Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Spanish Language in India: Opportunity or Explosion?

  30 April 2012

  by ESTEFANÍA PADILLA VELOZ
  Who is learning Spanish in India these days? If it takes you more than five seconds to answer this question, let us work on your blindfold. With 329 million native speakers, Spanish language has proven to be one of the most important languages in the business field, due to growing interaction between India and the Spanish-speaking countries.
  Let´s have a brief look at where India stands at the moment. In terms of world economic growth, Asia in general has (…)

• ’Acting Is My Life’: Zohra Segal

  30 April 2012

  Zohra Segal, the grand old lady of Indian dance and theatre, is turning 100 this week—she was born on April 27, 1912. She was the leading actress and dancer with the Prithvi Theatre, Bombay from 1945 to 1959. She has to her credit scores of feature films in India and abroad. One of her sisters, Azra Butt, also a prominent actress with the Prithvi Theatre, migrated to Pakistan where she was a noted stage actress; she has now passed away.
  More than twenty years ago, when Zohra was doing a (…)

• A Meaningful Proposal

  14 April 2012, by SC

  The outcome of the India-Pakistan summit meeting in New Delhi on April 8 has offered a new ray of hope in restoring the bilateral cooperative relationship.
  PM Manmohan Singh needs to be complimented for seizing the opportunity when Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari conveyed his desire for a private visit to Ajmer Sharif and hosting a luncheon meeting with the Pakistani leader in the Capital last Sunday. Although detailed discussions were not to be expected in so short a trip, the (…)

• A Partisan Government

  14 April 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  At the height of an Akali agitation in the eighties, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, then out of office, reached Delhi under the guise of a truck driver and burnt a copy of the Indian Constitution. He personally did not agree with his Akali party’s fiat but went along with the decision as a disciplined soldier. Subsequently, he regretted his act of burning the document.
  I don’t know whether Badal has felt the same way after filing a mercy petition to the President on the (…)

• Message of the CPI Congress

  14 April 2012

  by BISHWAJIT SEN
  The 21st CPI Congress (March 27-31, 2012) came at a time when the ruling UPA-II is losing its credibility fast in the public mind. The host to the party Congress was the Bihar unit of the CPI which, with limited resources, managed things extremely well. The credit for this goes to the Bihar leadership of the CPI and specially its unassuming Secretary, Badri Narayan Lall, a Communist of long standing and firm convictions. Their efforts made the CPI visible in Bihar again. A (…)

• CPI-M’s Twentieth Congress

  14 April 2012, by Barun Das Gupta

  The CPI-M held its Twentieth Congress at Kozhikode in Kerala from April 4 to 9. The words ’

• The Importance of Remembering

  14 April 2012, by Nandita Haksar

  The Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi phoned to inform me that Bangladesh had decided to recognise my father, Parmeshwar Narain Haksar’s contribution to the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971. Would I accept their invitation to go to Dhaka and accept the Friends of Liberation War Honour as his daughter?
  I asked for two days’ time to think over. I had just returned from a gruelling 105-day trip of the North-East region of India where the problem of influx of illegal migrants from (…)

• How the Indira-Abdullah Accord was Signed in 1974

  14 April 2012, by Balraj Puri

  In 1964, after the sudden death of Pandit Nehru, Sheikh Abdullah returned from Pakistan, cutting his journey short. I went to the Delhi airport to receive him. After landing, he told me to take him first to Nehru’s samadhi.
  He was so stunned by the tragic news that he could hardly utter a brief sentence. He said that had he known that Panditji’s death was so near, he need not have gone to Pakistan. He had got full agreement there on all points.
  I just said: “Be sure you do not miss the (…)

• The Fishermen’s ‘Dilemma’ between India and Italy

  14 April 2012

  by SAMUEL J. KURUVILLA
  The alleged ‘counter-piracy’ incident that happened in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Kollam in Kerala several weeks ago does not show any sign of ending. This ‘incident’ resulted in the death of two innocent Malayalee fishermen who had set out in a boat along with nine other fishermen from the Neendakara fishing harbour near Kollam. The incident blew into a major diplomatic row between India and Italy as the culprits responsible for the death of the two fisher-men (…)

• Human Rights in Sri Lanka — A Perennial Question Mark

  14 April 2012, by Apratim Mukarji

  Twenty years ago Mahinda Rajapaksa was a fiercely dedicated human rights lawyer and, along with Mangala Samaraweera, a pillar of strength to Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike who was heading the Mothers’ Front in southern Sri Lanka. The latter was a frontal organisation to fight for justice for the thousands of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) members killed by the Sri Lankan Army and police in their successful campaign against the Sinhala nationalist-terrorist force.
  Among his many qualities like (…)