Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• No New Cold War

  8 May 2007

  A unipolar world has not been and cannot be created, because the available military, political, financial, economic and other resources are not sufficient to build an empire in today’s conditions of globalisation. For some time, though, the myth of a unipolar world influenced the mentality and behaviour in quite a few countries, which believed the myth and invested political capital in it. But the practice of the past six years has demonstrated convincingly that attempts to disregard the (…)

• Peace and Development

  8 May 2007, by K S Duggal

  Born during World War-I and entering active life, after my University education, during World War-II, no wonder I felt virtually scorched. I have, therefore, cherished peace all my life. At one time a peace-campaigner as an activist of the Afro-Asian Writers Association, serving on the Editorial Board of Lotus, its literary organ brought out in English, French and Arabic, I have a sheaf of writings on peace as theme including a great deal talked about in a collection of Short Stories (…)

• Globe for the rich - Zero for the poor: Globalisation of Indian Economy

  8 May 2007

  The novel Tale of Two Cities of Charles Dickens begins with a piquant description of the contradictions of the times: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity;… we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…”
  At the present, we can also say about the tale of two Indias: “We have the best of times; we have the worst of times. There is sparkling (…)

• Free Economy At Work

  8 May 2007

  ”And Men Have Lost Their Reason.” —’Julius Caesar’ (Act III)
  Threat of Global Warming
  According to a new study by scientists from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, Texas Tech University (USA) and Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre (Australia), much of the earth will face an enhanced risk of heat waves, intense precipitation and other extremes in weather. The study appeared in the December 2006 issue of the Journal Climatic Change. The School of Oceanographic Studies of (…)

• Contents, May 5, 2007

  8 May 2007

  VOL XLV No 20 New Delhi May 5, 2007
  Meeting the Challenge
  – Editorial
  Globalisation of Indian Economy : Globe for The Rich—Zero for The Poor
  – Era Sezhiyan
  Some Issues Concerning Industrialisation of West Bengal
  – Kamal Nayan Kabra
  Free Economy At Work
  – Sukumar Pathak
  Peace and Development
  – K.S. Duggal
  The Myth of Inefficiency
  – Sheetal Sharma
  Kashmir : Long Haul
  – From N.C.’s Writings

• Left Must Unite

  8 May 2007

  ========COMMUNICATION==========
  This communication appeared in the Mainstream issue of May 6, 1967. In view of its abiding relevance it is being reproduced after exactly forty years. —Editor
  History once again beckons the progressive Left forces to play their historic role in the destiny of our country. Many past opportunities have been thrown away but time and again the historical process has inevitably placed the progressive Left in a decisive position. This is true once more. (…)

• Family Lies

  8 May 2007, by Mukul Dube

  When the Election Commission took the BJP to task for the communally charged content of its UP election propaganda CD, that party reacted immediately by disowning the CD. We see here a response which characterises the Sangh Parivar: an outright lie.
  The BJP could not continue to hide behind that lie after the makers of the CD stated on record that they had been told what line was to be taken in it and that party high-ups, who were kept informed at every stage, had approved it when it was (…)

• Meeting the Challenge

  8 May 2007

  While Nandigram continues to boil with CPM cadres once again trying to capture the area for the party bosses as the police takes the role of a mute spectator, the Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) activists have from all indications mounted a concerted resistance which the principal constituent of the ruling coalition in West Bengal has failed to break till date. But the more the so-called ‘Marxists’ get thwarted in their game the more desperate they become in their bid to (…)

• In Search of the Destabiliser

  4 May 2007, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The battle cry of the Congress-I under Rajiv Gandhi has been sloganised. It is: Fight the Destabiliser.
  In the two months of the tension-charged journey towards the declining credibility of the Congress-I leadership, all the complexities of the unfolding crisis has been beautifully simplified as just the mischievous handiwork of the accursed destabiliser. A massive thesis on destabilisation at work was laid thick by the Congress-I Working Committee meeting on April 18. As the follow-up of (…)

• Where ‘to kill’ is the Byword for Growth

  4 May 2007, by Dev N Pathak

  The rampage on Virginia Tech university campus reminds us of some pessimistic predictions about the future of modern society. Be it Peter Berger speaking of the ‘homeless mind’ or Habermas dwelling upon the ‘legitimation crisis’, a dark picture of the rational world occupies our imagination. We do not attach significance to anything other than the means-end calculation in such a world. Herbert Marcuse draws our attention to the ‘one-dimensional man’ entrenched in parochial instrumental (…)