Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• We Need No Taliban Here

  28 June 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  Eminent artist M.F. Husain recently passed away in London. Remembering him we reproduce on N.C.’s thirteenth death anniversary what he wrote while assailing the vandalism that Right-wing Hindutva fantics resorted to in protest against Husain’s paintings as well as the threats meted out to the country’s foremost painter that eventually forced the latter to go into self-exile.
  Maqbool Fida Husain is at the very centre of a storm whose after-effects are extremely (…)

• Good-bye Feroze

  28 June 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  Parliament has just repealed the Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of Publication) Act which came into force twenty years ago in 1956. Late Feroze Gandhi, who initiated and piloted the Bill in Parliament, made a powerful case which might have been useful for the present Government to bear in mind. Sri Bhupesh Gupta, in his signed article in New Age of February 1, 1976, has recalled Feroze Gandhi’s speech, from which a significant portion is reproduced here below:
  “For the success of (…)

• Mohan Kumaramangalam — Cameos

  28 June 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  AN OLD COMRADE
  On May 31 this year it was the thirtyeighth death anniversary of Mohan Kumaramangalam. On N.C.’s thirteenth death anniversary we reproduce the following tribute that the founder of this journal penned under the pseudonym ‘An Old Comrade’. M.K. and N.C. were indeed close comrades since their days in England in the 1930s and the friendship bloomed during their collective struggle in the communist movement; it was retained in subsequent years and even when Mohan joined the (…)

• The Thai-Cambodian Border Dispute: From Friction to Fire

  28 June 2011

  by Panchali Saikia
  The recent ASEAN Summit held in Jakarta in May 2011 was dominated by the Thai-Cambodian issue, but it failed to reach a consensus about how to resolve it. Before the summit, both Thailand and Cambodia agreed to accept an Indonesian observer team to monitor a ceasefire. But, weeks later there was another military confrontation along the border. The armed confrontation was witnessed between February 4 and 7, 2011 near the Preah Vihear temple and from April 22 to May 3, (…)

• CPM, Jyoti Basu, M.N. Roy

  28 June 2011

  COMMUNICATION
  I congratulate you on your two editorials: one, Mamata propels historic change in West Bengal, and the other in a later issue on the debacle of the CPM in the West Bengal elections.
  In this context I wish to refer to two incidents—one, when I travelled with your late illustrious father, Nikhil Chakravartty, who, according to me, was the topmost Communist intellectual of his time. While travelling together I said that Jyoti Basu will help Bangladesh on the water issue and (…)

• NMML’s Modernisation Programme Unveiled

  28 June 2011

  The project to digitise all archival material (90 lakh archival documents and 110 lakh pages of newspapers on microfilm) available at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi’s Teen Murti House, that was launched with a grant from the Prime Minister’s Office a year-and-a-half ago (it was conveived in 2006), is fully underway.
  A catalogue of 2.5 lakh books in the Library—digitised in searchable format, author-wise and title-wise—is already available on the NMML website (…)

• What Is Anna Hazare’s Crime?

  20 June 2011, by SC

  Now that Baba Ramdev has given up his indefinite fast it is time to concentrate on Anna Hazare and his associates, that is, civil society members in the Lokpal Bill drafting committee, and their efforts in the committee to ensure the realisation of an effective Lokpal Bill. After the “success” of the high-handed action by the Delhi Police, under instructions from the Union Home Ministry, to evict peaceful agitators at the venue of Baba Ramdev’s fast, based on the anti-black money crusade, at (…)

• The Case Is Not Closed

  20 June 2011, by Nirmalya Biswas

  June 12 happens to be the World Day Against Child Labour. We are publishing the following article in that context.
  Childhood happens once. But many do not have a childhood at all. The employers of the domestic child workers commonly see themselves as the messiahs. The notion of generosity gives them a human face. The policy that ‘child must not work’ is not negotiable. In an affluent middle-class family male members usually have the edge on their female counterparts while sharing the (…)

• Letter to Dr Manmohan Singh

  20 June 2011

  The following is a letter sent to the Prime Minister by several civil society activists on June 6.
  Respected Dr Manmohan Singh,
  We condemn the outrageous and illegal attempt by the Odisha Government, with the connivance and support of the Centre, to attack and seize the land of the villagers affected by the proposed POSCO project. We understand that on June 3, 17 people—including five children— were arrested and beaten by the police because they refused to allow the destruction of their (…)

• Repeal the Law of Sedition

  20 June 2011, by Rajindar Sachar

  One of the most shameful pieces of legislation in our penal code is the continuance of ‘Sedition’ in Section 124A of the Penal Code which provides that whoever excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law in India shall be punished with imprison-ment for life. The expression disaffection includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmity. This provision was included by the British Government in 1870 as the rulers of India. Regretfully it continues to muddy (…)