Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Nagaland Talks Going Slow

  9 May 2008, by Harish Chandola

  A new round of negotiations between the Government of India and the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) was held in Delhi on April 16, at which it was decided that the next round would take place next month, for which no dates were fixed.
  The negotiations are over the Constitution. The NSCN has a constitution of its own. The attempt is to adjust or make changes in it to bring it closer to make it a part of the Indian Constitution. This is a difficult task and will take a many (…)

• Perceptive Analysis of European Left

  9 May 2008, by Sobhanlal Datta Gupta

  BOOK REVIEW
  Against Capitalism: The European Left on the March by William A. Pelz; Peter Lang, New York; 2007; pages: 159 + ix.
  In an age dominated by the spirit of neo-liberalism at one end and postmodernism at the other, it is a somewhat challenging job to indulge in writings concerning any history of the Left. The present book, authored by a distinguished American labour historian, who has over the years written extensively on various aspects of the revolutionary working class (…)

• P.N. Jalali — Homage to an Uncommon Man

  9 May 2008, by Shyam Kaul

  Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, during his second tenure as head of the Jammu and Kashmir Government, inducted a prominent National Conference (NC) leader from Baramullah, Mubarak Shah, into his Cabinet. After Shah had got ensconced in his ministerial position, he one day invited mediapersons to his official residence near Zero bridge in Srinagar for an informal chat with him. During the course of interaction with him, we found Shah to be an engaging talker. He told us many interesting things (…)

• Remembering Lenin

  9 May 2008

  Who is there today who does not know Lenin and does not blow his head when his name is uttered?… For the crores of poor people of the world he has become a star that lights their way towards freedom… Lenin was born in Russia. But he belongs to the whole world, and we too seek our path in that light. It is but proper that we remember this great man and strengthen ourselves with his memory. —Jawaharlal Nehru (From the Hindi message on Lenin Day, 1938)
  GENERALLY, Trotsky’s role in the (…)

• Belated Response to US’ Arms-Twisting Tactics

  27 April 2008, by SC

  AS the country faces manifold problems heightened by the incessant rise in prices of essential commodities, an issue that the Opposition parties, notably the BJP, are going to exploit to the hilt to put the ruling coalition in general and the Congress in particular on the mat in the coming elections, what has come as a major and pleasant source of surprise is the MEA spokesman’s summary rejection of US State Department’s deputy spokesperson Tom Casey’s gratuitous advice to India that during (…)

• Chinese Olympics and the Tibetan Question

  27 April 2008, by Shree Shankar Sharan

  There is an Asian sentiment attached to the Chinese Olympics and most of us strongly share in China’s coming of age and ranking among the top countries of the world. This is also a matter of joy to us in all of Asia. Her extraordinary work-ethic and organisation with which she has risen as an economic superpower is a matter of pride for the entire Third world.
  Her politics of one-party rule, with shades of one-man dictatorship born out of the Chinese revolution, though distasteful to (…)

• On Taslima Nasreen: A Rejoinder to Shahabuddin’s Letter

  27 April 2008

  COMMUNICATION
  A statement on Taslima Nasreen’s departure from India, signed by several persons, was published in Mainstream (April 5, 2008). Reacting to it Syed Shahabuddin wrote a letter which was published in Mainstream (April 19, 2008). The following is a rejoinder to the letter by some signatories of the statement.
  We have not mentioned anywhere in the statement that Taslima Nasreen is a “stateless person” or a “political refugee” or a “guest of the government”. Shri Shahabuddin’s (…)

• The Renaissance of the Asian Identity

  27 April 2008, by Som Benegal

  From the islands of Japan in the Far East striding across a wide swath or chain of Manchuria, Korea, Mongolia, China and the rolling steppes of Central Asia, carrying with it island clusters, archipelagoes, peninsulas—India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Indo-China, the Philippines and north-westwards through Afghanistan, Iran, numerous other states and territories to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea at Lebanon and Israel is called Asia.
  This enormous geographical (…)

• Who Would Wipe Professor Sanaullah Radoo’s Tears?

  27 April 2008, by Subhash Gatade

  Professor Sanaullah Radoo, the Principal of a Degree College in Sopore, Jammu and Kashmir, still remembers the day when his youngest son Pervez had reached the airport in Srinagar in a hurry to catch the next Spicejet flight to Delhi. (September 12, 2006). The moment the flight landed in Delhi, he had even made a call to his Abboo (father in colloquial terms—as he used to fondly call him) informing him that he was rushing to get the boarding pass to the next connecting flight for Pune. (…)

• Locational Disadvantage

  27 April 2008, by Sheetal Sharma

  By now discussing advantages and disadvan-tages of establishing Special Economic Zones (SEZs) is nothing new. What is new is that what was being discussed so far in theory and debates has now started to show its consequences in reality. Here is one instance. Pelpa is a small village in Jhajjar district in Haryana bordering Delhi and Gurgaon. A little more than a year ago hundreds of acres of land, belonging to the landed in Pelpa and neighbouring villages, was acquired by the State (…)