Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Pentagon’s Loss

  15 September 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Last month was observed the twentyfifth death anniversary of General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s third military dictator, who was killed in an air crash in that country in August 1988. To mark the occasion we are reproducing the following incisive editorial N.C. had written in the August 20, 1988 issue of Mainstream following Zia’s demise.
  With the passing away of President Zia-ul- Haq, Pakistan enters a new phase in its chequered political career. His death is also bound (…)

• Economic Mess Caused by Pranab
 and Chidambaram

  15 September 2013, by Kuldip Nayar

  That India is in an economic mess is known all over the world. What is not yet public is that the malaise was because of the wrong decisions which President Pranab Mukherejee took when he was Union Finance Minister from January 2009 to mid-2012 and when Finance Minister P. Chidambaram was heading the Ministry till the end of 2008 and even before.
  Mukherjee lives in the luxuries of Rashtrapati Bhavan and Chidambaram shields himself behind tall promises he still makes to mend the economy. (…)

• Obama Copying Bush

  15 September 2013, by Anil Rajimwale

  At the beginning of Obama’s presidency, the present writer had written in this journal: “Obama under siege”. That was in the context of the circumstances of his becoming the President, with the sober and sensible, peace-loving people in the US and outside expecting a lot from him. His humble background had much to do with it, as also some of his utterances and initial responses. An apprehension was also expressed that Obama may come under increasing pressure from the US Administration which (…)

• Military Strike on Syria could be Obama’s Waterloo

  15 September 2013, by Rajaram Panda

  The Western (read US) military strike on Syria looks imminent. The plans for a “significantly larger” strike could include use of the long-range B-2 and B-52 bombers flying from bases in the US. President Barack Obama believes that such a strike “could do more damage to Assad’s forces in 48 hours than the Syrian rebels have done in nearly two years of civil war”. According to a report by The New York Times, Obama had ordered military planners to expand the list of potential targets in Syria (…)

• On Education Policy

  15 September 2013, by Eduardo Faleiro

  The data released recently by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development show that Goa is sliding sharply in the national education development index. It has slipped from the 13th place last year to the 21st spot now. It had slid from the ninth place to the 13th position already last year. These ranks are drawn by the HRD Ministry based on the parameters of access to education, infrastructure, teachers’ qualifications and training available to them.
  Goa has made significant progress (…)

• British Legacy in Education: Is it “Cultural Pollution”?

  15 September 2013, by Ambrose Pinto

  In an impressive seminar a noted Dalit columnist of The Pioneer, Chandra Bhan Prasad, had once said some years ago in Delhi that the Britishers “came too late to India and left too early”. India would not have been a modern state today with inclusion of all communities if the Britishers had not invaded the country with their language and culture was his argument. Without mincing words, he had asserted that the lives and cultures of the subaltern communities had no place as long as the (…)

• Britain admits Torture in Kenya, but No One talks of it in India

  15 September 2013, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  In our preoccupation with petty politics—like history’s most pointless Cabinet reshuffle—we fail to notice the significance of some breakthrough developments around us. How many of us notice that Istanbul is not Cairo, or that Britain has done something astonishing by admitting that it used torture as policy in at least one of its colonies?
  The citizens’ protest in Turkey is nothing at all like the Arab Spring in Egypt which, ultimately, helped only the resurgence of (…)

• Question of Consciousness and Democracy — Debate Continued

  15 September 2013, by Kobad Ghandy

  I do believe this debate being carried on in the columns of Mainstream is very important given the setback in peoples’ movements worldwide and also in the socialist states. I will try and add my views to this. But I shall seek to posit the issue in the light of these reversale.
  I read Anil Rajimwale’s (AR) article (“’Consciousness from Outside’ Debate: Certain Points”, Mainstream, June 22, 2013) with much interest. Unfortunately most of the other articles mentioned did not reach me in (…)

• Correcting Historical Injustice

  15 September 2013, by Suranjita Ray

  The landmark Bill on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement 2013 brings an end to the era of forced land acquisition. It has replaced the 120-year-old unjust Land Acquisition Act 1894. Integrating land acquisition with rehabilitation and resettle-ment (R & R) and bringing transparency in the process of acquisition, compensation, and rehabilitation as a matter of right is a historic step. It was important to have a law to (…)

• Archival Work of Contemporary History

  15 September 2013, by Sagari Chhabra

  BOOK REVIEW
  Emergency Retold by Kuldip Nayar; Konark Publishers, New Delhi, Seattle; first published: 1977; paperback edition: 2013, pages: 320.
  Emergency Retold is a new edition of a book on the Emergency by the distinguished journalist and human rights activist, Kuldip Nayar. The book published by Konark Publications was released on June 26, the 38th anniversary of the Emergency, to an audience of journalists, authors and democratic rights activists at New Delhi’s India International (…)