Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Memories of Bangladesh Liberation War

  27 December 2011, by Barun Das Gupta

  The Beginning...
  The Bangladesh liberation war started in the night of March 25/26, 1971. I was working as a reporter for Patriot at Gauhati (Guwahati was still not the spelling). On March 30 or April 1, I got instructions from my Delhi office to go immediately to ’some place close to the Indo-Bangla border’ and report what was happening. I decided to go to Karimganj. A journalist friend of mine, Sachin Barooah, also joined in.
  We flew to Silchar where another local journalist, Shantanu (…)

• From Tirupati to Pashupati: Some Reflections on the Maoist Issue

  27 December 2011

  by JAIRAM RAMESH
  I
  I am not just privileged but also truly humbled to be part of this prestigious lecture series launched a half-century and six years ago by none other than C. Rajagopalachari. Many distinguished personalities have preceded me and this makes me feel all the more honoured to be here this evening.
  To say anything about such an indomitable colossus as Sardar Patel, one of our Founding Fathers, would be gratuitous. Often referred to as the “Iron Man” and as the “Bismarck (…)

• Peace-talk Process in Junglemahal

  27 December 2011

  by SUJATO BHADRA
  From 2001, the people of West Bengal began to acknowledge—albeit slowly—that in the remote areas of three districts, namely, West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia (traditionally considered as the most backward districts), the Maoists (in local popular parlance "Bon [Forest]” party) had been a political force to reckon with. Sporadic arrests, regular raids in villages for nabbing the Maoists and various kinds of human rights violations became the regular feature. Human rights (…)

• Failed Peace Process between Mamata and Maoists: A Post-mortem

  27 December 2011

  by BISWAJIT ROY
  “It began as a tenacious essay in political realism, entered a phase of sheer drama unbelievable in its unreality, and ended in the bitter rattle of gunfire. The reference is to the ‘talks’ between Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s government in Andhra Pradesh and the Naxalites (2004).” —K. Balagopal, Economic and Political Weekly, March 26, 2005
  With Maoist top-gun Kishenji’s killing in an encounter, fake or genuine, the peace process between the CPI (Maoist) and Mamata Banerjee (…)

• Agonising Reappraisal of Liberalisation and Globalisation

  27 December 2011, by P R Dubhashi

  The year 1991 marked a watershed, almost a U-turn, in the Indian economic policy pursued over forty years from 1951 to 1991, often described as a Nehruvian model of economic policy. The major features of that model included what came to be known as the ’socialist pattern’ of society, a planned economy, emphasis on public sector enterprises and heavy industries which were expected to gain the commanding heights of the economy, autarky, import substitution and self-reliance. The new economic (…)

• Tackle the Disease, not the Symptoms

  27 December 2011, by Girish Mishra

  In the late 1970s the world entered an era of turmoil. The so-called golden age of capitalism gave way to stagflation, that is, stagnation in output along with inflation. Unemployment soared. A chaotic situation prevailed. People of advanced capitalist countries were bewildered. Questions were sought to be raised about the efficacy of the long-continuing Keynesian approach that had rescued America and other Western countries from the Great Depression. Votaries of some almost dead or zombie (…)

• FDI in Retail and the 21st Century Drain of Wealth

  27 December 2011, by Sandhya Jain

  In an address to the Congress Parliamentary Party on December 8, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee lamented that the UPA coalition was forced to suspend the Cabinet decision to allow 51 per cent foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail (like Wal-Mart, Tesco, Carrefour and others) in order to avert a mid-term poll. Mukherjee mourned that this ’progressive’ measure—which would please Western govern-ments pushing for FDI in the Indian retail sector—had to be sacrificed because (…)

• Manmohanomics Today: Towards Perpetuation of Poverty

  27 December 2011, by Diptendra Raychaudhuri

  After experiencing twenty years of the ‘Reform’ process Manmohan Singh started in 1991, it seems the ‘messiah’ wants to be remembered in future only by the elite of the country as their greatest champion. Perhaps he does not care for the rest, and will be least perturbed if they remember him as someone who harmed their existence in many ways. But, the social cost the country will have to pay in future for the insensitive part of the reform process may turn out to be huge. Singh’s recent bold (…)

• Democratic Meaning of the Anna Movement: One View

  27 December 2011

  by SATISH K. JHA
  The true meaning of the Anna phenomenon would be known only in due course of time. In the meantime, the debate surrounding the Anna movement has got so much charged up that it is becoming difficult to make a political judgment on it.
  The whole spectrum of the debate is so diverse and polarised that the characterisations of the movement have acquired mind-boggling proportion. It starts at one end by declaring it as a middle class cyber-politics and a corporate sponsored (…)

• Travelling was at Three Miles an Hour, but in that Era too, Mamool was a Habit

  27 December 2011, by T J S George

  How times change! It is routine these days for a Chennai businessman to take a morning flight to Delhi, complete his work there, and return the same night to the bliss of his own bed. A briefcase is more than enough by way of baggage.
  Things were somewhat different in the days of Enugula Veeraswamy, a Madras denizen of the 1830s. He went on a pilgrimage to Banaras which took him “one year, three months, five days and ten minutes” to complete. That was mainly because the mode of transport (…)