Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Bangladesh deserves More Attention and Appreciation from India

  26 December 2016, by Bharat Dogra

  Suppose you have two neighbours—one hostile neighbour and one friendly neighbour. For different reasons you need to give a lot of attention to both. The hostile neighbour requires attention for some reasons while the friendly nation requires attention for some other reasons, but they both require equal attention.
  Now suppose that you give a lot of attention to the hostile neighbour but relatively much less attention to the friendly neighbour, then what will be the impact on the friendly (…)

• The Year of Unravelling

  26 December 2016, by Badri Raina

  The best of times were promised, but the worst of times are here. Not in any war fought since the independence of India were so many millions seen waiting their turn in interminable lines, not before ration shops, but banks and ATMs to be granted a pittance of their own legitimate earnings. If over the year some eighty-seven soldiers have died manning the borders, a hundred and eleven at last count have lost their lives asking for their very own—a consti-tutional collapse of unprecedented (…)

• Populism Finds the Way: Trump, Pollsters and the People’s Choice

  26 December 2016

  by Pradeep Nair and Sandeep Sharma
  In the aftermath of the American presidential elections, streets in several cities of America rocked with the slogan “Not My President”. This sloganeering rose against a person who went into election (and won the same) with a campaign catchphrase ‘Make America Great Again’. The protestors termed his win ‘unusual’, ‘unexpected’ and ‘unconventional’ and feared the ways he would realise his dream of making America great again! Mr Donald John Trump, a real (…)

• The Trump Call: Pakistan gets a jumpstart in dealing with the coming US presidency

  26 December 2016, by M K Bhadrakumar

  If India was hoping to corner Pakistan on the issue of cross-border terrorism at the Heart of Asia conference on December 3-4 in Amritsar, that has been overtaken by the telephone conversation between US President-elect Donald Trump and Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif on Friday, (December 2), which dramatically shifts the kaleidoscope reflecting the sequence of elements in the Hindu Kush.
  During the US presidential election campaign, Trump hardly spoke on Afghanistan. But he amply made up for it (…)

• Letter to PM by CPI-M General Secretary

  26 December 2016

  The following is the text of a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by CPI-M General Secretary and MP Sitaram Yechury on December 12, 2016 regarding the finalisation of the ‘Major Defense Partner’ designation to India by the USA.
  Dear Pradhan Mantri-ji,
  I am writing to you in connection with the finalisation of the ‘Major Defense Partner’ designation to India by the United States of America, as announced through a joint statement issued by your Ministry on December 8, 2016. (…)

• Rome was Not Built in a Day. Nor the Hindu Rashtra . . .

  26 December 2016, by Ajayakumar Kodoth

  by Ajayakumar Kodoth
  Even while judging the BJP government as a pro-Fascist one, the CPI believes that it cannot be called Fascist yet. We resort to this label not merely because of hostility towards BJP but because we believe it is true. Even while judging the BJP as completely right-wing, we cannot brand it as completely Fascist. That is why we say it is pro-Fascist. Whether it is completely so or on the way to becoming Fascist is an issue that should be left to further discussion. As I (…)

• Curbing the Black Economy: Demonetisation Not the Way

  26 December 2016, by Arun Kumar

  Tackling the black economy is laudable. The PM has announced demonetisation of the high denomination currency notes to do that. But most analysts are of the opinion this is not the way to even dent (much less eliminating) the black economy in India. The faulty notion is a result of the incorrect understanding that black economy is all cash. The logic of the step taken is, once ‘black money’ (cash) is sucked out of the economy, the black economy would get eliminated. It is as if, once oxygen (…)

• Demonetisation: A Silent but Monster Killer - Modi Must Own Up Killing Over A Hundred in Bank Queues

  26 December 2016

  by K. Narayana
  Over a month has gone by after the fateful decision to demonetise the high-value currencies by the Modi Government. The initial stated purposes in a bang focused on sucking out 86 per cent of the money in circulation in order to arrest black money and decapitate fake currency. As official statistics show, fake currency is just 0.0025 per cent of the total valid notes in circulation—400 crores out of a total of 16 or so lakh crores.
  In fact, the bean-counters in the Union (…)

• That’s My Place, Sir

  26 December 2016

  That’s my place, Sir.
  [Newly fashioned. I’m overwhelmed!]
  There
  In the long, weary queues
  Waiting patiently
  On aching, creaking feet
  Moving inch by painful inch
  For a blushing, pink piece of paper
  [that can’t buy me a day’s vegetable].
  I’ve been made to line up all my life.
  Before the factories,
  before being admitted for the day’s work.
  Before hospitals,
  getting sick on feet to cure sickness.
  Before ration shops for a pint of kerosene.
  That’s my place, (…)

• Demonetisation can only go so far. To go further, politics that backs black money must change

  26 December 2016, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Not enough weeks have passed for us to say that the currency earthquake is over. Aftershocks are more severe than expected, with people waiting in day-long queues, and often failing to withdraw their own money. However, enough time has lapsed for us to look at the overall picture and ask a few basic questions: What is it all about? How did we come to this pass? Will all this lead to the fair and equitable life we deserve?
  Only some answers are clear. Basically, this is all (…)