Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Some Contextual Reflections on Hind Swaraj

  2 September 2013

  by Alok Bajpai
  “It is unjust to a writer to quote against him passages from his writings without reference to the context.”1
  Here at the very outset I wish to state my vantage point about Hind Swaraj. It was not written by Gandhi as an independent philosophic text. He was a prolific writer. He wrote and spoke always with a context and according to the demands of the situation as he perceived them. All his writings have inevitable contexts and tearing any of them apart from their (…)

• Liberated

  2 September 2013, by Sagari Chhabra

  The parched earth fissured; the solitary mynah with its open beak looked sky-ward. There was no cloud in sight, the sun shone relentlessly on and on as we prayed for some rain to relieve this blighted pain.
  Yet you seemed to derive pleasure in denying us. You mocked us with your hands on your hips, a twisted smile on your lips. While we talked of global warming and climate change you switched on the air-conditioning, blocking out the news of the valley that was being exchanged.
  Forty (…)

• On the Surface They Win and They Lose, but in Real Terms, They All Lose

  2 September 2013, by T J S George

  Kerala has for long been the sick State of India, politics for the sake of politics dominating all of life, traditional strengths ebbing away and new strengths finding no avenues to develop. It is a State where the moment is mistaken for eternity. Last week the mother of all street protests created records even by Kerala’s standards. The capital city of Trivandrum overflowed with crowds such as it had never seen before. They were responding to the Left parties’ call to lay siege to the (…)

• Syria and US National Legislation: Whither Obama?

  2 September 2013

  by T.R. Choudhury
  As the situation in and around Syria worsens, the possibility of the US’ armed intervention in that country is looming large on the horizon. Washington is backed fully by the British Government of David Cameron on this issue but the latter has lost a crucial vote in the British Parliament and has thus conceded that a majority of Britons do not want to see British participation in the proposed Western intervention in Syria, something he has promised to respect. As for the (…)

• Beyond Ritualism

  18 August 2013, by SC

  We are approaching yet another Independence Day in three days time—our sixtyseventh. Once again the Prime Minister will deliver his Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort in the morning of August 15 giving an account of our achievements and our failures, our strengths and our weaknesses against the backdrop of developments across the nation and the world at large and outlining the roadmap for the future.
  For several years now this has been a routine affair, a (…)

• Towards New Horizons

  18 August 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The remembrance of the day when the sun set on the British Raj in this land of ours is more than a mere ritual to be gone through year after year. No doubt it is the day when one feels proud of being a son or daughter of India, proud of having been part and parcel of that vast concourse of humanity that forced the alien ruler out and unfurled the flag of freedom over this country which used to be described even in the British-prescribed textbooks as the epitome of the (…)

• The Partition Story

  18 August 2013, by Kuldip Nayar

  Partition of the Indian subcontinent is 66 years’ old. On August 14, 1947, the states of India and Pakistan came into being in the wake of division. Even today they have not settled down as neighbours, much less as friends. Borders are bristling with troops and clashes are inevitable. A few days ago, five men from the Indian Army were killed. The Pakistan Army may not be directly involved. But it helps the jihadis and even the Taliban in their plan to destablise India. It appears the (…)

• Think Big and Act Boldly

  18 August 2013

  by N.V.K. Murthy
  The country will soon be celebrating the 66th anniversary of its freedom. Much has happened since India became independent. Great strides have been made in the realm of industrialisation of the country. India has leap-frogged into the 21st century in certain areas like information technology. But let us accept that much more has to be achieved. Poverty, unemployment, sickness, droughts and floods stalk the country.
  When the founding fathers framed a Constitution for our (…)

• Indian Economy and the Crisis of a Borrowed Development Strategy

  18 August 2013, by Arun Kumar

  Introduction: The Current Situation
  The economic growth rate has been falling continuously while the consumer price inflation, current account deficit in the external sector and fiscal deficit in the Budget remain at high levels. The lack of confidence in the Indian economy is manifested by the sudden and sharp decline in the value of the rupee vis-a-vis the dollar in spite of the steps taken by the government and the Reserve Bank of India. The stock markets are also fluctuating wildly (…)

• Why CPI changed its Stand on Telangana’s Statehood

  18 August 2013

  by S. Sudhakar Reddy
  The decision on Telangana’s Statehood by the core committee of the UPA-II and Congress Working Committee has became a controversy in some circles. The CPI, BJP, NCP, BSP, and naturally Congress at the national level supported it, while the CPI-M, SP opposed it. As expected, the Gorkhaland and Bodoland separatist agitations intensified to pressurise the Union Government following the decision on Telangana. There are festivities in Telangana and angry agitations against (…)