Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• On Independence Day

  16 August 2018

  by Eduardo Faleiro
  On August 15, we celebrate the Independence Day. On that day, in 1947, India became a free and democratic country. The British ruled India for around two hundred years. Though they came to India for trading purposes, they became the rulers due to our own internal discords which offered them an opportunity to establish their hegemony. The Indian National Congress and some other political organisations participated in the national independence movement under the guidance (…)

• Subverting Democracy without Vote-rigging

  16 August 2018

  by L.K. Sharma
  Recent events in some prominent democratic nations have highlighted the internal threats that are hard to see and even harder to counter. A military dictator can be identified.
  Democracy is in the news in a Pakistan that has held controversial elections and an India that is gripped by hectic preparations for the elections next year. True democrats are wary of the role of Pakistan’s Army that has directly ruled the country for half the period during 70 years of the nation’s (…)

• The Bangladeshi Problem in Assam: A Historical Background

  16 August 2018, by Barun Das Gupta

  The publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam on July 30 has once again raised the question: who is an Assamese in Assam? Four million permanent residents of Assam have been excluded from the NRC. Those excluded have been given time until August 28 to apply again with necessary documents which include, among other things, the proof that the applicant’s father and grandfather and mother and grandmother had been permanent residents of Assam—a condition very few can (…)

• Activist who brought Hope to Bundelkhand Villages is No More

  16 August 2018

  COMMUNICATION
  Bhagwat Prasad, a leading social activist of Bundelkhand region, breathed his last on August 8. As director of a major voluntary organisation of this region, named Akhil Bharatiya Samaj Seva Sansthan (ABSSS), Bhagwat Prasad was closely associated with several welfare programmes relating to the welfare of Kol tribals and other weaker sections of this region. In particular he will be remembered for the important contribution he made in the execution of several successful water (…)

• Swachh Panchayat, Swachh Bharat: A Testimony of Twentyfive Years of Decentralisation

  16 August 2018, by Bidyut Mohanty

  The year 2018 is being celebrated as the twentyfifth year of decentralisation at the grass-roots level all over India.
  The 73rd Constitution Amendment Act 1993 was enacted with a vision of achieving three objectives through the path of participatory grassroots democracy:
  a. Equitable economic growth. By this, it was envisaged that all sections of the Indian society, irrespective of caste, creed, gender, and religion will get relatively equal share of the fruits of growth.
  b. (…)

• Narratives of Fake News, Lynchings and Mobocracy in India

  16 August 2018

  by Abid Ahmad Shah
  India is a country of people belonging to varied regions, religions, sects, communities, castes; etc. From the past times till date, the multiculturalism and plural ethos of this country has set a strong precedent to the world about this land of diversity. This country is the country of its natives, be it Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Buddhists, etc. No one can escape its identity at the same time. This belongs to as much to one and sundry.
  Gone are the (…)

• Burying Karunanidhi

  16 August 2018, by Badri Raina

  Bury him where you will Masters of the day, You cannot ever bury His work, his legacy,
  He took no help from god For his mission among the legion Of the oppressed; his godless humanism Was more spiritual than religion.
  His school-drop-out pen Vanquished the literati; He taught the learned to think Of justice and equality.
  If only the bigoted North Would take a leaf from him, These brutal times may yet return To some redeeming shame.
  Badri Raina

• Helsinki Summit’s positive fallouts on Syria

  16 August 2018, by M K Bhadrakumar

  In the debris of the Trump-Putin summit at Helsinki on July 16, the understanding reached on the Syrian conflict stands out as a positive outcome. The steady improvement in the politico-military situation in Syria and the easing of rivalries involving the external parties bears this out. Interestingly, a Xinhua report with Damascus dateline on Sunday (August 5) highlights this happy outcome of the Helsinki summit, citing Syrian experts.
  The big picture is that there seems to be an (…)

• IS Takes Over Sahara

  16 August 2018, by Harish Chandola

  After being almost ousted from Syria and Iraq, the terrorist organisation, Islamic State (IS), has firmly established itself over a large part of Africa, in two broad belts on either side of the Sahara. The northern one stretches from the Mediterranean, from Egypt to Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. The southern one starts in Somalia, stretches to Kenya, Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Senegal.Vast stretches separate its different battlefields.
  The conflict is barely reported, though (…)

• Insightful Exposure of the Four Years of Modi Regime

  16 August 2018, by Gargi Chakravartty

  BOOK REVIEW
  Dismantling India: A Four Year Report edited by John Dayal, Leena Dabiru, Shabnam Hashmi; Media House, Delhi; 2018; pages 355; Price: Rs 600.
  A recently published 355-page book titled Dismantling India: A Four Year Report with documented accounts, edited by John Dayal, Leena Dabiru and Shabnam Hashmi, gives an insight into the reality of whatever has been happening in our country in the last four years with a definite agenda of the BJP focussed through its governance. The 25 (…)