Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Aruna Roy speaks of Keeping Intact RTI Law, explains Approach to Jan Lokpal

  25 October 2011

  NCPRI FOUNDER MEMBER’S INTERVIEW TO PAMELA PHILIPOSE
  ‘Let’s not forget that when we talk of corruption, we are also looking at huge amounts of corruption outside the government today,’ says Aruna Roy. These are busy days for Aruna Roy, 65, founder member of the National Campaign for the People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) and the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), with the Jan Lokpal and the need to check corruption emerging as one of the big concerns before India today. The woman, (…)

• Lest We Forget

  25 October 2011

  Several noted personalities in different fields of activity have recently departed from our midst.
  GHAZAL’S golden voice was stilled when Jagjit Singh, 70, passed away on October 10 in Mumbai’s Lilavati Hospital where he was admitted on September 18 after suffering a brain haemorrhage; PM Manmohan Singh, in his tribute, aptly pointed out that Jagjit Singh, “by making ghazals accessible to everyone, …… gave joy and pleasure to millions of music lovers in India and abroad”. Founder of Apple (…)

• On the fortyninth anniversary of the China India war of 1962

  25 October 2011

  [October 20 this year marks the fortyninth anniversary of the Chinese aggression on India. On this occasion we are carrying two pieces of N.C. on the subject—the first is from his ‘New Delhi Skyline’ published in Mainstream seven days after the invasion, and the second was written at the time of the thirtieth anniversary of the military attack in 1992.]
  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  What Invasion has Shown Up.
  Need for World Publicity
  A fresh appraisal of values has overtaken New Delhi with (…)

• Poverty of the Debate on Poverty

  25 October 2011, by Bharat Dogra

  It is good that poverty has been widely discussed recently in India, but a careful look at the context of most of this discussion would reveal that this debate has been overwhelmingly devoted to norms on the basis of which poverty may be defined or the poor may be classified.
  In a language so familiar to India’s poverty discourse, we may say that the debate has been almost obsessed with the APL-BPL issue (the classification of people between ‘above the poverty line’ and ‘below the poverty (…)

• What’s Going On? There’s Need to End this Dangerous Drift to Governmentlessness

  25 October 2011, by T J S George

  The irony is so stark that it exposes the sham of it all. The criminals who attacked a corruption-fighting lawyer (Prashant Bhushan) in his chamber called themselves the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena. Those who gathered to see the attackers in a court were assaulted by thugs who called themselves the Sri Ram Sene. Bhagat Singh was a patriot whose writings showed great discretion and judgment and whose memory is honoured by all sections of people. Sri Ram is the most revered of all divinities in (…)

• UN: Is it Still Relevant?

  25 October 2011

  by MRINAL CHATTERJEE
  October 24 is observed as the UN Day. The following article is being published in that context.
  The United Nations (UN) was founded on October 24, 1945, at a time in history when a large number of people in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean still lived under alien rulers. The principles and values under which the UN was created served to inform and give moral and political authority to the struggle against colonialism and apartheid. With great foresight (…)

• Civil Society Activists Condemn the Attack on Prashant Bhushan

  25 October 2011

  Several social and political organisations have strongly condemned the attack on eminent activist advocate Mr Prashant Bhushan in his chamber at the Supreme Court complex. We are concerned about the growing intolerance in the political arena of the country in the recent past. We are of the view that violence has no space in a democracy and different points of view must always be put across peacefully and can always be discussed.
  We extended our solidarity with Mr Prashant Bhushan and his (…)

• Stark Reality Staring Us In The Face

  19 October 2011, by SC

  The country is facing an unprecedented crisis today.
  While veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani has embarked on his new rath yatra, christened as the Jan Chetna Yatra (to demarcate it from the Ram rath yatra he organised in 1990), aimed at fighting corruption and black money, from Bihar’s Sitab Diara, Jayaprakash Narayan’s birthplace, with State CM Nitish Kumar (who was conspicuous by his absence from Gujarat CM Narendra Modi’s sadhbhavna fast in Gandhinagar), himself flagging off the 38-day (…)

• How do we Tackle the China-threat to India?

  19 October 2011, by Mansoor Ali

  Currently trilateral and quadrilateral dialo-gues in the Asia-Pacific region have become quite fashionable. Such dialogues are being actively encouraged by the US and its time-tested reliable satellites like Japan. The next step is to evolve an Axis of Democracy which Washington aggressively promotes and seeks to translate into reality. It is an undeniable fact of life that thanks to the US propaganda machine a sizeable section of the Indian strategic community has voluntarily joined the (…)

• 64 Years and 32 Rupees

  19 October 2011, by Shyam Chand

  Poor people are in chains of poverty. And nobody can insult a man in chains. The definition of Rs 32 as the poverty line has submerged the Below Poverty Line into Below Pollution Line. The most valiant act of social reform in perverse! Or removing poverty?
  I am not an economist to propound any theory. But I know two things. The first thing is that the strength of the chain lies in the weakest link and so is that of the society. The second thing that I put here relates to the views of some (…)