Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Mapping Rape Protests through Feminist Imaginations of Justice: Mahasweta Devi’s Draupadi

  16 August 2018

  WOMEN’S WORLD
  by Piya Srinivasan
  India’s “disturbed areas” have always had a contentious relationship with the state. Women’s bodies often become the surface on which violent practices of nation-making are inscribed in these regions. There is no graver proof of this than the January abduction, gangrape and murder of an eight-year-old girl from the nomadic Muslim Bakarwal community in Jammu. The crimes involved eight perpetrators including local SPOs Deepak Khajuria and Surinder Kumar, a (…)

• Comprehending Kashmir and its People

  16 August 2018

  by Noor Zaheer
  Why is Kashmir burning? How long has it been burning? Who or what ignited the fire? Who is pouring oil on it? And, most importantly, who, if anyone, has tried to control or put out that fire? As far as the Indian narrative is concerned, Kashmir is like any other State, going through the democratic process every five years, forming a government that functions with collaboration from the Centre, devises policies for development and disasters, caters to tourists; in short, it (…)

• I am Not for Sale

  16 August 2018

  Why are you here?
  I ask a boy from my class
  The girl staying opposite me
  A student sitting across the table
  One from another hostel
  “For the tag” is what each one answers.
  Why did you trod into these muddy waters?
  Why did you lose yourself while finding ‘success’?
  Why did you give up everything, including your own spirit?
  Why did you let them kill your will and voice?
  Why did you become just a number?
  Why did you become one of them?
  This is a marathon, not a journey (…)

• Gazabganj

  16 August 2018

  Short Story
  by Satyabaani
  ‘Jazbaat kehte hein, khamoshi mein basar ho jaye,
  Dard ki zid hein, ki duniya ko khabar ho jaye’
  (poet unknown)
  He got up wondering why he was feeling so lousy. He examined his face in the mirror, closely. He had made every attempt to get rid of his beard and exterminate any signs of it cropping up, but despite having shaved carefully he had nicked his left cheek again. He carefully dabbed some eau-de-cologne on it. Then he wet his towel and wiped himself; (…)

• The RTI Regime: Retrospect and Prospect

  16 August 2018

  by Rajvir S. Dhaka
  Although the Right to Information has been declared by the Supreme Court of India, in various judgments, as a right inherent in Article 19(A) of the Fundamental Rights given in the Indian Constitutions, as is evident from the perusal of Aruna Roy and MKSS Collective, The RTI Story (2018), the RTI regime could be institutionalised in India only in 2005 after a long and sustained struggle by the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) and the National Campaign for People’s (…)

• Editors Guild Decries Increasingly Challenging Environment for Press Freedom

  16 August 2018

  The following statement was issued by the Editors Guild of India on August 8, 2018.
  The Editors Guild of India condemns the manner in which the right to practise free and independent journalism is seen to be undermined by a combination of forces—some media owners’ inability to withstand covert or overt pressures from the political establishment and frequent instances of blocking or interference in the transmission of television content that is seen to be critical of the government.
  The (…)

• A Beard is Definitely a Matter of Identity!

  16 August 2018, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  Last week’s incident in Haryana’s Gurgaon, of a teenaged Muslim boy, Jaffaruddin, subjected to not just communal onslaught but also forcibly pushed into a saloon and his beard shaved off, left me shaken. After all, this incident cannot be viewed in isolation. This entire summer the Muslim population of Gurgaon was apprehensive and worried of offering the Jumma namaaz/Friday prayers. What, with Right-wing goons all set to hound them. In fact, in a couple of places they were openly (…)

• 

  Tamil Titan of National Eminence Departs

  13 August 2018, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Politics in Tamil Nadu has taken a new turn with the passing of 94-year-old Muthuvel Karunanidhi in Chennai last evening. And today with countless persons lining the road from the Rajaji Hall, where his body was kept for public viewing and enabling leaders of all parties to offer floral tributes to him, to the Marina Beach, where he was eventually buried at a spot near the memorial to his mentor C.N. Annadurai, it was more than transparent that apart from being an outstanding (…)

• Lynching to Nowhere

  13 August 2018, by Kuldip Nayar

  More gruesome details about the Alwar lynching have come to light. Rakbar Khan, the victim, could have been saved if the police had acted in time. In fact, the force stopped for tea and wasted three-and-a-half hours in reaching the victim to the hospital. He bled to death. If one were to put all the pieces together, one would come to the conclusion that the police delay was deliberate.
  The religion of the victim—he was a Muslim—has been his undoing. Inquiry would give details but there is (…)

• What Pakistan Poll Outcome holds for South Asia

  13 August 2018

  by Mahendra Ved
  India’s former Chief Election Commissioner and scholar S.Y. Quraishi once told a gathering that Islam and democracy are not always compatible. It shocked some Muslims present, prompting them to privately inquire whether he was a Muslim. An observer in the just-concluded polls in Pakistan, he is not the first to say this.
  This is the record of most Muslims and/or Muslim majority nations from Malacca to Mediterranean where democracy, not necessarily in its ideal (…)