Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Maoist Depredation in Junglemahal

  31 January 2012, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  The word ‘depredation’ is being used here deliberately. A movement connotes a large degree of political or social activities or even crusade involving the masses for a definite good purpose. What had been happening in the Junglemahal till the death of Kishenji was a series of individual killings, extortion of money, torture of innocent villagers and forcible recruitment of young men and women for the Maoist cadre. And what were all these for? To increase the area of influence of the CPI (…)

• How Real is the China Threat to India?

  31 January 2012, by Amitava Mukherjee

  It is now high time to admit that a terrible confusion has gripped the corridors of power in Delhi so far as India’s China policy is concerned. While the top brass of the Army has been cautioning the political leadership against China’s ultimate design, a powerful section of the bureaucracy that includes the National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon now openly main-tains an obsequious attitude towards China. [Recently in a public lecture the NSA was heard saying: “Why create (…)

• Waiting for the Indian Spring

  31 January 2012, by T J S George

  LOOKING BACK ON 2011
  Now that the celebratory mood of the New Year has passed, we can take a cool look at what 2011 did to 2012. It did bad things on the business front: growth slowdown, euro crisis, rupee’s fall and so on. The ill effects of these will continue to haunt much of the world, triggering not only protectionist policies already initiated in America, but also hate crimes in White countries against non-Whites.
  The dead year also did something historically portentous: It (…)

• On the Threshold of a Milestone

  27 December 2011, by SC

  With this Annual Number Mainstream completes fortynine years of its eventful journey through crests and troughs to step into the fiftieth year of its modest existence.
  It has doubtless been a purposeful voyage with all the trials and tribulations it had to encounter on its path which was indeed quite arduous due to its resource-constraints in particular. The difficulties have continued to mount over the years as the nation’s politico-economic scenario has undergone a sea-change with money (…)

• Welcome Home, Goa!

  27 December 2011, by P.C. Joshi

  [(The following lead piece was written by that outstanding Communist leader P.C. Joshi, the first General Secretary of the CPI, in the party’s weekly organ, New Age, on December 24, 1961, five days after Goa’s liberation from Portuguese colonialism. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of that momentous event, we are reproducing, with due acknowledgement, this piece alongwith a reportage on Goa’s liberation by journalist-cum-academic Raza Ali, also published in New Age (January 7, (…)

• March to Panjim

  27 December 2011

  by RAZA ALI
  Panjim, December 21—The lush, luxuriant wild beauty that is Goa has risen and gripped our entire country these days in a close embrace, as it were.
  The story of the triumphant march of our Army to bring Goa back home is known already. But close upon the heels of our Army, a bare six hours behind the advancing line, was a batch of people from places near and faraway from Goa, who had found their way to Panjim to celebrate Goa’s liberation together with the Goanese and our own (…)

• Indo Pak War of 1971 - Some Not-so-public Facts

  27 December 2011, by Rajindar Sachar

  The recently declassified documents of the 1971 war between India and Pakistan have without any doubt established the fact of the absolute tilt of US President Nixon and Kissinger against India.
  This hostile aggressive stand taken by Nixon was sought to be justified under the false premise that Indira Gandhi was right from the beginning determined to attack East Bengal. This, however, was a lie and Nixon, above all the people, knew that on the other hand she had tried her best to avoid (…)

• Lines on the Massacres in East Pakistan, March 1971

  27 December 2011, by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

  This is how my sorrow became visible: in dust, piling up for years in my heart, finally reached my eyes, the bitterness now so clear that I had to listen when my friends told me to wash my eyes with blood Everything at once was tangled in blood--- each face, each idol, red everywhere. Blood swept over the sun, washing away its gold. The moon erupted with blood, its silver extinguished. The sky promised a morning of blood, and the night wept only blood.... Let it flow. Should it be dammed (…)

• New Stature, New Tasks | Meaning of Mujib

  27 December 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  Both India and Bangladesh have on December 16 this year befittingly observed and celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the liberation, with New Delhi’s generous and unstinted assistance, of what was known as East Pakistan from the exploitative and oppressive West Pakistani yoke. On this occasion we are carrying two pieces by N.C. that appeared in Mainstream soon after Dhaka’s emancipation from Islamabad’s brutal rule. The first piece appeared as ‘Political Notebook’ (…)

• Looking Back on December 16, 1971

  27 December 2011

  by SUKHARANJAN SENGUPTA
  Anticipating the imminent fall of Dacca and the surrender of nearly a lakh of Pakistani troops to the Indian Army at any moment, my photographer colleague Ganesh and I (both of us were representing the Bengali daily Jugantar) left Calcutta for Silchar in Assam on December 15, 1971.
  From Silchar we proceeded to Agartala, Tripura’s capital, which was one of the main operational theatres of the Indian armed forces to help liberate tens of millions of (…)