Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Escalation in the Kashmir Conflict

  28 January 2019

  RETURN TO ARMED VIOLENCE AS THE DOMINANT REFERENCE-POINT AND SECURITISATION OF THE KASHMIR DISCOURSE
  M. Ibrahim Wani and Saima Farhad
  In the year 2018, more than 250 local militants have been killed in operations by the state security forces in Kashmir; this includes a 14-year-old militant, a university lecturer of sociology, Ph.D scholars, a drama actor, engineering graduates, ex-soldiers etc. (Javaid, 2018) Adding 144 civilians and 86 security force personnel to this toll, the number (…)

• Reservation for the Economically Backward: Another Gimmick

  28 January 2019

  by Ram Puniyani
  The hierarchical Indian caste system has been a big obstacle to the journey towards equality. With independence and the coming into being of the Constitution, provisions were made for the socially backward classes, and for reservations for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
  Later, in 1990 V.P. Singh, when faced with a threat to his power from Chaudhary Devi Lal Chautala, implemented the recommendations of the Mandal Commission report, giving 27 per cent (…)

• Pakistan: An Alternative Perspective

  28 January 2019, by Gargi Chakravartty

  BOOK REVIEW
  People’s Movements in Pakistan by Aslam Khwaja; The Marginalised Publication, Wardha and Delhi; 2017; Rs 800.
  At a time when there is so much communal polarisation in our country with a spate of hate politics towards minorities, particularly the Muslims, manufactured by a series of distorted historical facts and endorsed by a Right-wing government whose sole aim is the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra by poisoning the minds of the ordinary people with slogans of ‘Hindi, (…)

• Turkey at Crossroads: Confronting Domestic and External Challenges in a Turbulent Region

  28 January 2019

  FOCUS ON MIDDLE EAST
  by Purusottam Bhattacharya
  Introduction
  Turkey has been a nation in turmoil in recent times. It was buffeted from one crisis to another ever since the beginning of the civil war in Syria—with which it shares a long border—in March 2011. It has been grappling with the fallout of the Syrian civil war—primarily the influx of millions of Syrian refugees fleeing the wanton brutality at home as also their usage of Turkey as a gateway to Europe—its recent involvement in (…)

• Divine players in Indian Politics

  28 January 2019

  by L.K. Sharma
  Foreign reporters coming to cover India’s general election in a few months ought to dive deep into the sea of mythology that has sustained this ancient civilisation. Apart from India’s secular and democratic Constitution, they must read the great Hindu epics such as the Ramayan. To understand the modern India, they have to go back billions of years, the epochs whose memory is rekindled in poll campaigns.
  Beliefs have become more relevant in politics. Since the ruling BJP (…)

• A Close Look at Bangladesh Elections

  28 January 2019

  by Mahendra Ved
  Nothing excites a Bangladeshi more than a go at politics, especially electoral politics. Every election in this South Asian nation has had more than its share of noisy campaigns, violence and controversies. The December 30, 2018 elections have reinforced this trend.
  The UN called for holding an election free of violence. The European Union took a dim view of the way the polls were conducted. The US State Department deprecated the “climate of fear”. Human rights bodies (…)

• Gujarat: Haren Pandya refuses to ‘Die’

  28 January 2019

  by R.K. Misra
  On November 3, a key witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh alleged fake encounter case told a Mumbai court that the murder of senior BJP leader and former Gujarat Minister Haren Pandya in 2003 was a contract killing executed at the behest of former IPS officer D.G. Vanzara.
  The deposition of Azam Khan, an Udaipur based small-time gangster, before the CBI court has brought to life the most speculated and worst-kept secret of the time—that the murder of the up and coming Gujarat (…)

• 

  Resisting Majoritarian Onslaught

  23 December 2018, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  As Mainstream enters the fiftyseventh year of its modest existence with this Annual Number, the nation is getting prepared for an intense electoral battle when the country faces its twentyfirst national polls for the Lok Sabha in five months time in the midst of numerous adversities-cum-complexities plaguing our polity.
  Precisely a year ago on December 19, 2017 it was written in these columns:
  ..... the outcome of the UP Assembly elections this year found Narendra Modi and (…)

• The Valley of Incongruities / Do We Need Nehru Today? / Good-bye Feroze / Grim Warning from Bhopal / India-Pakistan: Imperative of Amity

  23 December 2018

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The Valley of Incongruities
  Whatever may be the substance of the much-advertised point of difference between Peking and Washington over the question of détente, it may be safely assumed that Gerald Ford’s talks with Mao Tse-tung and his cohorts explored the further potentialities of Sino-American collusion, particularly in the countries of the Third World. Angola shows the enormity of this entente while the happenings in Bangladesh underscores this danger in our (…)

• Mahatma Gandhi — The Great Communicator

  23 December 2018, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The following is the text of the Gandhi Peace Foundation Lecture 1995 delivered by Nikhil Chakravartty in New Delhi on January 30, 1995. It first appeared in Mainstream (October 3, 1998) after N.C.’s demise.
  I am deeply touched by having been asked to deliver this year’s Gandhi Peace Foundation Lecture. Nobody is more conscious than I am about my inadequacy in speaking on this sacred occasion, the day of the martyrdom of the greatest son of my country. Perhaps my only qualification to talk (…)