Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• JNU Row and the Forgotten ‘Right to Reply’

  30 October 2016

  by Surbhi Karwa and Shivam Yadav
  “Let people know the facts and the country will be safe.” —Abraham Lincoln
  The media is the fourth pillar of democracy— we have been taught this since our early lessons in social studies in school. The role of the media in a vibrant democracy is something which is crystal-clear to all of us. But the Indian media has its own share of challenges in the form of paid news, remuneration and job-security of journalists and, most importantly, media trials. The (…)

• Adivasis in the Indian Republic

  30 October 2016, by Ashok Celly

  Perhaps the greatest sin that independent India’s ruling class committed was that it relent-lessly engaged in the most brutal exploitation of India’s original inhabitants commonly known as the Adivasis. It has done to the Adivasis what the White Americans did to the Red Indians (original inhabitants again). It robbed them of their land and national resources and destroyed their cultural identity. All in the name of development. What Shri Jaipal Singh, the eminent Adivasi leader, said way (…)

• Judicial Decisions relating to Minority Educational Institutions: An Overview

  30 October 2016

  by Nilima Chandiramani
  ‘Protection of minorities is the hallmark of a civilisation,’ said the Father of our Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. The framers of the Indian Constitution showed utmost sensitivity to the needs and aspirations of minorities by incorpo-rating special safeguards in the Chapter on Fundamental Rights under the heading ‘Educational and Cultural Rights’.
  Chief Justice S.R. Das, presiding over a Bench of seven judges in the Kerala Education Bill case, had reiterated in his (…)

• Remembering October-November 1984

  30 October 2016, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Early next week, on October 31, the country would be observing the tenth death anniversary of Indira Gandhi who had been cruelly shot down on this very day by her own security guards right inside her residence.
  By all accounts it was a ghastly tragedy committ6ed by those who had been embittered by the ‘Operation Bluestar’ at the Golden Temple at Amritsar. The perpetrators of Indira’s assassination owned up the full responsibility for their gory deed which in their (…)

• Goa Summit Strengthens Indo-Russian Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership

  30 October 2016, by Arun Mohanty

  No Indo-Russian summit was held in such an anti-Russian media hysteria stemming from the Russia-Pak military exercise, yet no other summit in recent years has been so successful as the 17th Indo-Russian Summit taking place on October 15 at Goa. The Russia-Pak military exercise was held as per schedule in the wake of the terrorist attack on the Uri military base that took 19 lives. Delhi expected its special and privileged strategic partner, Moscow, to postpone, if not cancel, the first ever (…)

• A Centennial Remembrance: Recruiting ‘Terrorism’ during World War I - A Case Study of Punjab

  30 October 2016

  by K.C. Yadav
  Much is found in print on the First World War, 1914-1918. Recruitment in Punjab during the global conflict, our present concern, is also not a barren field; there are several studies relating to it as well. A solicitous perusal of the literature shows, however, that it is by and large one-sided, based mostly on the official versions of things. The ‘other side’, the one as seen from the receiving end of the stick, is either ignored or touched casually. The present study is a (…)

• Goa Meetings in Perspective

  23 October 2016, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Several major developments have taken place in the last few days. But none of these can possibly minimise the importance of the recent meetings in Goa: the Indo-Russian summit punctuated by the Modi-Putin meeting on October 15; the BRICS summit on October 15-16; and the BIMSTEC meet as well as the BRICS-BIMSTEC outreach summit on October 16.
  As for the Indo-Russian summit, as former Indian ambassador to Moscow P.S. Raghavan wrote in The Hindu yesterday in an article entitled (…)

• Uniform Civil Code: Why and How?

  23 October 2016

  by Ram Puniyani
  What is called a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) deals with the personal laws (marriage, divorce, maintenance, custody and inheritance). Our criminal and civil laws are the same for all the religious communities but our personal laws have been related and linked to religion. So there are separate laws for the Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Ironically Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs are included in the Hindus. The prevalent laws and norms among diverse Hindu communities are not the (…)

• Dispel the Spectre of War—It is Doable

  23 October 2016, by S G Vombatkere

  India’s September 29 cross-LoC strike was conducted professionally, as expected of the apolitical Army of the Indian Republic. Pakistan‘s predictable response is denial of it ever having happened. It could have been left at that, but the government and the Opposition (such as it is), encouraged by TRP-hungry TV channels, provoking certain publicity-hungry military veterans, have been using the apolitical Army’s professionalism to make political or personal capital out of the success of the (…)

• Misplaced Blame-game

  23 October 2016, by Kuldip Nayar

  Pakistan’s National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz has said that there is no room for improvement in relations between India and Pakistan so long as Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of India. This is the most undemocratic and anti-people remark any person could have made. That it comes from a top Pakistan official is all the more disappointing and deplorable.
  Modi is a duly elected Prime Minister and he and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were voted to power in open, fair elections. (…)