Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• PAC: Its History and Relevant Facts

  24 May 2011, by Era Sezhiyan

  STATEMENT
  The following is a statement by Era Sezhiyan, a former MP and erstwhile Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). It reached us late; but we are still using it in view of its continued relevance.
  It is unfortunate that there had been reports about the unprecedented disquiet and discord in the deliberations of the PAC on April 28, in consideration of the Draft Report on the 2G scam. A Parliamentary Committee enjoys all the powers, privileges and immunities of the Houses (…)

• West Bengal - CPM Discredited the Left Movement by its Fascist Deeds

  24 May 2011, by Barun Das Gupta

  WEST BENGAL The Trinamul Congress-Congress-SUCI alliance has made a clean sweep of the polls in West Bengal. The alliance or jote has won 227 of the 294 seats (Trinamul Congress 184, Congress 42 and SUCI 1) while the Left tally has nosedived from 235 to 62 (CPI-M 40, Forward Bloc 11, RSP 7, CPI 2, SP 1, DSP 1). As far as the two main contestans, the CPI-M and TMC, are concerned, their fortunes have reversed. In 2006, the CPI-M won 176 seats and the Trinamul 30. This time the CPI-M tally (…)

• Osama, Obama and India’s Foreign Policy

  24 May 2011, by P R Dubhashi

  Indian reactions to the cold blooded assassination of unarmed Osama Bin Laden by American commandos in a quick, 40-minute operation in a three-storied mansion surrounded by a high wall in the garrison town Abbottabad not far away from Pakistan’s Military Academy, reflected the confusion and pusillanimity of the Indian foreign policy and continuous decline in its robust independence and moral stature which characterised the foreign policy in the earlier years of Jawaharlal Nehru and which (…)

• An Open Letter to Mamata Banerjee

  24 May 2011, by A K Biswas

  Honourable Madam,
  While I congratulate you on your spectacular victory in the just concluded Assembly Elections 2011 in West Bengal, I beg to articulate some aspirations and expectations of 24 per cent Scheduled Castes and six per cent Scheduled Tribes, who are by and large marginalised and alienated from the socio-economic development in the last 35 years. By the time this letter appears in print (if at all) you will be in saddle after being sworn in as the Chief Minister of the (…)

• The Big Winner? Not Mamata or Jaya. The Losers? Not Buddha or Karuna

  24 May 2011, by T J S George

  Election Commissions and voting machines can only tell us a superficial kind of truth. The substantive, eternal truth is that those who win are not always the winners and those who lose are not necessarily the real losers. Never was this eternal truth more dramatically brought out than in the latest five State elections. Look behind the headlines to know who are the real winners and losers.
  The biggest winners are not Mamata Banerjee and J. Jayalalitha. The size of their victory margins (…)

• Change Is Such Hard Work

  24 May 2011, by Taslima Nasreen

  Noted writer and novelist Taslima Nasreen wrote the following piece for The Times of India where it was published. However, after its publication she sent the original piece to the Mainstream editor because in the daily’s Delhi edition the last part was abridged. We are carrying the original in full, with the author’s permission, for the benefit of our readers.
  It is my conviction that most people who voted for Trinamul voted not because of love for or confidence in the party but from (…)

• How will New Delhi listen to Jayalalithaa calling Rajapaksa a ‘War Criminal’?

  24 May 2011

  by KUSAL PERERA
  “Declare Rajapakse a war criminal: Jayalalithaa tells Centre”—was a banner headline on Friday, May 13, in The Indian Express, following AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa’s march to victory at the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections concluded last week. No analyst expected the DMK-Congress alliance in Tamil Nadu to be so unmercifully smothered at the elections. Never has the DMK fallen to third place in the Assembly elections ever before. Not even after MGR created the AIADMK in 1972 and (…)

• Assembly Polls (2011) in Kerala: Narrow Victory for the UDF

  24 May 2011

  Kerala is one of the highly politicised States in India. The political sensibility of the State is the result of decades of political movements, social reform movements, and massive partici-pation of the people in the electoral process. Kerala was the first State in India to have elections on the basis of universal adult francise in the erstwhile state of Travancore held in 1948. After the formation of the State in 1956, the first general election to the Legislative Assembly was held in 1957. Through this election Kerala came on the map of global politics by becoming the first State in Asia to have Communists coming to power through the parliamentary process. The State witnessed 14 Legislative Assembly elections and the same number of Lok Sabha polls. Elections to the State Legislative Assembly were held in 1957, 1960, 1965, 1967, 1970, 1977, 1980, 1982, 1987, 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006 and 2011.

• The Giant is Awake

  24 May 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  Politics in this country has been passing through a cleansing process. The imprint of mass consciousness can be seen even in the jungle of petty factional moves and manipulations.
  New wind is blowing through the corridors of power; its warmth could be felt even in the sophisticated political labyrinth of New Delhi, in the instant reactions of the common man to the Supreme Court verdict against the Presidential derecognition of the princes. The hoary-headed judges (…)

• Glaring Loopholes and the US Top Brass’ Lies

  24 May 2011, by Humra Quraishi

  This tale seems to be getting layered. Murkier than one expected. And it seems all those wise heads that America can possibly boast off didn’t really bother to pay much attention to the glaring loopholes in those versions doing the rounds. No, just about these two words—‘Osama killed’—aren’t adequate for the natives, for America’s versions of that killing does not carry a sense of closure. Also, there are far too many twists and turns to it. And don’t overlook another basic fact—the numbers (…)