Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Trajectories of Change in the World’s Largest Democracy: India, 2004-2019

  15 October 2018

  by Alf Gunvald Nilsen
  At the time of writing, India is headed for what is likely to be a fateful general election. Will the neoliberal and Hindu nationalist Modi regime secure another five years in office, or will they be ousted by the electorate in favour of an alternative, and most likely a Congress-led coalition government? What is in store for the Indian polity and Indian society if the BJP secures another win? And conversely, what strategic questions will a progressive (…)

• RSS: Futile Attempt at Cosmetics by Mohan Bhagwat

  15 October 2018, by Anil Rajimwale

  Mohan Bhagwat made a laborious and futile attempt at cosmetics of the RSS at a lecture series intended “to reach out to a cross-section of the people” outside the ‘Sangh fraternity’.
  “You need not believe all that I have said during the last three days,” was the only notable utterance the RSS chief (Sarsanghachalak) Mohan Bhagwat made in an address in Delhi on September 17-19 on the “Future of Bharat: An RSS Perspective”, with himself as the sole speaker.
  The exercise turned out to be a (…)

• The Vajpayee Legacy

  15 October 2018, by Ashok Parthasarathi

  At a recent meeting in Delhi a group of journalists, academics, former diplomats discussed the legacy of that great public figure and national leader, Atal Behari Vajpeyee. It was agreed that Vajpayee was a remarkable man of many parts—scholar, politician, national leader.
  It all began in 1957, when, as a first-time MP Vajpayee made a brilliant speech in the Lok Sabha. So impressed was Prime Minister Nehru that he walked up to him, shook him by the hand, embraced him and said: ”Young man, (…)

• ISSSP receives M.L. Sondhi Prize

  15 October 2018

  The 2017 Prof M.L. Sondhi Prize for Inter-national Politics was awarded to the Inter-national Strategic and Security Studies (ISSSP), Bengaluru, and was received by its Director, Prof. Rajaram Nagappa at New Delhi’s India International Centre on October 5, 2018. Others present at the function were Trustees of the M.L. Sondhi Memorial Trust Madhuri Santanam Sondhi, Vivekananda L. Sondhi and Lalit Mansingh, and scientist Dr V. Siddhartha, who gave the Citation.
  Prof Sondhi’s interest and (…)

• Allround Decadence and Ray of Hope

  15 October 2018, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  While there is no doubt a lot on which to attack those in authority for their dereliction in running an orderly system of governance, one has to ask at the same time why there has been such an appalling deterioration in social conscience in most of our public activity. In other words, the corrosion of values in public life is not confined to Ministers and top bureaucrats, but has become all-pervasive, the pollution of morals seem to choke out public service.
  If we (…)

• Next Generation Rights to LGBT Communities

  15 October 2018

  by G.K. Goswami and Aditi Goswami
  Introduction
  The recent decriminalising of homosexuality by the Supreme Court of India is a milestone on the bumpy road to recognise and strengthen the rights of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders (LGBT).1 The recognition of the third gender by the Indian Apex Court was a paradigm shift for fortification of the LGBT rights in India.2 The Puttaswamy case3 laid the foundation stone for legalising homosexuality since holding privacy as a fundamental (…)

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  Rhetoric and Reality

  7 October 2018, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Mahatma Gandhi’s 149th birth anniversary was observed this week on October 2, 2018. That was the day when the country decided to launch the year- long celebrations marking Gandhiji’s 150th birth anniversary. [Of course, with the people of India groaning under both political and economic burdens of unprecedented magnitude none other than the revered Bapu, had he been alive, would have certainly lashed out at those organising such ‘celebrations’.]
  October 2, 2018 also found the (…)

• Is Cleanliness Gandhi’s Greatest Contribution to Nation-Building?

  7 October 2018, by Devaki Jain

  It has been distressing for me to notice how the entire space for celebrating Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary by the Government of India has been focusing on toilets: public defecation-free India. In the process of shifting public attention, finances and administrative energy into building toilets (I will not go into the flaws, the failures, the continuation of manual scavenging etc.), and therefore ‘Swachh Bharat’ as the clarion call at this time, Gandhi’s contribution to poverty (…)

• The Judicial Archer

  7 October 2018, by S G Vombatkere

  In a Mahabharata tale, Dronacharya—who taught the skills of warfare to the Pandava and Kaurava princes—overheard Duryodhana saying that he unjustly favoured Arjuna over others. To prove him wrong, Dronacharya decided to test his pupils, by placing a coloured wooden bird on a branch and asking them to strike it on its eye with an arrow. But before shooting arrows, he asked each in turn what they observed. Yudhishtir said that he saw a wooden bird on the branch, other birds in the tree, and (…)

• India and the Neighbourhood: New Delhi’s Faltering Diplomacy

  7 October 2018

  by Purusottam Bhattacharya
  New Delhi finds itself on a sticky wicket at the moment so far as its neighbourhood policy is concerned. (Neighbourhood for the purpose of this article denotes India’s immediate and smaller South Asian neighbours excluding Pakistan.) The Nepalese decision to pull out of the first ever joint military drill by members of the BIMSTEC, as agreed by the seven state grouping in its recent Fourth Summit held at Kathmandu, and Kathmandu’s readiness to participate in a (…)