Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Assembly-line Manufacture of Books, the Surest Way to Lose Readers

  9 June 2011, by T J S George

  Like all the superluxury cars in the world opening showrooms in India, all the great book publishers of the world are opening branches in India. The pull of the Indian middle class is as compelling as the pull of the Indian millionaire class.
  But the super cars ensure that they remain super; even if they sell only a dozen cars a year, the price tags will justify their overheads. Book publishers have to have large volumes to sustain the overheads. So the diligence that goes into the (…)

• Victory of Lokshahi at Golibar

  9 June 2011, by Suhas Borker

  Last Saturday (May 28), at the Golibar slums in the Khar area of Mumbai, Medha Patkar ended her indefinite fast on the 9th day at 1.45 pm by accepting a sip of lemon juice from Akanksha Bai, an 80-year old resident of Ganesh Krupa Housing Society who had herself been in jail for resisting the shun demolition. Medha had not only won a hard-fought battle for the slum- dwellers of Mumbai but also brought into sharp national focus the plight of 93 million Indians who live in the urban slums of (…)

• Worrying Thoughts

  9 June 2011, by Humra Quraishi

  Needless to point out that this turmoil in the neighbourhood relays an eerie build-up. No, definitely no feel-good signs for this entire region, as it gets writ large the indirect interventions of that superpower. The masses sit as sheer victims in these expansionist moves and the duality of roles played by the political characters, here and there. Its no longer hazy that the violence and the accompanying havoc has a pattern to it, a certain structure to it, a definite, much-layered design (…)

• Congress - DMK Ties, ‘Monolithic’ CPM’s Future

  9 June 2011, by SC

  While DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi’s daughter and MP Kanimozhi continues to be in Tihar Jail alongwith former Union Telecom Minister A. Raja and Kalaignar TV MD Sharath Kumar (all accused in the 2G spectrum scam), Karunanidhi and his family members have one by one come to the Capital to meet her in a bid to offer her solace and the assurance that they all stand by her. At the same time Karunanidhi, whose woes have definitely mounted on having been humiliated in the just concluded State (…)

• West Bengal: Urgent Tasks before the New Government

  9 June 2011

  by DEBABRATA BANDYOPADHYAY
  Winston Churchill, in the preface to his six-volume history, The Second World War, wrote: In War: Resolution; In Defeat: Defiance; In Victory: Magnanimity; In Peace: Goodwill.
  Mamata Bandyopadhyay followed this precept wonderfully in what the media chose to call ‘the great battle for the Writers’ Buildings.’ She made a courtesy call on the former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chattopadhyay at the latter’s residence. By this act she set a shining example of (…)

• In Defence of Freedom: The Role of Rammohun Roy and Rabindranath Tagore

  9 June 2011

  by SUBRATA MUKHERJEE
  A Bengali play, adapted from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, was recently not allowed to be staged by the district administration of Hooghly in West Bengal. The administration so acted as a CPI-M leader submitted a written objection, the latter having perceived that enactment of the play would create disaffection among the voters against the CPI-M. The Chief Minister however later on publicly opined against this decision, but nevertheless the prevention of staging of an (…)

• Say Hello to CPI (Mamata)

  9 June 2011

  by SUNANDA K. DATTA-RAY
  Mamata Banerjee’s demolition of the world’s longest-serving democratically-elected Communist Government also means the end of history for West Bengal. I don’t mean the Communist Party of India-Marxist’s (CPI-M’s) structure and strategy which are being discussed threadbare over end-less cups of tea in its Alimuddin Street office, as it was at Monday’s Polit-Bureau meeting in New Delhi.
  I mean communism as an idea to which millions of young Bengalis responded. (…)

• Left Defeat in Bengal: Lessons On How To Govern And How Not To

  9 June 2011, by Anil Rajimwale

  The Left Front Government has been defeated after 34 continuous years, a record not only in India but perhaps in the world. But the defeat did not happen suddenly; it has been maturing over the years, with lots of signals being given out, which unfortunately were ignored. People had made up their minds much earlier despite the government’s Left character and several achievements. Thus, a long experiment has come to an end with lots of lessons. While the Left in power in Bengal showed how to (…)

• Can Mamata Banerjee Make a New Beginning in Rural Bengal?

  9 June 2011, by Bharat Dogra

  All over rural India the most important livelihood of small farmers is confronted with multiple problems. There is a yearning for a new beginning but solutions are proving elusive because individual initiatives can only succeed up to a limit. Community level initiatives are needed and government help is also needed to create a situation in which people feel more encouraged to take steps in the right direction.
  Basically the livelihood problems have to be solved in ways which are in (…)

• Expropriating the Indian Farmer

  9 June 2011, by Sandhya Jain

  Indian agriculture lost one of its most cogent voices at a time when the farming community nationwide is facing the growing menace of state-driven expropriation of land for crony capitalists. This trend, which we may designate as the corporatisation of private property, parallels the other disturbing tendency towards the privatisation of public resources; both may jointly be said to comprise the Indian face of globalisation.
  Mahendra Singh Tikait emerged in the public arena in October (…)