.
  The Reichstag was set on fire like this once But your (…)

• 

  A Betrayal of India’s Constitutional Vision

  19 August 2008, by V R Krishna Iyer

  “There are shining victories to be won in the cause of peace and social justice. We shall reach the new freedom by not submitting to economic slavery…. forward with the people.” —From an editorial in Daily Mirror in 1945, as reproduced in Hidden Agendas, by John Pilger, Vintage, Great Britain, 1998 This piece appeared in The Hindu before the trust vote in the Lok Sabha. In view of its importance it is being reproduced here with due acknowledgement. (…)

• 

  Sikhs in the Freedom Struggle

  19 August 2008, by K S Duggal

  The last to lay arms and foremost to raise them against the British, the Sikhs of Punjab may not figure prominently in the galaxy of freedom fighters led by Mahatma Gandhi barring Shaheed Bhagat Singh, who, too, was consistently disowned by Bapu, but the contribution of the Sikh people to the freedom struggle is no mean.
  It is believed in all quarters that but for the intrigues in the post-Ranjit Singh’s Sikh hierarchy and the malicious strategy of the White man, the Sikhs could not have (…)

• 

  Thirty Years After

  19 August 2008, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  Remembering August Fifteenth has become a ritual followed with religious punctilio. This is as it should be, for the august day marked the end of national bondage and the dawn of Freedom.
  But the balance-sheet of the thirty years since Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled the Tricolour on the rampart of the Red Fort is a shame on our conscience as a nation, a proud nation that rightly claims no small place under the sun. Poverty, grinding, heart-breaking poverty pervades the picturesque landscape of (…)

• 

  Role of the Left in the Changing Political Scenario

  19 August 2008, by TJ Chandrachoodan

  The following is the concept paper presented at the national seminar, organised by the RSP on the role of the Left in the prevailing situation in the country. The seminar, chaired by veteran RSP leader Debabrata Bandyopadhyay, was addressed by the General Secretaries of the CPI and CPM and representatives of the CPI-ML (Liberation), Forward Bloc, CPI-ML (Red Flag), and several Left-oriented individuals including the Mainstream editor.
  It is a widely accepted fact that India as a nation is (…)