Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Agenda that Failed: Left Politics in Post-colonial India

  22 September 2013

  by Abhijit Ghosh
  Introduction Is sixtyfive years (1947-2012) enough time to declare that any political agenda has failed? But more than half-a-century is a reasonable period to dissect any political agenda. Left politics in these sixtyfive years failed to leave any effective mark on the Indian political system barring a few exceptions. Several political complexities had developed in the Indian political scenario during the British departure from the country. While the Muslim League with (…)

• Vinod Raina

  22 September 2013, by Bharat Dogra

  TRIBUTE
  Vinod Raina, the eminent educationist who made a significant contribution to the right to education legislation and to enriching science education at the grassroots, breathed his last in Delhi on September 12. He had been suffering from cancer.
  Raina (1950-2013) left a comfortable job as a Physics teacher in Delhi University to devote himself to strengthening science and education at the grassroots. This included a lot of work in Hoshangabad district (Madhya Pradesh), preparing (…)

• Dr Sanjay Kumar Biswas (1945-2013)

  22 September 2013, by Ambrose Pinto

  TRIBUTE
  Sanjay was a Professor at the Indian Institute of Science and I was a teacher at St. Joseph’s College. He was a mechanical engineer and I taught political science. While he was a Communist, I was a Jesuit, a member of the Catholic Church. He was a Bengali and I am a Mangalorean, born and bred in the State (Karnataka). We met more than two decades ago. We were different and yet not once did we feel that we were not comrades in a common mission. We grew into intimate friends and (…)

• Message from a Lady of Exceptional Courage

  22 September 2013

  TRIBUTE
  Vivek Kumar Srivastava
  Why is the killing of Sushmita Banerjee so impactful for India, the world and women in particular? Not for the reason that she was assassinated in a gruesome manner by those people who still symbolise primitiveness in the modern age, but for the reason that she was a symbol of courage, steadfastness, and unflinching faith in human values and lived with a concern for the common people who had no other option in life except to coexist with the orthodoxies, (…)

• My Second Innings: “Battling” for Urdu with the Chief Minister of Delhi

  22 September 2013

  by Ather Farouqui
  Distinguished readers of Mainstream may remember my article, “Urdu Needs Kiss of Life and Not Myopic Policies” (vol. L, no.33, August 4, 2012), which was very critical of the policies of the Delhi Chief Minister, Ms Sheila Dikshit, as far as the promotion of Urdu language was concerned.
  I argued in that piece that Ms Dikshit was simply enamoured of the idea of Urdu as a ‘language of culture’ romanticising it if you will, while ignoring the vital need for making it an (…)

• Threat to Constitutional Structure

  22 September 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  A situation of unprecedented confusion synchronising with the onset of serious crisis for the entire constitutional structure of the Indian state presents before the nation today.
  On the one side is the outright challenge of the BJP, the most aggressive of political parties, threatening to defy the entire administration in a manner never seen before; and on the other, the ruling party at the Centre presents a picture of utter disunity with factions not only (…)

• A New Role for India in Myanmar

  22 September 2013, by Sonu Trivedi

  Given the transition taking place in Myanmar from authoritarianism to democracy in the midst of ongoing communal and ethnic violence on the one hand and reform initiatives by the new regime on the other, the Indian mission in Myanmar faces immense challenges as well as opportunities. How well it is going to capitalise on these opportunities and ward off challenges is going to have a wide-ranging impact on the future of India-Myanmar relations. However, the chore is not free from caveat. The (…)

• Five Star Movement and Aam Admi Party: Can the Two Occupy Political Space for Long?

  22 September 2013

  by Tamanna Khosla
  The Guardian has an interesting article on the surging sentiment for the Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy. The voters are sick and tired of the current parties and are rallying behind Beppe Grillo, the leader of the M5S. The Indian newspapers are full of stories of the new political party—the party of the Mango people led by Arvind Kejriwal. The sentiment here in the India is no different then the one in Italy. The Italian voters are no different from the voters in India (…)

• Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri: A Rebel
 from CPI-M

  22 September 2013

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Tikaram Sharma
  My Life, My Times: Journey of a Revolutionary by Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri; Publisher: Unistar; 2010; pp. 270; Price: Rs 300.
  As these lines were being typed, Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri passed away. The sad news disheartened me very much, as I wanted the review to appear while he was still alive. It indeed is a very big loss.
  Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri was the General Secretary of the Marxist Communist Party of India (MCPI) (not to be confused with the CPI-M), (…)

• Supreme Task at Critical Juncture

  15 September 2013, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  The situation in UP’s Muzzafarnagar has turned grave. As we go to press the number of those killed in communal clashes in the area has risen to 48.
  Since the Samajwadi Party came to power in the State eighteen months ago in March 2012, UP has witnessed about a hundred communal clashes. However, as noted scholar Dr Sudha Pai has observed in her article in The Indian Express,
  …the recent spate of violence in Muzaffarnagar district has particularly shaken people. With a toll (…)