Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Nikhilda and his Concerns

  1 July 2013

  by H.K. Dua
  Nikhil Chakravartty’s journalism came out of his concern for the country. He would have been worried about both if he was around. Both the nation as well as the media are losing a sense of direction, values and character, required to retain the people’s confidence.
  He was certainly one of the most respected journalists of his time, admired by peers of different persuasions, intellectuals, political leaders of different political parties, and NGOs, not only of India, but the (…)

• Journalism’s Finest Hour

  1 July 2013, by T J S George

  Remembering departed polestars like Nikhil Chakravartty is not pat of the rather tiresome old-is-gold syndrome. Much of the new is also gold—the net that puts knowledge at one’s fingertip, the mobile that turns one’s pocket into an office, the incredible universe of apps. Yet we need to cherish the old because it provides what technology still cannot: a sense of values without which humans lose their humanity. The age of Nikhil Chakravartty—and of Frank Moraes and Chalapathi Rao, of Shamlal (…)

• On Nikhil Chakravartty’s 15th Death Anniversary

  1 July 2013, by Neerja Chowdhury

  Undoubtedly, the media challenges today are very different from the ones that were faced by the previous generation of journalists. It is a new scene altogether with the competitiveness of 24-hour channels, the compulsion to “break” news—and many channels openly take credit for it, so as to woo more viewers—the “hunger” of the corporate houses to use the media for purposes different than the dissemination of news.
  There is the new technology, which facilitates quick access to information, (…)

• N.C.—the Idealist and Model Journalist

  1 July 2013, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  In 1940, just after doing my matriculation, I received several back issues of Calcutta’s Presidency College magazine, through the courtesy of two co-villagers who were then studying at Presidency College. Those back issues were edited by one Nikhilnath Chakravartty. The college had a tradition of appointing as the editor if its college magazine, a student who had put up a brilliant academic performance in the year just past. This was perhaps the said college’s way of grooming students as (…)

• A Gentle Colossus!

  1 July 2013, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  There is no contradiction in terms in describing a gentleman as a gentle colossus. Colossus only indicates the stature. It does not refer to any quality of refinement or rudeness. Nikhil Chakravartty, who was born a year before World War I started, lived through the tumultous events of the twentieth century imbibing both its froth and the essence of its refinement. He was quintessentially a twentieth century intellectual.
  Son of a well-off family of the then Calcutta, the second largest (…)

• On Nikhilda

  1 July 2013, by Barun Das Gupta

  Nikhilda was brought into journalism by Puran Chandra Joshi, better known as P.C. Joshi, during the Bengal famine of 1943. Joshi was the General Secretary of the CPI at that time. Before that, for a brief period, Nikhilda had taught History in the Calcutta University. Under Joshi’s guidance, several other young Communist activists contributed their best during that period and earned a name for themselves in their respective fields, like Sunil Janah as a photographer who chronicled the famine (…)

• The Roots of the Emergency

  1 July 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  As years pass by, one after the other, the past recedes more and more into distant memory. There are certain events in the life of a nation as of individuals, to which distance does not lend enchantment to the view. Rather the ugly visage falls into the pattern of historical evolution and lives on as such. One such event in our lifetime, and in our very land was the Emergency which was promulgated on June 25-26, twenty years ago.
  Twenty years is but a short space in (…)

• Emergency (1975-77) Mainstream’s Rewarding Struggle

  1 July 2013

  To mark the passage of thirtyeight years since the imposition of Emergency by Indira Gandhi on June 25-26, 1975, we reproduce some extracts from the story of “Mainstream’s Journey Through Emergency” which was published in the June 25, 1977 issue of this journal. —Editor
  The story of Mainstream during the nineteen months of Emergency is both exciting and rewarding. It has many lessons to impart. The confrontation with a despotic authority could not possibly be direct and formal: by its very (…)

• Emergency Then and Situation Now

  1 July 2013, by Kuldip Nayar

  India should never forget certain days in its history. One of them is June 26 when the Emergency was imposed late at night 38 years ago. The lights of personal freedom were switched off and the nation was left to grope in the darkness of dictatorship. The Constitution was suspended, the press gagged and liberty stamped out. The government became an illegal authority to harass, harm, detain and whatever went with it to silence critics. All this happened because the then Prime Minister, Indira (…)

• Advani, Modi, Vajpayee

  1 July 2013, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  This entire episode around L.K. Advani seems layered. Even the politically naïve can under-stand that Advani has not been allowed to resign. No, just not allowed to break free from the controlling powers of his political party. As though, somehow forced to keep that mask intact, to keep up that façade of togetherness of the Right-wing brigades.
  There seems a complicated build-up… an ongoing one. Probably Advani couldn’t cope with the frustration of being sidelined and wanted to (…)