Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Art of Reducing Constitutional Democracy to a Joke

  21 July 2018

  ALL THIS AND MUCH MORE IS TO BE LOCATED IN A SINGULAR OBSESSION WITH ELECTORAL POLITICS
  by M.A. Sofi
  Looking at what has been a long trail of unedifying events having hogged the headlines over the past four years, the single-most motivating factor for these events having come about has been the manner in which electoral politics is being played out, more often than not, by resorting to tactics which are questionable in conception and devious in intent. The list of such unsavoury (…)

• Looking back on August 1942 - Aruna Asaf Ali Interview / N.C.’s tribute

  21 July 2018

  July 16 this year marked the 109th birth anniversary of Aruna Asaf Ali, the legendary heroine of the 1942 ‘Quit India’ struggle, the last battle for India’s independence. Here we reproduce the interview she gave to Mainstream (published in this journal’s August 8, 1992 issue) on the occasion of that movement’s fiftieth anniversary. This is being followed by the reproduction, on page 29, of N.C.’s moving tribute to her after her demise on July 29, 1996.
  Looking back on August 1942
  How do (…)

• Observe 50th Year of Bank Nationalisation: July 19, 1969-July 19, 2018

  21 July 2018

  by C.H. Venkatachalam
  July 19, 2018 marks the 50th year of bank nationalisation. Fourtynine years ago, in the year 1969, it was on this historic date of July 19, the Union Government brought the Ordinance nationalising 14 major private banks in our country. Since then the banks have charted a new course linking the banking industry with the overall national economic development. Shedding their baggage of class banking, banks transitioned to mass banking and became effective instruments of (…)

• On “Constitutional Renaissance” and Subversion of the Constitution

  21 July 2018, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The eminent scholar of jurisprudence, Upendra Baxi, has explored the idea of “constitutional renaissance” in the context of the recent deliberations of a Supreme Court Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, and comprising four other Justices. Professor Baxi has reminded us that the idea of “constitutional renaissance” was first sounded in a judgment authored by Justice Misra in the Manoj Narula (2014) case. Professor Baxi explained the meaning of the idea in the following (…)

• Responsive Coalition Government vis-à-vis Authoritarian Majoritarian Government

  21 July 2018

  by Vijay Kumar
  As the 2019 general election draws near, and in the wake of the recent setbacks to the BJP in by-polls across the country and it being outsmarted by the Congress in forming the government in Karnataka despite emerging as the single largest party, the talk of a coalition government with the perceived image of mis-governance inherent in messy arrangements has been agog. The Narendra Modi-led BJP Government will try hard to convert the coming election as a presidential one and (…)

• RSS in Education, Rampant Bullying in Schools

  21 July 2018, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  The RSS’ intrusion into the education sphere is writ large. The RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, headed by Dina Nath Batra, had sent a list of recommendations to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) demanding a host of changes in its textbooks. Batra had asked the NCERT to remove English, Urdu, and Arabic words, a poem by the revolutionary poet Pash and a couplet by Mirza Ghalib, the thoughts of Rabindranath Tagore, extracts from painter (…)

• 

  Face of the Danger and Our Task

  15 July 2018, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Among several major developments in the domestic scene of late the one that has caught national attention and caused widespread distress is the most reprehensible act of Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha felicitating eight lynching convicts in Jharkhand. As The Times of India recently argued in an editorial on the subject,
  Sinha is free to believe the men were wrongly convicted, but his celebration at the juncture where they received bail is unacceptable (…)

• Drift in India-US Relations

  15 July 2018, by Kuldip Nayar

  An autocrat can really unhinge a democratic system. This is what President Donald Trump is doing. But he is also turning the US into an imperialist power. India has had a good understanding with America and the two democracies, one the strongest and the other the largest, have ambled their way through in the chaotic world.
  President Trump has reportedly asked India to stop importing oil from Iran. New Delhi has explained that India has reportedly told Washington that it has entered into a (…)

• Killings of Our Times!

  15 July 2018, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  I’m left aghast at the killings taking place in developed India! If one were to focus on the state of affairs in the State of Uttar Pradesh, it is the State Police that has been indulging in killings out there in the open. State terrorism! Quoting these figures from the PUCL findings on encounters taking place in Uttar Pradesh: Since March 2017, 49 people have been killed in over 1100 encounters. More than 370 have been injured and over 3300 arrested across the State.
  And those (…)

• When the Best among us Falter

  15 July 2018, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Arun Jaitley and Piyush Goyal are the two most qualified—shall we say civilised—men in the Narendra Modi Cabinet. Both have distinguished educational backgrounds and are recognised as well-informed intellectuals. Their public careers have been impeccable. They fit naturally into refined social circles and are respected for that. Under the influence of politics, however, even such mature minds sometimes get carried away—and that is disturbing.
  Was it necessary for Arun (…)