Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Mob Lynching: Let Us Act Now

  29 July 2018

  by Irfan Engineer
  Mob lynching has drastically increased in recent years, particularly since the election of the BJP Government. There has been a fourfold increase in cow-related violent incidents from less than five per cent of incidents of communal violence in 2010 to 20 per cent in 2017. (Subramanya, 2017) IndiaSpend web portal claimed that 25 persons were killed in 60 incidents of cow-related mob violence between 2010 and June 25, 2017 and 97 per cent of the incidents occurred after (…)

• Judiciary: At the Crossroads

  29 July 2018

  by Shachi Chawla
  The third pillar of the government, judiciary, was envisaged to play an important role in the growth and development of the young democracy of India. It was regarded by the framers of the Constitution as central to a social revolution. Granville Austin points out that “the Constituent Assembly brought to the framing of the judicial provisions of the Constitution an idealism equalled only by that shown towards Funda-mental Rights”. It saw judiciary as critical to “upholding (…)

• Judicial Activism, Right or Wrong

  29 July 2018, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  When politicians as a community are in a state of siege in the eyes of the public, it is extremely short-sighted on the part of any government to make any move that may appear to the public as a means to cover up or to close the channels of the politician’s exposure.
  While in the public mind, corruption among politicians has become a live issue since the Bofors bribery scandal, it was during Narasimha Rao’s Prime Ministership that the enormity of corruption in public (…)

• Corporate-Government Nexus Grows

  29 July 2018, by S G Vombatkere

  The Union Government’s proposal of lateral entry of persons from “private sector companies, consultancy firms and international or multinational organisations”, as Joint Secretary (JS) is to “bring[ing] in fresh ideas and new approaches to governance and also to augment manpower”. [“Private sector employees can now apply for top government posts”; ;Economic Times, June 10, 2018] This would be unexceptionable except that such lateral entrants from the private sector will surely be subject to (…)

• Activists and Academics draw Attention to Disturbing Trends in Jharkhand

  29 July 2018, by Bharat Dogra

  It is a measure of the maturity of any democracy that it is able to identify any signs of increasing distress and the resulting discontent among people, particularly vulnerable sections of people, in time and take remedial steps to reduce distress and discontent before it is too late. Such a challenge exists before the State Government of Jharkhand today as there have been clear signs of increasing frustration and denial of legitimate aspirations among the vulnerable sections of people, (…)

• Adivasis of Jharkhand on War Path to Protect their Identity

  29 July 2018

  by Arun Srivastava
  The BJP Government of Raghuvar Das in Jharkhand has been on the mission to grab tribal land and forests of the State to hand over to the corporate sector. Ever since he entered into the chamber of the Chief Minister, he has been busy evolving the strategy to help the big business houses. It is worth recalling that Das was installed as the Chief Minister overruling the claims of the tribal leaders who nurse the welfare of the community people. The alacrity shown by him in (…)

• Indian Muslims and Congress: Electoral Dilemmas

  29 July 2018

  by Ram Puniyani
  While Sonia Gandhi at a party meeting lamented that the Congress is being presented as a Muslim party,1 an anti-Hindu party,2 her own party’s major Muslim leader, Salman Khursheed, confessed that the Congress has the blood of Muslims on its hands.3 This raises a lot of questions about the nature of the Congress as a political party and as to how the Muslims of India respond to the appeal for support from the Congress in particular. In the wake of the UP election results (…)

• China’s Creeping Crypto-Colonialism: Sovereignty of Small Neighbouring Countries in Danger

  29 July 2018, by Kunal Ghosh

  China’s Belt and Road Initiative is ostensibly aimed at helping out lesser developed countries of Asia by building infrastructure and connectivity for them. However, it is associated with certain symptoms that are ominous. China has achieved technical superiority several notches above its surrounding neighbours, except South Korea, and second only to Japan in Asia; but in size, in terms of population and area, it is a behemoth compared to little South Korea or Japan. So its demand for raw (…)

• What Jayant Sinha Should Do

  29 July 2018, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  If the union Minister for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha, is genuinely repentant about garlanding the lynching-killing accused in Jharkhand, then he ought to take the first flight to the particular village in Haryana’s Mewat belt, where dairy-man Rakbar alias Akbar Khan lived with his wife and children, till he was lynched to death last week in the neighbouring Alwar district of Rajasthan. Jayant Sinha should meet the victim’s family and also provide a sarkari job for his widow and (…)

• A Hug!

  29 July 2018

  What’s there in a hug?
  It may be desi, bidesi or even chipko.
  But two hearts come closer,
  narrowing the distance.
  The effect may be different:
  affectionate, startling,
  embarrassing or artificial.
  Yet it sends out a message.
  You may differ from your opponent,
  but demonise him not, instead
  hold him in human bond.
  —A.K. Das