Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• No Humans in Modi’s "Development"

  7 April 2013, by Mukul Dube

  Narendra Modi of the RSS is an ambitious man who seems to want to become the Prime Minister of the country. His propaganda machine never speaks of the violence in 2002 in the State he ruled and rules, but it constantly plugs his hand in its development. I do not propose here to question the claims of development that he makes or which are made for him. Better qualified people have done that and have shown that these claims are based on sleight of hand or on outright lies. I shall only look (…)

• Bangladesh: Battle for a New Future

  25 March 2013, by SC

  Developments within the country and in our neighbourhood have moved at a fast pace in recent days. The DMK’s decision to sever its ties with the UPA and walk out of the ruling coalition at the Centre slamming the Government of India’s apparently indifferent attitude on the issue of what has been legitimately perceived by public opinion in Tamil Nadu as ‘genocide’ of Tamil citizens perpetrated by the Sri Lankan armed forces under the direct orders of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and New (…)

• Reconfiguring Bangladesh - India Relations: A Masochist’s Fantasy Or Tilting At Windmills?

  25 March 2013

  by TARIQ A. KARIM
  At the time when the offer of this assignment as High Commissioner of Bangladesh to India was made to me in mid-2009, I was in a think-tank in Bangladesh1 where my primary focus of attention was on how to improve relations with India and how to promote sub-regional cooperation in the region which I inhabited for the overall betterment of the lives of its people. After consulting some close friends and my wife and children, I decided to accept the offer, knowing full well (…)

• From People’s Court To Shahbag Square

  25 March 2013

  by SHAHRIAR KABIR
  The mass upsurge of Shahbag has passed 30 days. Not only at Shahbag, the people’s rally has maintained continuity from Chittagong to Dinajpur and from Sylhet to Khulna, that is, in most of the districts, without any active support from any politcal party or any other organisation. Some of the foreign journalists have compared this spontaneous people’s uprising with that of Tahrir Square of Egypt, some with the upsurge of Anna Hazare in India and the movement for (…)

• Behind BNP-Jamaat’s Onslaughts
 on the Shahbag Movement

  25 March 2013, by Manas Ghosh

  The euphoria that the Shahbag Square movement had generated all over Bangladesh over a month ago is clearly on the wane in the face of murderous onslaughts unleashed by the pro-Pakistani Islamists who have threatened to wage a civil war so as to bring down Sheikh Hasina’s democratically elected government. Already Begum Khaleda Zia, leader of the pro-Pakistan Islamist alliance, is on record saying that her alliance’s one-point programme was to wage an unceasing movement against the so-called (…)

• Indo-Bangladesh Economic Relations

  25 March 2013, by Muchkund Dubey

  Economics has played a significant role in the bilateral relations between India and Bangladesh. The economic relations between the two countries have been multifaceted, embracing trade transactions, credit arrange-ments, joint ventures, transit facilities and transport development. These relations have continued and expanded even in situations of adverse political relations. This is mainly because of the operation of objective factors like geographical proximity, common language, similarity (…)

• India-Bangladesh Energy Cooperation: Historic Newer Trends

  25 March 2013

  by MAHENDRA P. LAMA
  Energy security is emerging to be one of the most critical issues in the South Asia region. Disruption of power and other energy supplies can lead to serious crisis affecting both human (food, livelihood, employment and economy) and national security (environment, inter-national trade communications, transport and all other services). The inability to cater to the increasing industrial and other commercial needs have adversely affected their productive activities, (…)

• Terrible Impact of Cold-blooded Massacres

  25 March 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The following lines were written by N.C. fortyone years ago after his first visit to Dacca (as it was than spelled) following the liberation of East Pakistan and emergence of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. These constituted the first of his three-part ‘Dacca Jottings’ in Mainstream (February 1972). These lines bring out the enormity of the crimes committed by the Pak Army in East Pakistan after its crackdown on March 26, 1971 (which is currently observed as Bangladesh’s National Day), and just before its final surrender on December 16, 1971 in particular.

• Political Economy of Fundamentalism in Bangladesh

  24 March 2013

  by ABUL BARKAT
  Abstract: The genesis of Islam reveals the liberal and humanistic origin of Islam in East Bengal. But this liberal-humanistic Islam has turned into “Political Islam” mainly due to three major regressive transformations associated with the emergence of the “religious doctrine-based Pakistan State” (in 1947), failure to punish the ‘war criminals’ (in the 1971 War of Independence), and legitimisation of commu-nalism by replacing ‘secularism’ with “Islam as state religion” in (…)

• What does the War Crimes Trial portend for the Future of Bangladesh?

  24 March 2013

  by SMRUTI S. PATTANAIK
  More than forty years after the independence of Bangladesh, the war crimes trial has assumed newer significance. The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), that was formed in 2009 after four decades of waiting, has now started to deliver its verdict after cross-examining the victims and their family members who suffered at the hands of their countrymen. It is believed that the conclusion of these long pending trials will help the nation advance towards a historic (…)