Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• In Bengal the Election was Violent; in Kerala Modi made a Mistake—a Bad One

  6 June 2016, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  A disturbingly turbulent election season has come to an end. It was characterised by campaigns that often broke the letter of the law, to say nothing of its spirit. Violence was its signature tune in West Bengal. Illegal flow of unaccounted money marked the campaigns in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Overall, it was an election that again exposed the manner in which democracy was losing its soul in India.
  The polling process itself went off well, showing that the Election Commission (…)

• Right to Opium: Women, Holy Places and God

  6 June 2016

  WOMEN’S WORLD
  by Pradeep Nair, Navneet Sharma and K.B.S. Krishna
  Karyeshu dasi, karaneshu manthri; bhojeshu mata, shayaneshu rambha; Roopeshu lakshmi, kshamayeshu dharitri; shat dharmayukta, kuladharma pathni—Neetisara
  (Works like slave, helps like minister, cooks like mother, beds like a consort, beautiful as goddess of wealth, is as bearing as the earth, carries hundred religious virtues, is the righteous familial wife.)
  The above ‘pearls’ of wisdom not only eulogise the idea of (…)

• Goebbelsian Doublespeak: B.R. Ambedkar and the RSS

  6 June 2016

  by N. Sukumar
  The model State, Gujarat, has long been considered the social laboratory for Hindutva. Jan Bremem1 has analysed the well-entrenched nature of the Hindutva movement and its predecessors in Gujarat, strongly opposed to communal harmony and to the design of society as a melting-pot of diverse and open-ended social segments. The mobilisation of low and intermediate castes to participate in the activities of the Sangh Parivar organisations in the last two decades has broadened the (…)

• Indira and the Legacy

  6 June 2016, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  One of the striking impressions of the AICC pilgrims returning from Bombay is about the Prime Minister’ style in dealing with the critics of government policies.
  This question is not something which came up all of a sudden at the Bombay AICC. In fact it has become the subject matter of avid gossips and discussions in the Capital for the last few weeks, particularly since the Prime Minister’s return from the USA. From the person-to-person broadcast to the press (…)

• Nehru as an Internationalist

  6 June 2016

  by Mohd Yousuf Dar and Jahangir Ahmad Dar
  Jawaharlal Nehru’s political leadership both in Indian politics and international affairs was indeed unique in the true sense. As a votary of world peace, Pandit Nehru was intimately connected with problems and challenges of international affairs. He developed an inter-national outlook. He was greatly concerned about the arms race and the superpower rivalry. He was deadly opposed to all forms of imperialism, colonialism, racialism and so forth. He (…)

• Africans in Complexion-crazy India

  6 June 2016, by A K Biswas

  We are appalled that leaders of India’s ruling establishments and law enforcing agencies are not ashamed at what happened on January 31, 2016 night to a Tanzanian girl student of Bachelors of Business Administration in a college at Bangalore. The car in which she was returning in company of her friends to the city was attacked, she was dragged out, stripped and paraded naked in public for no rhyme or reason. When she ran to board a bus passing by the place of occurrence, its passengers did (…)

• Work Starts on Second Tibet Rail Line

  6 June 2016, by Harish Chandola

  China has started work on its second rail line in Tibet, which will ultimately reach close to India-Bhutan border town of Yatung (Yadong) when completed in 2030. Its first Tibet rail line from Golmud in Qinghi province to Lhasa was completed in 2006, has been bringing in much tourist traffic. Two years ago, it was extended from Lhasa to Shigatse, Tibet’s second largest city and the home of Panchen Lama. It will be further extended to Yatung (Yadong), and will reach the Nepal border after (…)

• Towards Rediscovery of Rosa Luxemburg, Maligned by Stalin

  6 June 2016

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Nityananda Ghosh
  The Socialist Vision and The Silenced Voices of Democracy – New Perspectives – Part I, Rosa Luxemburg by Sobhanlal Datta Gupta; Seriban, Bakhrahat, South 24-Parganas district, West Bengal; pp. 137 + xiv; Rs 495.
  With the Leninist model of vanguardist Communist Party as leader of the socialist revolution being questioned the world over, the concept of democratic centralism (again formulated by Lenin) is also being debated everywhere. In practice, DC is (…)

• The Kerala Verdict

  6 June 2016

  by Binoy Viswam
  The people of Kerala have given their verdict. It is emphatic, unequivocal and hence, historic. They made the LDF victorious by providing it with 91 seats in the 140-member Assembly. The UDF, led by the Congress, could secure only 47 seats. The BJP, which for long was struggling to enter the Kerala Legislature, could do it by winning one seat. One seat went to an Independent.
  This verdict was not at all unexpected. The voters’ mood was so clear and visible: they wanted a (…)

• Heat, Hate, Humbug

  6 June 2016, by Badri Raina

  The times are a-steaming With heat, hate, humbug; Victors of a street fight Romp with ominous chug chug.
  Money-spinners mark assent To muscle brains of the day; Celebrities do not mind being Slaves to what golden mouth may say
  Of the honest and the innocent, Or the unsmartly tame; Lacking the glibness of tongue, The meek must take the blame.
  Never did the devil quote Scripture so brazenly as now; The just croak in crevices, The rogues stride above.
  Badri Raina