Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Beggars as Non-citizens

  10 August 2011, by Ambrose Pinto

  In the death of more than 120 people in the beggars’ colony in Bangalore managed by the State in August 2010 due to total apathy and indifference by the officials of the Karnataka State, the question that is raised is whether the beggars living in the colony have rights. It was difficult to ascertain the exact reasons for the deaths. The authorities of the colony have claimed the deaths to be natural. Others suspect food poisoning or gastroenteritis. The colony residents say stale and (…)

• Any Lessons from Norway on Internal Threat from Xenophobic Fanaticism of the Majority?

  10 August 2011, by John Dayal

  ”The primary threat to democracy in Europe is not ‘Islamo-fascism’—that clunking, thuggish phrase that keeps lashing out in the hope that it will one day strike a meaning—but plain old fascism. The kind whereby mostly White Europeans take to the streets to terrorise minorities in the name of racial, cultural or religious superiority,” Prof Dilip Simeon wrote to me in a message on my Facebook profile. This was after I wrote that zealots and terrorists of all sorts live in a zone where it (…)

• Karl Marx Never Lied—testifies the Treasures of Sri Padmanabha

  10 August 2011, by K G Somasekharan Nair

  While discoursing upon the prolonged golden age of India that existed before colonial subjugation made by the pauperised English Sovereign for terrorised plunder and proselytisation, Karl Marx wrote: “Oppression and neglect of agriculture, bad as it is, could not be looked upon as the final blow dealt to Indian society by the British intruder, had it not been attended by a circumstance of quite different importance, a novelty in the Asiatic world. However changing the political aspect of (…)

• The World’s Richest Gold-Jewel Collection? Our New Pride—and Responsibility

  10 August 2011, by T J S George

  One thing is now clear: India is a very rich country, perhaps the richest in the world. Gold reserves play a decisive role in central banking around the globe which makes the yellow metal a currency rather than a commodity. India has more of this currency than any other country.
  It’s not in the hands of the central bank of course, but gold is gold. No other people have the fascination for gold that Indian people have. Many an economist has covetously said that if the gold held by Indian (…)

• Fighting Terror and Eliminating Corruption

  1 August 2011, by SC

  As Norway and the entire Europe come to terms with 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik’s senseless act of killing as many as 76 persons (not 93 as originally estimated)—68 gunned down by himself on Utoeya island and nine from the bombing in Oslo—on July 22, in his first comment on the brutal massacre Breivik is learnt to have asserted, through his lawyer, that his attacks were “atrocious but necessary” to defeat the liberal immigration policies of his country and spread of Islam. In the (…)

• Tackling Black Economy: SC Takes Control from Government

  1 August 2011, by Arun Kumar

  The Supreme Court has converted a high-powered committee of the Government of India, on the issue of black money, into an SIT under its own direction. This is an expression of no-confidence in the executive. The government’s intention in tackling either the problem of black economy or bringing back the black savings stashed abroad is suspect. According to reports, the money stashed abroad by the corrupt businessmen, politicians and others could be a staggering few trillion dollars. If (…)

• Why the Court Disbanded Chhattisgarh’s SPOs

  1 August 2011

  by NANDINI SUNDAR
  Imagine if, in the aftermath of the Mumbai blasts, instead of improving intelligence gathering and local policing, the government set up squads of armed locals to help identify and neutralise the terrorists? Taking a cue from Chhattisgrah, where an ideal Special Police Officer is either a former Maoist, or a victim of the Maoists, the police could recruit people from families bereaved in the blasts, as also former members of the underworld, the Indian Mujahideen and (…)

• Duragraha in the Name of Satyagraha: A Gandhian Perspective

  1 August 2011

  by ALOK BAJPAI
  Sometime back the incidents at the Ramlila Ground, yoga-guru Ramdev’s political gimmicks, and now Anna Hazare’s new threat of Satyagraha fast at Jantar Mantar have created an urgent occasion to reflect over Mahatma Gandhi’s notion of ‘Satyagraha’. It is important to recall Gandhi’s handling of the term because some civil-society representatives, various political groups and others are relying heavily on the Gandhian phenomenon of protest and struggle. All of them invariably (…)

• The Way Ahead for Anna is Not Easy

  1 August 2011, by Mahi Pal Singh

  The movement started by Anna Hazare and his colleagues has brought to the centre-stage the issue of widespread corruption in the country and the ensuing debate on the Lokpal Bill has stirred the whole country. But that has neither stopped the appearance of new scams nor has the ruling class stopped defending its people involved in these scams. The latest scam that has become known pertains to the awarding of contracts in the coal-mining sector, which is much bigger than the 2-G spectrum (…)

• Civil Society versus Elected Government

  1 August 2011

  by SUDHANSHU RANJAN
  The Union Government has announced that it would bring the Lokpal Bill in the monsoon session of Parliament which is expected to pass it in the winter session. The all-party meeting held on the Lokpal issue damned the civil society and passed a one-line resolution: “The all-party meeting agreed that the government should bring before the next session of Parliament a strong and effective Lokpal Bill following established procedures.” The Opposition parties are also (…)