Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Ukraine in Dilemma—East or West? Revenge of History?

  29 December 2013

  by R.G. Gidadhubli
  Ukraine has been passing through the worst period of crisis in its post-Soviet history. Protests of unprecedented magnitude are taking place during the last few weeks unmindful of the cold winter at the Independence Square in the capital of Ukraine, Kiev, and other cities by thousands of activists of civil society, students, younger generation and political leaders of Opposition parties against President Viktor Yanukovych since he refused to sign the agreement with the (…)

• India-US Standoff over Diplomat’s Humiliation

  29 December 2013

  by Sudhanshu Tripathi
  It is shameful for a country like America, which boasts of being a land of freedom and liberty with highly civilised cultural traditions ensuring endless opportunities to all talented and meritorious persons and, consequently, attracting them from all over the world since long, to act contrary to the courtesies being extended to all diplomats under the explicit rules of international law. The way senior Indian diplomat posted in New York, Ms Devyani Khobragade, was (…)

• Tamil Nadu and the Sri Lankan Conflict: Evolving Centre-State Understanding on the Ethnic Issue

  29 December 2013

  by Aditi Mukherjee
  The much-discussed Tamil Nadu factor in Indo-Sri Lanka relations recently came to prominence once again in the wake of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s decision not to attend the last CHOGM summit in Colombo as intense pressure was put on the Government of India by the DMK and AIADMK, the two principal political parties of Tamil Nadu, in this regard. On an earlier occasion the State had put up staunch opposition to the training of Sri Lankan defence personnel in India. (…)

• War without End

  29 December 2013, by Javed Jabbar

  BOOK REVIEW
  This review of Prof Stephen Cohen’s latest book appeared in a Pakistani peirodical, Newsline, last November. Since it was sent to us by the reviewer, a noted Pakistani intellectual, politician, and media-person, it is being reproducd here, with due acknowledgement, to get a Pakistani perspective of the issues under scrutiny for the benefot of our readers.
  Shooting for a Century: Finding Answers to the India-Pakistan Conundrum by Stephen P. Cohen; published by Harper Collins, (…)

• A Letter from Central Prison, Nagpur

  29 December 2013

  COMMUNICATION
  A Letter from Central Prison, Nagpur
  Booked u/s 13,20,39 UAPA: An Affidavit for Ouster of the Real Incumbent
  The arrest (and interrogation) of as nondescript a journalist and marginal an activist as me, even if for the second time—this time after 10-11 days’ mauling of a distantly acquainted, handicapped JNU student and two, most innocuous, adivasi youth, hours before a third was picked up from yet another location— should not, I believe, have caused even so much as a (…)

• Towards Self-governance

  29 December 2013, by Uttam Sen

  Politics and administration in India have their singularities. If there was a time when people’s representatives took their feedback from their constituency to the party and the administration and worked accordingly, the practice has now become a rarity. The omissions cut both ways. The representative and his constituents have withdrawn mutually. But when you learn that Babu Rajendra Prasad (Mayor of Patna, 1936), Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (President, Ahmedabad Municipal Board, around 1917) (…)

• Ending Gender-based Violence: Need for a Civilisational Response

  29 December 2013

  WOMEN’S WORLD
  by Sagar Preet Hooda
  The murderous gangrape of a young girl in a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012 had deeply shaken the conscience of the nation. The surge of feelings of fear, anger, and frustration in society, though unprecedented, was, however, not new. It had happened in the wake of similar incidents in the past too. After such incidents, invariably instantaneous protests emerge but generally evaporate soon and the situation on the ground remains the same. But, last (…)

• Semiotics of Pornographic Violence

  29 December 2013, by Kamalakanta Roul

  The serial child rape cases in Delhi as well as in other parts of India have raised a serious debate over the role of pornography in generating violence. The accused of Gandhi Nagar and Badarpur child rape cases disclosed that they had watched pornographic film before they sexually assaulted the girl. It evoked intellectuals to argue that pornography incites rape and violence against women in India.
  In Western society pornography is a subject of implicit controversy. A section of feminists (…)

• Kerala Model: Gone with the Wind?

  29 December 2013, by K Saradamoni

  Kerala, a tiny strip of land in the extreme south-west of the Indian subcontinent, became a state on October 1, 1956 following the dictates of the States Reorganisation Commission. This area, renowned for the spices grown there, especially pepper, was known in countries, East and West. Its fame increased when the very next year, that is, in 1957 the people voted to power a Communist Government, the first in India. This attracted lots of people, from other States and outside the country, as (…)

• Workers’ Consciousness Revisited

  29 December 2013

  COMMUNICATION
  A leading member and ideologue of the CPI, Anil Rajimwale (AR for short), has honoured us by his important critique (Mainstream, vol. LI, number 27, June 22) of our position on the question of workers’ (revolutionary) consciousness, published earlier in the same weekly.
  As Lenin’s idea on this question was the object of our critique, AR naturally starts with a defence of Lenin with the opening salvo: “Among the great figures of the world revolutionary movement Lenin was the (…)