Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• On Sathya Sai Baba (1927-2011)

  14 June 2011, by Syed Shahabuddin

  COMMUNICATION
  Sathya Sai Baba rose into prominence as an ‘incarnation’ of the great, universally respected savant Sai Baba of Shirdi. Later he claimed to be God. But God is immortal and Sathya Sai Baba was a mortal human being who died on April 24, 2011 at the age of 84. His death created a wave of shock and sadness among his followers in India and abroad who revered him for his spiritual powers, supernatural ‘miracles’ like deposits of vibhuthi, materialisation of miniature deities, and, (…)

• Diversity, Life and Culture

  14 June 2011, by C M Bhandari

  This article was received by us several months ago but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons. It is now being published as its contents are still of considerable relevance.
  I
  Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilisation.
  —Aldo Leopold It is estimated that there may be somewhere around 30 million species of plants and animals—many of them are yet to be discovered. These life-forms came into existence through the processes (…)

• Middle East Rift Mars US-Russia ’Reset’

  14 June 2011, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The last thing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev did before departing for France to attend the Group of Eight summit meeting in Deauville was place a call to Damascus.
  Prima facie, one may think the call made sense, since as Reuters reported, “Syria’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests” is going to be high on the agenda of the summit. But Medvedev had other thoughts on his mind: he wanted to ostentatiously pick up the thread from his previous conversation with his Syrian counterpart, (…)

• Antulay and All That

  14 June 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  Within two years of Indira Gandhi’s spectacular come-back to power, one of her minions has fallen. This is an episode which brings a sense of relief and also sounds a note of warning—depending on the angle from which it is viewed. Antulay’s ignominious exit from office will certainly be welcomed by all those—politicians, pressmen and officials—who have had to face the brunt of his high-handed conduct. It is also a warning signal to all those in our public life—and (…)

• Whatever happened to Netaji?

  14 June 2011, by Apratim Mukarji

  BOOK REVIEW
  The Search for Netaji: New Findings by Purabi Roy; Purple Peacock Books and Arts Pvt. Ltd., Kolkata; March 2011; Rs 430.
  One enquiry committee and two commissions —appointed at different times by three Indian governments—have so far probed the reported death of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at the Taihoku airport in Formosa (Taipei) on August 18, 1945. Their reports were placed in Parliament in 1956, 1974 and 2006, and yet nobody seems to be sure of how the intrepid Indian (…)

• CPM confined to Infancy even after 47 Years

  14 June 2011, by Amitava Mukherjee

  WITH JUVENILE LEADERSHIP, IMMATURE POLITICS AND COSY PARTY-MEDIA TIES
  From 1964 to 2011 it is 47 years and the time is certainly ripe for anyone to graduate from infancy to adulthood. This has, however, not been the case with the CPM, its leaders and its sympathisers among the literati and media-persons. The party has been mauled, to say the least. Yet there is no sign that it has drawn appropriate lessons.
  Take the case of Prakash Karat by way of example. He is the General Secretary of (…)

• Old Left is Dying! Long Live the Left!

  14 June 2011

  by ADITYA NIGAM
  In a recent newspaper article, former Left Front Finance Minister Ashok Mitra, observed: “The Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist, has not merely lost the poll in West Bengal, it has been made mincemeat of.” He was underlining the obvious, catastrophic significance of the results—at least from the Left Front’s perspective. The signs are there for everybody to see, especially when all important leaders of the LF Government have faced resounding defeat and (…)

• Gigantic Hydropower Projects in Central Asia threaten the Security of Millions of People

  14 June 2011

  (Following the publication of the piece—“Using Water Conflicts for US Benefit in Central and South Asia” by Hasan Hamidullah—in Mainstream (May 14, 2011), we were able to lay our hands on the following article on www.ut.uz. This does not provide any idea of the US attitude to such water conflicts but offers an objective view of the Uzbek-Tajik stand-off on the proposed Rogun Dam on the Vakhsh river, based on the expert assessment of a Russian specialist with regard to such major (…)

• Maqbool Fida Hussain Is No More

  14 June 2011

  As we go to press news has come from London that Maqbool Fida Hussain, 96, the legendary Indian artist who was a veritable global colossus in the art world, breathed his last at the Royal Brompton Hotel at 2.30 am local time on June 9, 2011. He was keeping indifferent health for a month-and-a-half and is learnt to have finally died of lung congestion.
  Described by the Forbes magazine as the ‘Picasso of India’, the iconographic artist and painter was in self-exile for the last several (…)

• People can No Longer be Hoodwinked Easily

  9 June 2011, by SC

  While the situation in our neighbourhood, specifically Pakistan and Afghanistan, continues to worsen (witness the horrific terrorist attack on the Mehran naval base in Karachi, besides the alleged abduction, torture and killing by the ISI of a well-known Pakistani investigative reporter who had not only exposed some Pak Navy personnel’s links to Al-Qaeda operatives but also revealed in his book how the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai were scripted by the ISI and cleared by the Qaeda), the UPA (…)