Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Implications of Raising Balochistan and Gilgit issues by PM

  28 August 2016, by Sandeep Pandey

  Prime Minister Narendra Modi has raised the issue of Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistani occupied Kashmir in his Independence Day speech on August 15, 2016 in response to Pakistan dedicating its Independence Day, celebrated a day earlier, to ‘Freedom of Kashmir’. This is the first time India has officially expressed support for the cause of Balochistan. People in these areas are unhappy with the Pakistani Government. While there is a full-fledged movement in Balochistan going on to (…)

• RSS and Its Double-Speak

  28 August 2016

  by Binoy Viswam
  The forces of the Sangh Parivar are well trained in the art of ‘bahu bhashan’ (duplicity in utterances). On the same subject they would speak often in different ways, sometimes expressing diametrically opposite views. Those who listen to them would be confused, but for the parivar, it is part of a calculated strategy. Prime Minister Narenda Modi is a proven architect and practitioner of the art of bahu bhashan. These days the BJP patriarch is busy with the task of preparing (…)

• Azaadi — Freedom from the Empire

  28 August 2016, by Devaki Jain

  Remembrance of Things Past
  August 15 reinvokes reflections of India’s freedom struggle and its aftermath which are customarily carried by newspapers and journals. Apart from the mention of independence and pictures of Gandhiji with a spinning wheel or his traditional walking stick what the freedom struggle meant to the generation that was actually on the battle-ground is often bypassed.
  I married into a freedom fighter’s family. My father-in-law, Phool Chand Jain, was one of those (…)

• Irom Sharmila ends her Historic Hunger Strike for Human Security in Manipur

  28 August 2016

  by Kadayam Subramanian
  The young woman Irom Sharmila (30) went on an indefinite hunger strike on November 2, 2000 in protest against the killing of innocents by the paramilitary Assam Rifles (AR) under the protection of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), 1958. After nearly 16 years, Sharmila announced recently that she would be ending her historic hunger strike on August 9, 2016 in order to pursue her objectives through other peaceful means. In recent judgments, the Supreme (…)

• Why Vegetarianism Is Anti-national

  28 August 2016, by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

  “Human beings are not pure vegetarians like sheep, nor are they pure meatarians like tigers. They need to eat both.”
  —A farmer of my village, Papaiahpet, Warangal district, Telangana
  When I said in some of my speeches and writings that the kind of vegetarianism that the Sangh Parivar, the Bharatiya Janata Party headed State governments, its central leadership, apart from the Hindu priestcraft, are trying to project as national is wrong and it is in fact anti-national, a lot of dust was (…)

• The Phenomenology of Terrorism

  28 August 2016

  by Mustafa Khan
  September 2016 will complete a full decade of the bomb blasts of 2006 in Malegaon. It was this that made Hindutva terrorism a new coinage of ignominy with which the Hindutva Right never felt comfortable. Their smarting under this brand burnt into the flesh more and more as evidence mounted in other related cases of early and middle circa 2000s.
  With due respect to our investigation agencies, like the IB, CBI and others, there are other sources of ascertaining facts that (…)

• Churchill’s Hatred for India?

  28 August 2016, by A K Biswas

  COMMUNICATION
  Veteran journalist, author and commentator Kuldip Nayar was lucid and specific in his column captioned, “A Page from ‘Quit India’ Movement”. [Mainstream, Vol. LIV, No. 33, August 6, 2016] His anger against the colonial rulers for the atrocities committed against the Indians is fully justifiable and understandable. But may I request him to place alongside the atrocities Indians have committed against the underprivileged country-men because of caste prejudice?
  This is utterly (…)

• GST: Revenue Neutral Rate and Macro Implications

  28 August 2016, by Arun Kumar

  The GST is expected to be implemented from April 1, 2017. While it has been hailed as the single biggest tax reform since independence, many worries have been expressed about it in the media. The FMs of Kerala and West Bengal (otherwise political rivals) have expressed concern about certain provisions. But most importantly, after this author pointed out that the implementation of the GST would raise the rate of inflation (Kumar, 2015), it is now widely accepted by other analysts also. This (…)

• Fidel Castro Turns 90

  28 August 2016

  by Vivek Kumar Srivastava
  Fidel Castro has turned 90 on August 13. He was born in 1926 on the same day at Biran. His life has passed through several phases which are difficult to be comprehended in a few words; still these are divisible into three parts: the first part when he participated in the revolutionary movement in Colombia (1948), Mexico (1955), overthrow of Batista regime (January 1959); the second phase when he was at the helm of the affairs till 2006 when on his 80th birthday he (…)

• The Partition

  28 August 2016, by Kuldip Nayar

  The British have the reputation of leaving their colonies in a mess when they have to withdraw by force or otherwise. One method they have adopted is to partition the country they have ruled. They did this in Ireland, Palestine-Israel and, of course, India.
  This is mid-August 2016 and I recall the conversation I had with Lord Radcliffe who drew the line to divide India into two countries, India and Pakistan. Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, picked him up from the British Bar and had him (…)