Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• UK’s Visa-Bond Idea can be Countered if Delhi is Not a Boneless Wonder

  7 July 2013, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Margaret Thatcher was tougher and more imperialistic than Britain’s present Prime Minister, David Cameron, can ever be.
  Back in the 1980s the Iron Lady tried to make some easy money by raising the tuition fees of foreign students in England. Most countries took it lying down. But Malaysia was not amused.
  Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed was a medical doctor and a soft-spoken genteel personality to boot. But he had more iron in him than the reputed Lady of London. He was (…)

• US Loses Lone Base in Central Asia

  7 July 2013, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The geopolitics of Central Asia has begun shifting in anticipation of the NATO forces ending their combat role as well as their pullout from Afghanistan and the proposed establishment of nine American military bases in that country. Kyrgyzstan last month gave the final touch to its strategic decision to demand that the US should vacate the Manas military base near the capital Bishkek by July 11, 2014.
  All signs are that Washington has accepted the Kyrgyz decision and does not propose to (…)

• A Philosophical Reflection on Spot-Fixing

  7 July 2013

  by Ashwin Jayanti
  What did the players involved in the spot-fixing scandal do wrong? Did they betray public trust? Did you feel that the entertainment you were a spectator to was staged and not genuine? Have the rules of the game been violated? Have the players set a wrong example for the people watching the show? Is it a contemptible display of the greed of the players? Most importantly, why has this resulted in such a public outrage against the players and their acts?
  Let us probe (…)

• Need for ASV in Hospitals

  7 July 2013, by Bharat Dogra

  COMMUNICATION
  It is a matter of great concern that the shortage of anti-snake venom (ASV) in government hospitals is endangering the life of snake-bite victims. This medicine is supposed to be available free to snake-bite victims (most of whom are poor) in government hospitals, but when this life-saving medicine is simply not available, snake-bite victims are pushed into a helpless situation. Many deaths are caused due to this.
  At the time of the arrival of the monsoon hospitals should (…)

• In the Wake of Uttarakhand’s Tragedy

  1 July 2013, by SC

  Last week one had tried to bring into focus just an idea of the tragedy that accompanied the disaster wrought by nature in Uttarakhand. In the past seven days the magnitude of what happened there has become clearer. Even as the Indian Air Force pilots and crew members along with the armed forces personnel are relentlessly carrying out the mission of rescue and evacuation of thousands of stranded pilgrims and tourists from remote and inaccessible mountainous areas, Manu Pubby in The Indian (…)

• West Bengal: People’s Fatwa to Mamata

  1 July 2013

  by Arun Srivastava
  The message of the June 21 rally in Kolkata of the intellectuals, writers, poets, theatre and cinema artistes was clear and loud: “Mamata Banerjee, mend your ways. History will not forgive you.” Interestingly, the same civil society had hit the streets of Kolkata in 2007 in her support and against the killings and perpetrating torture on the innocent peasants of Nandigram by the police of the Left Front Government. This time they had come out on the city’s streets (…)

• Edward Snowden’s Wake-up Call

  1 July 2013, by S G Vombatkere

  Edward Snowden, in his courageous, principled expose, has brought out how the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on most nations in the world. This spying is clearly to establish or strengthen the USA’s political, economic and military global clout. India is the fifth-most spied-upon nation, even more than China and Russia. Considering that India is the USA’s strategic partner, spying on India is breach of faith. Iran tops the list (14 billion pieces of intelligence); then (…)

• US ‘rebalancing’ in the Hindu Kush

  1 July 2013, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The entente cordial over Afghanistan, which was the finest flower of the United States’ “reset” with Russia during Barack Obama’s first term as the President, is wilting.
  Moscow has reacted sharply to the triumphalist surprise announcement by senior officials travelling with Obama to the recent Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland regarding the commencement of Afghan peace talks in Doha—though protests from Kabul appear to have put these on hold for the time being.
  The talks (…)

• Drones, their Impact and the
Pakistani Dilemma

  1 July 2013, by Mahendra Ved

  The May 29, 2013 drone attack by the United States killing seven people including Waliur Rahman, a top leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has renewed with greater intensity than before a debate that underscores not just anger in Pakistan, but also its helplessness at being able to do little beyond lodging protests. The newly-elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took over a week to summon US Charge d’Affaires Richard Hoagland to the Foreign Office to lodge a formal (…)

• Journalists’ Journalist

  1 July 2013, by S Nihal Singh

  Nikhil Chakravartty’s fifteenth death anniversary on June 27 is an occasion not only to recall his contribution to journalism but also to juxtapose that contribution against the present-day media scene. Several leading journalists and others who knew him present their opinions in the following pieces.
  Evoking the memory of Nikhilda, as he was universally known, is to return to a different world of Indian journalism. It was in large part before the era of 24-hour television, internet news (…)