Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Role of Media in Crises Situations

  8 November 2011, by P.B. Sawant

  The role the media plays in crises situations depends upon the role it assigns to itself even in the normal situation. Does it look upon itself as a leader of the society? As a reformer? As a catalyst of change? Or as a mere messenger of news and views? Even as an informer, does it act as an independent communicator or is it influenced by some internal and external pressures and forces?
  Media’s role in any country depends largely upon the social, political, economic and legal conditions (…)

• Real Threat to Press Freedom

  8 November 2011, by Ajit Bhattacharjea

  As we come to the end of this two-day celebration of Press Day, I would like to join the other speakers in paying homage to Nikhil Chakravartty. Long before death took him away, he became a father figure for the press, always ready to help and give us the benefit of his mature advice. I remember with gratitude how, some months before his death, he quietly and without fuss or undue ceremony, donated his personal library to the Press Institute of India. He must have known the end was coming. (…)

• Open Letter to Pravda

  8 November 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS The following open letter to Pravda, the Soviet Communist Party’s daily organ, was written fortynine years ago by N.C. as an ‘Indian Marxist’ of 20 years’ membership of the Communist Party. It appeared in Mainstream (November 3, 1962). (It was on that day that he turned 49.) This was a reply to a Pravda editorial, published on October 25, 1962, recommending the Chinese terms for peace talks for India’s acceptance. It is being reproduced after fortynine years to once (…)

• Historic Significance of October Revolution

  8 November 2011, by Randhir Singh

  On November 7 this year falls the ninetyfourth anniversary of the historic October Revolution that changed the face of Russia and led to the birth of the USSR three years later. Remembering that Revolution we are reproducing excerpts from the chapter “Crisis of Socialism” in Prof Randhir Singh’s Five Lectures in Marxist Mode (published in 1993). These excerpts appeared fifteen years ago in Mainstream (November 9, 1996). Prof Randhir Singh is a distinguished teacher and a renowned Marxist (…)

• Asia - Pacific: Russia’s Evolving Strategy

  8 November 2011, by Benjamin Todd

  Striking a course distinctly different from its pro-West orientation as well as US and Europe-centric approach during Boris Yeltsin’s steward-ship of the country, Russia today is paying considerable attention to participation in the Asia-Pacific multilateral fora, for example, the East Asian Summit (EAS), Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC), Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Shangri-La Dialogue and ASEAN + Russia. International experts view this trend as (…)

• Light and Shade

  5 November 2011, by SC

  Libyan strongman Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s gruesome end oustide Sirte in the morning of October 20 was the most noteworthy event on the international front in the last few days. While the precise manner of his killing is still shrouded in mystery and his wife’s demand for a UN investigation into her husband’s death appears reasonable, what cannot be overlooked is the NATO role in ensuring his capture and bringing about his death since it was a French Mirage of the NATO forces that struck (…)

• India’s Moment of Truth in Afghanistan

  5 November 2011, by M K Bhadrakumar

  Recently I read an extraordinary book on Afghanistan, Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign by Sherard Cowper-Coles. Sir Sherard had everything going for him as a career diplomat in the British Foreign Service when he completed his term in Kabul and was appointed as the special representative of the British Prime Minister for AfPak. He was a close associate of late Richard Holbrooke, apparently had smooth working relationship with his American colleagues, (…)

• Who Selects Whom and How!

  5 November 2011

  COMMUNICATION
  During the recent impeachment proceedings in the Rajya Sabha, some members did a little loud thinking about the mechanism for selection of judges of the High Courts. Decades ago, in course of an endowment lecture at the Ambedkar Law College of the Nagpur University, eminent jurist Upendra Baxi had recommended the adoption of the American system for such selection. The US President can make such appointment only after his nominee has been vetted by a bipartisan committee of (…)

• Censoring Ramanujan’s Essay on Ramayana

  5 November 2011

  by DILEEP PADGAONKAR
  Nothing straight can ever emerge from the crooked timber of a parochial mind. Those responsible for the decision to drop A.K. Ramanujan’s essay on the Ramayana from Delhi University’s undergraduate Arts course argue in substance that from childhood these students are told about the sacred character of the epic. This is why it occupies a special place in the Indian psyche. Its characters are perceived to be divine creatures. To show them in a poor light is therefore (…)

• Meaning of ’Occupy Wall Street’

  5 November 2011, by Bharat Jhunjhunwala

  The common man of the developed countries is agitated. Hundreds are camping in a park across the Wall Street which houses the New York Stock Exchange. People are holding demons-trations at City Square in Melbourne and in front of the Reserve Bank of Australia in Sydney. Similar demonstrations are taking place in Athens, Tokyo, Taipei and Seoul. The reason is unemployment and inequality. These youth believe the bankers have speculated, made huge losses and brought down the global economy (…)