Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace [Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal] Bill, 2012

  4 May 2013

  by Nilima Chandiramani
  The Sexual Harassment of Women at Work-place [Prevention, Prohibition & Redressal] Bill, 2012 was passed by the Lok Sabha on September 3, 2012. It emanated from the Supreme Court Guidelines laid down in Vishaka’s case of 1997.
  Sexual harassment at workplace is not just a personal injury to the woman but it violates her fundamental right to equality and right to life and to live with dignity. These rights are universally recognised as Human Rights by (…)

• Biswas recommends Legal Protection for Women, not Caste-ending Democratic Revolution

  4 May 2013

  COMMUNICATION
  A.K. Biswas is the only well-known person from elitist West Bengal, who is fighting for the SCs, STs and lowly OBCs. His paper ‘Is India the Most Dangerous Place for Dalit Women?’ in Mainstream, February 9, 2013, furnishes harrowing tales of caste oppressions of SC and ST women and he does not fail to note that the irresistibility of these atrocities lies in the caste and land might of the oppressors.
  On October 27, 2012 The New York Times broke the news,
  ....Dabra, the (…)

• Swami Vivekananda: A Life Divine

  4 May 2013

  by Sudhanshu Tripathi
  Swami Vivekananda endeavoured throughout his life to see God face to face and for this end he got the blessings of his guru, Swami Ramkrishnaparam-hans.Although apparently an iconoclast in the early years prior to coming into contact with his guru, he was reformist to the core of his heart always craving for welfare of the downtrodden and hapless humanity since the very beginning. He progressed well with his missionary devotion of spiritual perfection as well as (…)

• Face of Multi-dimensional Crisis

  28 April 2013, by SC

  The last few days’ developments have caused serious concern in the country as a whole at one level while shocking the citizens’ conscience and psyche at another. In such a situation one is left wondering whether the post-independence project of building a modern democratic nation-state has turned into an exercise in futility.
  Precisely four months after the horrific gangrape of a 23-year-old young woman in a moving bus in the Capital city engendered spontaneous, unfor-eseen protests in (…)

• We Seldom Enforce Laws, That’s Why: Rape Victims Are Still Victimised

  28 April 2013, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  From every nook of India these days, we hear one question: Will anything come out of all this? It is actually more than a question. It is a cry from the heart. An anguished people, filled with anger and disgust and helplessness over the Delhi rape horror, are asking whether their collective sobbing will bear any fruit. Never since 1947 has a crime aroused such passions as this one. But where are the answers?
  By now we know that the luckless girl in Delhi was not merely (…)

• Justice Verma and his Legacy

  28 April 2013

  TRIBUTE
  by Rajeev Dhavan
  No obituary notice can do justice to Justice J.S. Verma. A judge for over 25 years, Chief Justice of India (CJI), Chairman, National Human Rights Commission, (NHRC), Verma Commission on Security Lapses, Verma Commission on Rape Laws. The list is endless. Many judges hanker for post-retirement jobs, Justice Verma did not. A CJI has to chair the NHRC. He did not ask for the job, but did a good job. He earned no money from post-retirement practice or arbitrations. (…)

• Bofors Deal, CBI, Coal Blocks Allotment

  28 April 2013, by Kuldip Nayar

  The spat between the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the new tranche of WikiLeaks, alleging former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to have negotiated for the Swedish jet, is understandable when the country is on the brink of general elections. According to the latest bunch of US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks, Rajiv Gandhi may have been a middleman for the Swedish company, Saab-Scania, when it was trying to sell its Viggen fighter aircraft to India in the seventies. (…)

• Aping the Adversary

  28 April 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  It is surprising how intelligent people in politics sometimes take up positions which should logically belong to their adversaries.
  The Muslim League in 1940 picked up the so-called ‘two-nation theory’ which a bunch of extremist intellectuals had first coined to back up their demand for Pakistan. Other parties in India rejected it. The Congress made it clear that it did not accept the theory itself though it agreed to the partitioning of the country on the basis of (…)

• The Great Land Rush: Fake Consensus at All-party Meet

  28 April 2013, by Sandhya Jain

  Farmers bodies are gearing up to oppose the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011, which was supposedly amended to improve compensation to farmers under directions from Congress party President Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, as the new draft perverts the meaning of “public purpose” to benefit multinationals and facilitate creation of special economic zones for private industry.
  The Bill, reportedly cleared by an all-party meeting on April 18, as a (…)

• In the Service of the Prime Minister

  28 April 2013

  by Arun Srivastava
  From funding the elections to choosing the prime ministerial candidate, the corporate sector has acquired enormous political power and has, in the process, emerged as the sole determinant factor of the destiny of India. Never before in the 66 years of independent India had any prime ministerial candidate to walk on the ramps of the corporate houses as recently Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi had to do at the FICCI and CII meets on the plea of elucidating their views and (…)