Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Baba Ramdev Fiasco in Delhi and Anna’s March of Glory

  20 June 2011, by Shree Shankar Sharan

  The people of India were treated to a strange spectacle on the night of June 4, when all seemed normal with the anti-corruption movement of Baba Ramdev, the dias swarming with sadhus and the Baba raising slogans that he wanted karwai and not committees and that the government had accepted his demand regarding the seizure and repatriation of illegal Indian money parked in foreign banks but he awaited those commitments in writing. A press conference of Kapil Sibal displayed the written (…)

• Let PM be probed by an Independent Agency

  20 June 2011

  by ARVIND KEJRIWAL
  Dr Manmohan Singh is one of the most honest Prime Ministers that the country has had. It is ironical that his own government should seek to take the Prime Minister out of the purview of Lokpal’s investigations.
  As of today, the Prime Minister is covered under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Under that law, any allegation of corruption against a Prime Minister can be investigated. No exception has been made for either the Prime Minister or any of his activities (like (…)

• M.F. Husain: What was his Fault if he Loved his Traditions?

  20 June 2011

  TRIBUTE
  by ARPANA CAUR
  Everyone departs, few leave footprints, very few cause a vacuum. The legend of Indian art is gone. Hard to believe, for he had miles to paint—his series on cinema, on Indian civilisation, innumerable images in his young mind, heart and body waited to be painted by his long restless fingers. He who once painted hoardings for a living in a hard urban metropolis, carrying the innocence of his native village with its Ganga-Jamuni tahzeeb, of camaraderie between Hindu (…)

• There should be no Army - Adivasi Clash

  20 June 2011, by Diptendra Raychaudhuri

  An Ominous Possibility
  About two years ago our Union Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, planned a massive operation against the Maoists. Two years later, it seems the operation has achieved little. The Maoists have increased their manpower and firepower, and have renewed attacks on the armed forces recently. This is certainly an ominous sign for the future. There is not an iota of doubt that a war between the government and the Maoist army will ruin this country.
  And now a battalion each of (…)

• Claim of Saving the Bhilai Steel Plant is Nothing but Trickery!

  20 June 2011

  DOCUMENT
  THE VERY EXISTENCE OF BASTARIYA PEOPLE AT STAKE!
  The following is a press release of the CPI (Maoist)’s Dandakarnya Special Zonal Committee (issued on June 7, 2011).
  The moment when the process of deploying the Army in Bastar is just underway, the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), one of the biggest Public Sector Units of India, has declared that the Raoghat mines would be privatised. These two acts not just coincided, but there was a conspiratorial coordination between (…)

• My Rabindranath is Different

  20 June 2011

  by BISHWAJIT SEN
  Tolstoy, since he was a great creator, could be appreciated by two persons of diametrically opposite views. While Lenin called him “The mirror of the Russian revolution”, Gandhi sought solace in him, as he stood up against the South African ruling classes to ensure that Indian settlers got a human treatment at least. Gandhi’s “Tolstoy Farm” was the starting point of a long journey, which culminated in the Indian freedom.
  Similarly, Rabindranath too, during his life-time (…)

• Celebrating Swami Vivekananda

  20 June 2011, by Balmiki Prasad Singh

  Great men are seldom born. It is sheer good fortune of ours that in one decade of the 19th century, three great men were born in India: Swami Vivekananda on January 12, 1863, Rabindranath Tagore on May 4, 1861 and Mahatma Gandhi on October 2, 1869. Each one of them became a formidable figure in his sphere of work: Swami Vivekananda in religion and spirituality, Gurudev Tagore in literature, and Mahatma Gandhi in the freedom movement and public life. Swami Vivekananda was the first leader (…)

• Getting Stuck

  20 June 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  In an interview to Patriot and Link this week. Smt Indira Gandhi has said that life cannot be divided into stages because ”one takes some steps forward and then sometimes one gets stuck”. She has claimed that on the whole the nation’s progress has been “quite consistent”. She admits there have been “bad patches”, but the people have not allowed themselves to be defeated, rather they “have faced the challenges and ultimately emerged stronger”.
  There is little doubt (…)

• Russia’s Libya Role Irks China

  20 June 2011, by M K Bhadrakumar

  Russia went to the Group of Eight (G-8) summit meeting at Deauville as an inveterate critic of the “unilateralist” Western intervention in Libya, but came away from the seaside French resort as a mediator between the West and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The United States scored a big diplomatic victory in getting Moscow to work for regime change in Libya.
  No sooner than he got back to Moscow, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered his special envoy to Africa Mikhail Margelov to travel to (…)

• Nero’s Sublime Flute-recital: Teaser for Teacher-education in India

  20 June 2011, by Dev N Pathak

  Emperor Nero did intend it to happen, rumours suggested. The fire broke out in the city area of Rome and metamorphosed into a mythological inferno swallowing the eleven districts of Rome out of total fourteen. Numbers of all and sundry helplessly charred to death and fumes of destruction leaving the ruins behind: the vivacious dance of death. The proverbial flute (lyre) recital of Nero was well atop the flames that burnt down the city of fame. Recollecting this instance, at a time when Nero (…)