Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Gandhi for Today

  3 October 2016

  (On the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s one hundred and fortyseventh birth anniversary on October 2, 2016, we are reproducing the following excerpts from his writings and pronouncements. This is followed by a couple of relevant articles on Gandhi.)
  Soldiers drunk with the pride of physical strength loot shops and are not even ashamed to take liberties with women. The administration is powerless in the war time to prevent such happenings. The army fulfils their primary need, and they wink the (…)

• Gandhi and Governance: Relooking Development at Grassroot Level

  3 October 2016

  by Pradeep Nair and Sandeep Sharma
  The Gandhian idea of governance and development at the community level is a people-centred approach that combines a number of activities to ensure people (rural people) access to relevant information so that they shall collaborate and participate in development. Through information and knowledge, the rural voices may express their expectations and can share their knowledge. Here community governance is a powerful driver, especially for the marginalised (…)

• The Myth of Development: Time to Invoke Gandhi

  3 October 2016

  by Vikash Sharma
  Whenever you are in a doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? —M.K. Gandhi, 1948
  I
  The Crisis
  The (…)

• National Security — Will it Remain a Chimera?

  3 October 2016, by S G Vombatkere

  Following the September 18 attack on the Army’s Uri camp, the government is reportedly contemplating strong diplomatic-military initiatives to counter Pakistan’s growing audacity. But strangely, the Home Minister and the National Security Advisor (NSA) appear to be taking all the initiatives, ordering the NIA to investigate the attack, and leaving a rather subdued Defence Minister, while the External Affairs Minister is not even in the scene.
  If the internal civil unrest with over 70 (…)

• Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the UN Vanquished

  3 October 2016, by Branislav Gosovic

  This essay, written as a personal homage to Boutros Boutros-Ghali, is also a comment on the United Nations, predicaments and challenges confronting those occupying the office of UN Secretary-General, and the overarching North-South entanglement in the world body. This has been included as a chapter for a book in the memory of Boutros Boutros-Ghali being jointly edited by Mrs Boutros Ghali and Roberto Savio (founder of the Inter-Press Service who now edits the e-Bulletin, Other News; he has (…)

• Uri is only a Symptom

  3 October 2016, by Kuldip Nayar

  Balochistan in Pakistan is like our Kashmir, an integral part but still rebellious after almost 70 years of Maharaja Hari Singh’s accession to India. However, in India’s case our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru gave an undertaking to hold a plebiscite as soon as things had settled in the Valley. He could not fulfil the promise.
  Nehru found out that things will be reduced to a slogan, Gita versus Koran, and people would be so driven by religious sentiments that they would not be (…)

• Restoration of Democracy and Human Rights — A Pre-Requisite for any Dialogue on Kashmir

  3 October 2016, by Sandeep Pandey

  While the Indian security forces were busy tackling the internal protests in Jammu and Kashmir in which over 80 civilians have been killed since July 9, 2016, the most recent victim being a 11-year-old Nasir Shafiq Qazi who died of pellet injuries, a surprise militant attack has taken place from across the border killing 18 Indian soldiers in the biggest such incident so far in history. Clearly, things are going out of the hands of the government at the Centre whose problem is that after the (…)

• ’Establishment of a Full-blown RSS-led Fascist State must be Prevented at All Costs’

  3 October 2016

  The following interview of the CPI-M General Secretary, Sitaram Yechury, was recently published in Ganashakti, the CPI-M West Bengal Committee’s Bengali mouthpiece. It clearly brings out the fascist direction of the present BJP Government, led and guided by the RSS.
  Q: The united Left has scored an impressive victory in the JNU Students Union elections. Is this the way that the communal forces can be confronted and defeated in the country?
  A. Yes, this is a very significant victory. In (…)

• Fascism Has No Universal Characteristics

  3 October 2016, by Barun Das Gupta

  A debate is going on in the Left circles in India whether fascism, or ‘communal fascism’, has arrived; whether the BJP rule is fascist rule or authoritarian rule; whether the BJP is a fascist party or a party with a ‘semi-fascist’ ideology. One of those Left intellectuals who contend that fascism has not arrived in India is Prakash Karat, former General Secretary of the CPI-M (whose article was reproduced in Mainstream’s last, September 24, 2016, issue). He quotes Dimitrov to say that the (…)

• BJP’s Dangerous Politics

  3 October 2016, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  One of my eaerliest reporting experiences was the great Calcutta killing of 1946. Fierce communal passions were unleashed and thousands were done to death on both sides in the course of a couple of days. But behind that gory carnage was the fight for the city of Calcutta: who should get it? Pakistan or India? Religious beliefs are made use of to rouse mass anger among innocent people, but those who whip up such passions do so only for political gains.
  In our (…)