Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

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  India Painted Saffron: Challenges Ahead

  26 May 2019

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  The May 23 parliamentary election results have handed a decisive and landslide victory to the NDA coalition (which has won 355 seats). The BJP by itself has secured 300 seats. A highly divisive, communal and jingoistic propaganda by the BJP has won the hearts of the voters. India is now very clearly a majoritarian democracy. The UPA has got 90 seats and the Indian National Congress has won 51 seats. (These are the latest figures that are available and could change since (…)

• Hyper-Nationalism Records Victory

  26 May 2019

  COMMENTARY
  The BJP/NDA alliance has stormed back to power with flying colours, belying all the expectations of a fragmented Opposition to be within striking distance of power. Undoubtedly, Pulwama and Balakot were effectively exploited by Narendra Modi in the penultimate stage of the election campaign to whip up hyper-nationalism to a pitch where all inconvenient issues for the NDA Government—unemployment, loss of jobs, farmers’ distress, rural indebtedness, demonetisation, GST and (…)

• Is Modi Really the Divider-in-Chief of India?

  26 May 2019

  by Ram Puniyani
  Time is one of the most influential global newsmagazines. It recently came out with an issue with Modi on the cover (May 20, 2019), with the title ‘India’s Divider in Chief’ raising the question ‘Can the world’s largest democracy survive another five years of Modi?’
  Time had carried a major article at the start of the Modi era, placing him as Modi, the Reformer, and arguing that he was the best hope for economic reforms in India.
  The article in the middle of the heated (…)

• Mayawati Demolishes Modi’s Aura

  26 May 2019, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The tumultuous two-month long campaign for the general election is drawing to a close. The scathing remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political persona by the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Mayawati, has taken the election campaign to a stunning crescendo.
  The Midnight’s Children (like myself) never witnessed an election campaign of this sort. Modi set its rich baritone by making this an election all about himself—and the inevitable blowback has come. Plain decency (…)

• Investigating Narendra Modi’s Eligibility

  26 May 2019

  by Prem Singh
  Narendra Modi has been a recipient of consistent acceptance and support from various corners/ sources which favour his eligibility as the Prime Minister. Although after five years of his tenure as the Prime Minister, a lot of people have come out of the lure of Modi, yet an unreal aura is being created about his future prime ministerial role, as if it is a certain occurrence. Whether or not the voters are in agreement with this aura will be revealed on May 23, 2019, when the (…)

• Mayawati - Narendra Modi Face-off

  26 May 2019, by A K Biswas

  “Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbour’s roof, when your own doorstep is unclean.” —Confucius
  Prime Minister Narendra Modi mounted atKushinagar, Deoria in UPa furious attack on BSP supremo and former UP Chief Minister Mayawati for “shedding crocodile tears” over the incident of gangrape of a Dalit woman in Rajasthan’s Alwar and demanded her party’s withdrawal of support to the Congress Govern-ment in Rajasthan if she was at all “serious”.1 Mayawati said that the Prime Minister (…)

• Nehru for Today - selected speeches, interview & writings

  26 May 2019

  May 27 this year marks Jawaharlal Nehru’s fiftyfifth death anniversary. On this occasion we are reproducing the following excerpts from the speeches and writings of Nehru that are of exceptional relevance today

• Remembering Jawaharlal Today

  26 May 2019

  by C.N. Chitta Ranjan
  The following article, by the first editor of Mainstream, appeared six years after Jawaharlal Nehru’s death in this journal’s May 23, 1970 issue. Born on September 29, 1921 in Ooty, C.N.C., as he was known to his friends and admirers, passed away at Delhi on August 2, 1990. A veteran journalist, he worked in the Indian Express (Madras) in the 1940s; he joined The Hindustan Times in Delhi in 1960, and edited Mainstream when it was launched from the Capital in September (…)

• Secularism: A Heritage to Defend

  26 May 2019

  by D.R. Goyal
  You do not have to be an idol-worshipper to remember Nehru today. Every day something happens that compels your mind to recall a man exerting every nerve to pull his countrymen out of the morass of superstition, to debunk the ‘bullock-cart mentality’ and to instil in them the confidence that they could shape their own destiny. He was a man far above his peers, loved and adored by the millions, respected and honoured the world over as the passionate voice of peace and freedom; (…)

• India without Nehru

  26 May 2019, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The following piece, which appeared under the ‘New Delhi Skyline’ in Mainstream, was written two days after Jawaharlal Nehru’s demise on May 27, 1964. It was published on May 30, 1964.
  As the golden flame licked up the funeral pyre, an unforgettable scene ended near the banks of the Jumna and under the shadow of the Red Fort.
  It was an emotional experience without precedence, to watch this mightiest demons-tration of love and respect that this great country has (…)