Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Great Game In Central Asia: China Emerging as a Dominant Player

  5 November 2019

  by R.G. Gidadhubli
  Central Asia

• Vested Interest in Modi-Trump

  5 November 2019, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  Wondering aloud: Is the Modi-Trump

• 

  Assembly Poll Verdict Stuns BJP

  4 November 2019

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  The final results of Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly polls are yet to come, but the broad picture is clear enough. In Maharashtra the BJP’s loyal propagandists masquerading as psephologists had been predicting the party would make a clean sweep by winning about 230 to 240 seats. They have been found to have gone very wide of the mark. But they need not be either ashamed or apologetic. They have loyally served their paymasters.
  In the event the BJP has ended up at 160 (…)

• The Culture of Sycophancy that is ruining Democracy

  4 November 2019

  by Arun Srivastava
  Bhakti, devotion or hero-worship is an important element in Indian politics, unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country. If in religion Bhakti is the road to spiritual redemption, in politics it is the boulevard for attaining material and socio-political stature.
  Leaders are to be admired. There is nothing wrong with it. Admiring a leader has been an old phenomenon, but in recent times it has acquired the vulgar character of (…)

• RSS Combine: Ideology, Violence and Power

  4 November 2019

  by Ram Puniyani
  The RSS is the major organisation influencing politics and other aspects of our society for the last nearly three decades. As such it has the agenda of a Hindu Rashtra, and it politics is called Hindutva, which is the politics based on elite, Brahminical Hindu values. While the dominance of Hindutva poltics is self-evdent what is less known is that it is the outcome of over nine decades of continuous work on the part of the RSS.

• Kashmir: Hunting with the hounds and playing with the hare

  4 November 2019

  by Mustafa Khan
  There is arcane silence in the Kashmir Valley. It is fraught with the danger that there is some sinister conspiracy of tiring out the enemy by prolonging the lockdown and continuing the stasis of hunting with the wolf and playing with the hare. Or, even worse. After two months of wait and watch they are now tapping slogans, watching raising of flags, monitoring rumours, recording intimidation and scrutinising posters to find out what the mood is there and the direction in (…)

• Changing Caste-Class Equations: Emergence of a New Politics in India

  4 November 2019

  by Kunal Kumar Yadav
  The emergence of new caste-class equation in India is a phenomenon which needs serious attention and an indepth analysis. The movement of the lower castes’ affiliation towards the cultural narrative has given a new direction to the political process in India. Caste, as it was seen a decade earlier, has completely changed its structure and interactive mechanism. The new prosperity which has come to India in the post-liberalisation, post-globalisation phase has (…)

• The Failing Art of Selling Normalcy in Kashmir

  4 November 2019, by Badri Raina

  If

• Wanted: Not Drift But Statesmanship

  4 November 2019, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  In 1967, that is, fiftytwo years ago, N.C. visited the Kashmir Valley for a few days and held detailed discussions with a wide cross-section of opinion-makers and political personalities of all shades there. On his return he wrote

• Strong Executive, Weak Courts: Collapsing Edifice of Judicial Independence

  4 November 2019

  by Prannv Dhawan and Anmol jain
  Introduction
  The downgrading of the credentials of India’s constitutional democracy has been a subject of severe domestic and global critique in recent times. Nevertheless, the Indian diplomatic positions in the global fora continue to emphasise upon its track record as a vital constitutional democracy with sound judicial safeguards to protect human rights. When this contradiction is analysed from a historical perspective, the warning signs for the (…)