Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• A Pre - and Post - Budget Analysis

  27 March 2012, by Anshuman Gupta

  Pre-Budget Outlook
  The Budget is very significant for an economy. It gives the direction to the economy by presenting the statement of its total expenditures and revenues, and initiating the new economic programmes. Though its importance has scaled down after 1991 as a result of the pro-market reforms’ programme, it still holds a significant position for the businesses.
  This year the Budget is important for more than one reason. It is the second last Budget for the present government (…)

• Ill Winds of Change?

  27 March 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  A midst extraordinary effusion of anxiety and interest, the long-awaited Budget was presented to Parliament on July 24.
  The anxiety over it came from the high-voltage advance publicity about the country having reached the threshold of bankruptcy from which it could be saved by that mother of all money-lenders, the IMF. And interest in the Budget was generated by the expectation that it would set the lines of modernising our economy through structural changes so that (…)

• He Marched to Death

  27 March 2012, by Bejoy Kumar Sinha

  The eightyfirst anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh falls on March 23 this year. On that day in 1931 he was executed alongwith his comrades, Rajguru and Sukhdev. Bhagat Singh’s birth centenary was befittingly observed on September 28, 2007. We are paying homage to the abiding memory of that indomitable revolutionary by presenting the following piece. The writer was a close associate of Bhagat Singh and sentenced to transportation for life as his casemate. In this article he (…)

• Content of the Leaflet thrown in the Central Assembly Hall by Bhagat Singh

  27 March 2012

  “It takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear. With these immortal words uttered on a similar occasion by Valiant, a French anarchist martyr, do we strongly justify this action of ours.
  “Without repeating the humiliating history of the past ten years of the working of the reforms (Montague-Chelmsford Reforms) and without mentioning the insults hurled at the Indian nation through this House—the-so-called Indian Parliament—we want to point out that, while the people are expecting some more (…)

• Is the Congress a Carbon Copy of the BJP?

  27 March 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  Numbers are important in a parliamentary system and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assertion that he has them should be assuring to the ruling Congress. After its debacle in the State elections of UP and Punjab, the party’s anxiety is understan-dable.
  Yet the annoyance by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee can reduce the numbers. Her Trinamul Congress party has 19 members in the Lok Sabha. She has already given a notice for amendment in the presidential address which mentioned the (…)

• Beware of the Invasion!

  27 March 2012, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  This is not the marauding army of a Nadir Shah or Genghis Khan debauching into the plains of Punjab after crossing the Khyber Pass and the river Indus and its tributaries. Compared to the lethal effects of the impending invasion, the destructive power of those armies was negligible. They excelled in savagery, brutality and cruelty; but as they did not have any weapon of mass destruction, their damaging capabilities were limited compared to those at present. This invasion is already on though (…)

• Economic Ideas of Lohia: Some Aspects

  27 March 2012, by Anil Kumar Jain, Parul Gupta

  (March 23 this year marks the 102nd birth anniversary of that stormy petrel of Indian politics, Socialist leader Rammanohar Lohia. On this occasion we remember him by carrying the following articles.)
  Introduction
  Dr Rammanohar Lohia (March 23, 1910-October 12, 1967) was one of the most original and self-reflective thinkers of India, a man of action and a freedom fighter who participated in the Satyagraha Movement at the age of ten. He was gentle in manner and wore a unostentatious and (…)

• Need to Remember Jaipal Singh

  27 March 2012

  COMMUNICATION
  A.K. Biswas, in his article, “Jaipal Singh Munda”, had provided many unknown facets of Jaipal Singh (Mainstream, Vol 50, No. 9, February 10-14, 2012), whom I consider the real successor to Birsa Munda, a freedom fighter. The grateful people of Bihar had established an agricultural university in his name in Ranchi, the heartland of the Adivasis. My generation knows Jaipal Singh not only as the captain of the Indian Olympic Hockey team, but also as one of the tallest leaders of (…)

• Summons for the Global Community: Perceptions of Lohia on Caste and Gender

  27 March 2012

  MANISHA MISHRA
  “…. It is impossible to impart vigour to the country’s politics unless the uneducated are given a proper place in the leadership”. —Rammanohar Lohia1
  March 23, 2012 marks the 102nd birth anniversary of that legend of Indian politics, who had dedicated his whole life for the emancipation of the disadvantaged and marginalised classes. On this occasion, there has been a renewed political curiosity and awareness about the versatile personality of Rammanohar Lohia, the depth of (…)

• India-Russia-China Pipeline: A Tribute to BRICS

  27 March 2012

  SANJAY DESHPANDE and MANENDRA SAHU
  The twentyfirst century is witnessing a slow shift in power from the West to the East. The fast growth in ‘emerging economies’ like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, commonly referred to as BRICS, is responsible for this change. The growth in these economies is taking place when the nations of Europe are still struggling to come out of the 2008 economic meltdown. In the days ahead, the group of BRICS is going to become much stronger. A close (…)