Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Battle of Karbala Revisited

  12 November 2018

  BOOK REVIEW
  by K.S. Subramanian
  Ocean of Melancholy: The Tragedy that was Karbala by Mir Mosharraf Hossain; Niyogi Books, New Delhi; 2018; Price: Rs 395.
  The battle of Karbala in Iraq in 680 CE was a watershed in the historical development of Islam and gave birth to two leading sects of the religion: the Shias and the Sunnis. It is of vital importance to Indians, especially the Hindus, to understand the real causes of the battle and the historical consequences that it had.
  The novel (…)

• Twin Birds at Bay: The Economics Nobel Prize for 2018

  12 November 2018

  by Atanu Sengupta and Sanjoy De
  Introduction
  TheNobel Memorial Prize for Economic Sciences was started from 1969. It was a rather late realisation of the donors of the prestigious accreditation. Controversies arose from the beginning. Some said that it was a resonance of the power of modern world that yields in its best form in the discipline called Economics. In a way, it seems to rehabilitate the Foucaultian concept of knowledge as power. Others, who were less critical, argue that the (…)

• Colonial Discourse in Kashmir: Revisiting the Role of Robert Thorp

  12 November 2018

  by Mohammad Ashraf Khwaja
  Robert Thorp, a British Army officer, is believed to have visited Kashmir as a tourist in 1865 when Maharaja Ranbir Singh was the ruler of the state. A theory is being developed by some ‘Thorp sympathisers’ that he was allegedly murdered in November 1868 by the forces of Ranbir Singh for his crime of speaking against the Dogra autocracy. It is said that his mother was a Kashmiri Muslim woman who had been married to E. Thorp after the latter converted to Islam. (…)

• Need for People’s Mobilisation on Land Reforms

  12 November 2018

  COMMUNICATION
  On October 2, the Gandhi Jayanti Day, nearly 25,000 landless rural workers and adivasi peasants from various parts of India assembled at Gwalior and a huge meeting on land-related issues was organised as a part of a wider mobilisation of people to demand much better and stronger implementation of land reforms.
  Keeping in view the extremely important role of land reforms for reducing rural poverty and ensuring sustainable food security to the most vulnerable sections, there (…)

• Transgender Bill: Exploring the Fault Lines and Suggesting Remedies

  12 November 2018

  by Shubham Kumar and Shubham Patel
  “I am what I am, so take me as I am.”
  —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  1. Introduction
  Transgenders, as defined in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India (NALSA), are “male and female cross-dressers (sometimes referred to as ‘transvestites’, ‘drag queens’ or ‘drag kings’), inter-sexed individuals, and men and women, regardless of sexual orientation, whose appearance or characteristics are per-ceived to be gender atypical. In its broadest (…)

• 

  Foremost Task before us Today

  3 November 2018, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  As the air quality in the Capital touches “severe” levels with a toxic haze hanging over Delhi with citizens residing in the National Capital Region experiencing burning sensation in the eyes, nose and throat, October 31—an important landmark in our history—has passed off silently across the nation. This year the date marked the 143rd birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who, as the first Union Home Minister of independent India, played such a pivotal role in (…)

• Justice At Last!

  3 November 2018

  COMMENTARY
  After more than 31 years justice has at long last been delivered in the 1987 Hashimpura massacre of 42 Muslim men who were shot dead in cold blood by policemen belonging to the UP Provincial Armed Constabulary. What is noteworthy is that the Delhi High Court has overturned the trial court’s acquittal of the policemen in 2015 and 16 of them have been sentenced to life term in prison. This is quite a departure from what has become the norm over the years thereby perpetuating the (…)

• Sri Lanka: Let Parliament Express Its Will

  3 November 2018

  by Mohan K. Tikku
  It has been a time of great political uncertainty in Sri Lanka since Friday (October 26) when President Mathripala Sirisena announced the appointment of former President Mahinda Rajapakse as the new Prime Minister of the island-nation. He did this after summarily sacking incumbent Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe from the post. Under the Sri Lankan Constitution, the President as the executive head of state and government enjoys untrammelled powers that even exceed (…)

• Dire Threat to Peace: A New Nuclear Arms Race Has Begun

  3 November 2018

  by Mikhail Gorbachev
  Over 30 years ago, President Ronald Reagan and I signed in Washington the United States-Soviet Treaty on the elimination of intermediate-
  and shorter-range missiles. For the first time in history, two classes of nuclear weapons were to be eliminated and destroyed.
  This was a first step. It was followed in 1991 by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which the Soviet Union signed with President George H.W. Bush, our agreement on radical cuts in tactical nuclear (…)

• Selected articles - from Early Recollections to Some Editorials, Commentaries

  3 November 2018, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  After N.C.’s demise on June 27, 1998 three pieces were recovered from his notes as evidence that he had started writing his autobiography. Since November 3 this year happens to be his 105th birth anniversary, we are carrying the following piece (written on March 5, 1990) on his birth and childhood.
  My Earliest Recollections
  What’s the earliest memory I have about myself? I have tried to look back to catch a glimpse of what could possibly be the earliest scene I can remember about my (…)