Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Union Budget 2013 - 2014: Look at the Components of Fiscal Deficit, Mr Chidambaram

  10 March 2013, by Bharat Jhunjhunwala

  Finance Minister P. Chidambaram stressed during presentation of the Budget that the fiscal deficit should be kept in control in order to attain high growth rates. He has not made large increases in outlays in order to keep the fiscal deficit under control. The government is much concerned that international rating agencies may downgrade India if the fiscal deficit is not kept under control. A downgrade may lead to the foreign investors fleeing and that would bring the UPA crashing down. The (…)

• A Book-keeper’s Exercise

  10 March 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  It’s like a political rope trick, Chidambaram’s maiden Budget as the Finance Minister of the United Front Government. Everyone from V.P. Singh and Somnath Chatterjee to the captains of the corporate giants have praised it and the Finance Minister coiuld go home in peace, as he has been anointed by the media as “Thiruvallu-var’s Disciple”. Indeed a long way that the young politician has travelled from the day when he promptly quit as the Commerce Minister to avoid being (…)

• Why Harass and Penalise the Buyers?

  10 March 2013

  COMMUNICATION
  Chidambaram’s proposal to burden the buyer with the requirement of deducting tax at source at one per cent, where the value of immovable property purchased exceeds Rs 50 lakhs, will be a harassment to most of the individual buyers, for they will have to seek professional assistance to comply with the relative formalities like obtaining the TAN and filing the TDS return. It would be wiser if the seller collects the tax (TCS), instead of the buyer deducting it. In any case, the (…)

• The Devaluation of Women’s Work

  10 March 2013

  by JAYANTI ALAM
  Of all the Human Rights a woman or the “inferior” human being can think of, it is the right to work or an income-generating work that can perhaps give her an upward social mobility and an awareness of her freedom. Work is of greatest significance for women. However much the right to work or employment is not a Fundamental Right in our Constitution, however much women’s household work is not recognised while calculating the nation’s GDP and however much women are invariably (…)

• Muslim Women and Minority Rights in India

  10 March 2013

  by MONICA MUNJIAL and POONAM KAUSHIK
  India is one of the largest democracies in the world. It also has one of the largest minorities. A true democracy ensures not only individual rights but also rights of minorities as a community. Our Constitution has laid down in Articles 25 to 30 the rights of religious, cultural and linguistic minorities and thus made India a truly democratic and pluralist nation.
  There was, however, a big gap between noble intentions and actual realisation. The (…)

• Silent Revolution In Bihar And Women’s Empowerment

  10 March 2013, by Satish Kumar

  Of late 580 well-trained women are ready to move into the most difficult terrain of Bihar, the mostly Naxal-infested Rohatas district and its surrounding areas. These brave women were trained as the first female battalion of the military police with a twin purpose. One, to fight against the Maoists in the different districts, and two, to address the steeply increasing violence and criminal activities against the female populace. Nitish Kumar believes that women’s battalion depicts women’s (…)

• Social Justice for Inclusion

  10 March 2013, by Arvind Kumar

  BOOK REVIEW
  Non-discrimination and Equality in India: Contesting Boundaries of Social Justice by Vidhu Verma; New York: Routledge; 2012; xv+pp.269; £ 85.00 $36, hdbk; ISBN: 978-0-415-67775-2
  The book under review is an unprecedented work on the subject as it has set an agenda in the very opening line of the introduction that the concept of social justice is familiar to most Indians but one whose meaning is not always understood as it signifies a variety of government strategies designed (…)

• Why Do We Need Parliament?

  10 March 2013

  by M. MANISHA
  The recent debates surrounding parlia-mentary inefficacy raise several important, but unanswered, questions: why don’t MPs participate in parliamentary proceedings on a regular basis? Why do they actively obstruct parliamentary work? Has the inefficiency of Parliament led to the rise of alternative forums of deliberation? If so, what are these and are they capable of building legitimate democratic consensus?
  It is popularly believed that MPs are least interested in (…)

• Japan Under Abe: New Challenges

  10 March 2013, by Rajaram Panda

  Introduction
  Japan went to the polls on December 16, 2012 to elect members to the Lower House of the Diet, the more powerful of the two legislative bodies, and elected Abe Shinzo of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) with a two-thirds majority, thereby ending the three-year honeymoon in power by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which saw three Prime Ministers, all ineffective in their own ways. Abe is the seventh Prime Minister in six years, a record that no democratic country can feel (…)

• Behind the CPI-M’s Victory in Tripura

  10 March 2013

  by SHOUVIK CHANDA
  The CPI-M has returned to power in Tripura with a decisive victory. However, certain facts need to be brought into focus.
  On February 12 at a press conference in Agartala, the CPI-M’s Tripura State Committee Secretary Bijon Dhar had assured that all the demands of the State Government employees would be met once the party came back to power. All the major city newspapers flashed the news on February 13 only to find the State Party Secretary turning (…)