Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• No Need to Bribe a British Journalist

  21 April 2011, by T J S George

  When Neville Maxwell is on the move, can misfortune be far behind? This former British journalist recently published an article on “The Pre-history of the Sino-Indian Border Dispute”. (Mainstream, February 12, 2011) The gist is that India has no business being in Arunachal Pradesh.
  Maxwell’s thesis is that Henry McMahon who drew the present border “engaged in cartographic trickery” to produce a “deceitful map”. As for Olaf Caroe who succeeded McMahon, he “began to falsify evidence so that (…)

• Dr Ambedkar: Architect of the Indian Constitution

  21 April 2011, by Gurnam Chand

  Due to his seminal role in the framing of the Indian Constitution, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar is popularly known all over India as the chief architect of the Indian Constitution. His efforts to eradicate social evils were remarkable and that is why he is called the “messiah” of the Dalits and downtrodden in India. Dr Ambedkar was appointed the Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee. The text prepared by Ambedkar provided constitutional guarantees and protections for a wide range of civil (…)

• Kazakhstan Presidential Election Shows How To Legalise An Authoritarian Regime

  21 April 2011

  KAZAKELECART 2011
  by R.G. Gidadhubli
  During the last few months popular uprisings have swept several countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia. For instance, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Kyrgyzstan etc. have witnessed mass unrest and violent protests against authoritarian regimes. The Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, who was ruling for decades, was forced to relinquish power. The fate of the Libyan President Gaddafi is hanging in balance. In the Kyrgyz Republic the former (…)

• A Note on What Ails the Kashmiri Pandit Community

  21 April 2011

  by P.N. Sadhu
  The following piece is being published as a point of view of the author who himself is a Kashmir Pandit.
  It is a privilege for me to write an article on what ails the Kashmiri Pandit community. What prompted me to write this is a request by the Kashmir Samiti, Panchkula.
  Although I do not consider myself qualified to comment on this vast and complex subject, still in the following paras I pen down my thoughts and suggestions.
  We, of the Kashmiri Pandit community, have (…)

• When the Left becomes Bereft of Pro-people Ideology and Conduct

  21 April 2011, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  COMMUNICATION
  Prof Prabhat Patnaik’s piece “Why the Left Matters” in The Indian Express, reproduced by Mainstream (March 26, 2011), is a mix of the serious and the comic. In the portion in which he presents an expose of the practitioners of “neo-liberalism”, he is at his passionate best. One has to readily agree with him that those who are leading India up the garden path of market economy, pro-MNC liberalisation, pro-finance capital globalisation are indeed plunging the majority of (…)

• Mass Response to Anna Hazare’s Crusade

  14 April 2011, by SC

  After the scenes of widespread jubilation portraying unprecedented national unity in the cricket field with India’s successful wresting of the World Cup defeating Sri Lanka on April 2, a remarkable phenomenon has rocked the country as a whole.
  Eminent Gandhian social activist Anna Hazare’s dauntless and courageous fight against ubiquitous corruption has assumed the form of a veritable mass upsurge on the third day of his indefinite fast-unto-death in the Capital’s Jantar Mantar demanding (…)

• A Case of Conscience - Letter to the Prime Minister

  14 April 2011

  by Shiv Vishwanathan
  (This letter was sent sometime ago. But it is being published now as the movement for Dr Binayak Sen’s release is gathering increasing momentum with every passing day.)
  Dear Dr Manmohan Singh,
  I hope you don’t mind the temerity of this letter. It is written as one scholar to another, one citizen to another. I know you are a PM and people like me may not be influential. However, some things must be said and said clearly.
  I was aghast to find that Doctor Binayak (…)

• Fukushima Lessons

  14 April 2011

  by A.H. Nayyar, M.V. Ramana and Zia Mian
  The March earthquake and tsunami in Japan have already claimed more than 10,000 lives, and some 17,500 people are still missing.
  This disaster has been compounded by the continuing threat of widespread radioactive contamination from the accidents at four nuclear reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi site and the pools that contain their still hot, intensely radioactive spent nuclear fuel. Even if the nuclear accident is contained, it carries many (…)

• Deceptive Diplomats and Disloyal Officials of India

  14 April 2011, by Era Sezhiyan

  WikiLeaks was founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, an Australian software developer and internet activist. As a computer programmer and hacker, he exposed some of the secret documents on extra-judicial killings in Kenya, toxic waste dumped in the African coastal regions and the misdeeds of some international banks.
  In setting up WikiLeaks, Assange wrote about the objectives of his venture: “To radically shift regime behaviour we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, (…)

• Uranium Enrichment Plant: Focus on Mysore

  14 April 2011, by N.S. Chakravarthy, S G Vombatkere

  The nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan, has placed the integrity of nuclear power establish-ments and their claims of nuclear power being safe-cheap-clean under public scrutiny. The Fukushima disaster has exceeded the grim expectations of nuclear power objectors. The accidents at Windscale (UK, 1957), Three Mile Island (USA, 1979) and Chernobyl (USSR, 1986)— all happened without earthquake or tsunami and involved only one nuclear reactor. But Fukushima, on March 12, 2011, saw four reactors (…)