Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Freedom of Religion

  18 February 2013, by Eduardo Faleiro

  Religion has emerged as a major source of conflict in the post-Cold War era all across the globe. A perceptive writer points out that ideological strife has now given place to the “clash of civilisations” and predicts that in the foreseeable future, religion will be a major source of conflict within and among nations.
  Samuel Huntington asserts that possibilities of conflict are greater in what he calls the “fault-lines of civilisation”, those areas such as India, where different cultures (…)

• When the State abets Communalism, Independence itself is in Danger

  18 February 2013, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  The soul of modern India is its liberal demo-cracy. Are we in danger of losing it? Communal posturings are getting ever more blatant. Caste leaders are defying the law openly. Intolerance is flaunted as a badge of honour. The government is a bystander, its inaction amounting to abetment.
  We won’t be alone if we turn democracy into a mockery. Sukarno, the hero of Indonesia’s freedom struggle, became a demagogue when he got power and proclaimed what he called “guided (…)

• Russia: What is there in the name ‘Stalingrad’?

  18 February 2013, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The famous scene from the Hollywood film Enemy at the Gates captured the zeitgeist well, when addressing a room full of the Soviet military officers right on the Stalingrad front in World War II, the newly-appointed Commissar of the Red Army, Nikita Khrushchev, who was sent by Joseph Stalin specially to stem the retreat in the face of the German assault, shouts:
  “My name is Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. I’ve come to take things in hand here. This city… is not Kursk, nor is it Kiev, nor (…)

• China: From ‘Revolution’ to Reform and Market

  18 February 2013, by Anil Rajimwale

  That is how the Chinese put it: ‘from revolution to reform and market’. Market, reform and ‘getting rich’ are the buzz-words in China today as it is undergoing massive changes and is emerging as an economic power. When asked about them, the academics and leaders in China explain that their country is going through a transition from ‘revolution and class struggle’ to reform, market and harmonious development. There is less of ideological Marx and Mao and more of pragmatic Deng and Hu combined (…)

• India - China Relations — A Closer Look

  18 February 2013

  by O.P. Sabherwal
  From the scenario of the sixties, let me recall an episode in October 1960 that is of contem-porary relevance. The then Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai, on his last visit to India, addressed a press conference comprising some 300 Indian and foreign journalists on the roof-top of Rashtrapati Bhavan. The theme: India-China boundary dispute and its solution.
  It was a lucid and comprehensive solution that the Chinese leader proposed. This, in substance, is what Zhou Enlai put (…)

• The Valley of Incongruities

  18 February 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Whatever may be the substance of the much-advertised point of difference between Peking and Washington over the question of détente, it may be safely assumed that Gerald Ford’s talks with Mao Tse-tung and his cohorts explored the further potentialities of Sino-American collusion, particularly in the countries of the Third World. Angola shows the enormity of this entente while the happenings in Bangladesh underscores this danger in our immediate neighbourhood.
  The (…)

• CPI on the Hanging of Afzal Guru

  18 February 2013

  The Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of India has issued the following statement to the press.
  The secretive hanging of Afzal Guru, a secondary accused in the Parliament attack case, and certain irregularities in completing the judicial process have expectedly created controversy and strengthened the feeling of injustice resulting in further alienation in the Kashmir Valley.
  As reported in the media, the authorities did not wait for completion of the judicial process after (…)

• Media Scene Today

  18 February 2013, by Anees Chishti

  To mark fifty years of Mainstream, a panel discussion was held at the India International Centre, New Delhi on January 29, 2013; the topic was “Indian Media Scene Today: Potential and Reality”. Those who spoke on the subject were Kuldip Nayar, Nikhil Dey, Medha Patkar, Bharat Dogra, and Suhas Borker was the moderator. Anees Chishti, one of the panelists, could not attend as he was indisposed, but he sent the following piece as his contribution to the discussion. However, it could not be read (…)

• Greetings to Mainstream

  18 February 2013

  The following message of greetings were received for the January 29, 2013 meeting in the Capital to mark Mainstream’s fifty years.
  Thank you so much for the invitation. In fact I was thinking of it today. I am slightly unhappy because I am missing something I was so eager to attend. But I feel proud that I and my husband have written in Mainstream for more than forty years at least. I remember Nikhilda and Chitta Ranjan on this occasion.
  January 24, 2013 Thiruvananthapuram
  K. (…)

• Ominous Portents in Troubled Times

  15 February 2013, by SC

  “From Kashmir to Delhi, Intolerance Cuts Across Religious Boundaries”—read The Times of India’s February 5 frontpage headline over two reports of (i) J&K’s first all-girl rock band quitting after online threat by conservatives on social media and the Valley’s Grand Mufti Bashiruddin’s fatwa against the band’s public performance; and (ii) an art exhibition in the Capital coming under attack from a fringe Rightwing group (the VHP’s Durga Vahini) that branded the paintings as ‘provocative’ (…)