Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Truth Behind the Fire in Sabarmati Express (Godhra, February 27, 2002)

  14 April 2011, by K S Subramanian

  The special fast-track court judge, P.R. Patel, has pronounced his verdict on the mystery behind the fire incident in the Sabarmati Express at Godhra on February 27, 2002. The conspiracy theory put forward by the Gujarat Police has been upheld. A volley of protests has followed pointing to the many contradictions in the judgement, which will surely be contested before higher judicial authorities.
  In this context, it is necessary to examine the verdict on the Sabarmati Express fire episode (…)

• Gujarat Nine Years On

  14 April 2011, by Humra Quraishi

  That ghost of Godhra, that ghost of the Gujarat pogrom, those killings in that politically charged communal surcharge, still hover around. In fact, getting compounded as legalities come by. Seeing shots of those 63 men acquitted in the Godhra train burning case sent down a strange feeling—after nine long years you release a bunch of men with the innocent tag to them, without an apology of keeping them duly caged and in your possession. Also, should it have been a simple release? What about (…)

• Are these Anti-Naxal Operations, Mr Chidambaram?

  14 April 2011, by Gladson Dungdung

  India’s security budget grows up every year and even the economic crisis does not make any difference to it. The Indian Government spends most of its money for the security of its own people. Apart from this, the government also has special budget allocations for dealing with the internal security threat and several State governments also spend the money, allocated for the Tribal Sub-plan, on security. Ironically, the government(s) use the money, which is supposed to be spent for their (…)

• Vilified at Home, Lionised Abroad

  14 April 2011, by M K Bhadrakumar

  “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
  —Pericles (495-429 BC)
  Mikhail Gorbachev’s historical legacy is hard to sum up. He means different things to different people. Maybe it is also a hallmark of greatness.
  Within Russia, what stood out was Gorbachev’s seminal contribution to laying the foundations of a civil society. Temperamentally and politically, he was averse to coercive methods of governance. Thereby he (…)

• Independent Central Asia beyond a “New Great Game”

  14 April 2011

  REVIEW ARTICLE
  by Ajay Patnaik
  Inside Central Asia—A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Iran by Dilip Hiro; Harper Collins Publishers India, New Delhi; 2010; pages 448; Price: Rs 599.
  Dillip Hiro’s latest book Inside Central Asia is, as the cover suggests, a political and cultural history of not just five former Soviet Central Asian republics but also that of two extended cultural neighbours—Turkey and Iran. There (…)

• Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership: A Reality Check

  14 April 2011, by Arun Mohanty

  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s official visit to India on December 21-22, 2010 capped the visits of all the five permanent members of UNSC last year. This provided an opportunity to compare the magnitude of our strategic relation-ship with all these countries. Medvdev’s visit to India was preceded by the visits of US President Barak Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nikolas Sarkozy and Chinese Prime Minster Wen Jiabao to our country in quick succession making (…)

• Reflections from Eden Gardens

  14 April 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings In the light of the cricket fever that has gripped the entire country following India’s spectacular win over Sri Lanka at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium on April 2 to lift the World Cup, we are reproducing N.C.’s following article written for The Tribune precisely 15 years ago (it was later published in Mainstream on March 23, 1996) after the unsavoury incidents at Calcutta’s Eden Gardens where the India-Sri Lanka semifinal on March 13, 1996 had to be abandoned due to the (…)

• Bhagat Singh — A Remembrance

  14 April 2011, by Sheel Bhadra Kumar

  Last month the eightieth anniversary of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru’s martyrdom was observed on March 23. We offer our sincere homage to Bhagat Singh and recall his heroism while projecting his radical socialist ideas in the present context.
  When the 80th anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, March 23 [he was born on September 28, 1907 at Lyallpur Barga in the district Nawanshehar, now in Pakistan], is being observed, he has been described as an aatanki [terrorist] in two (…)

• Tribute to Ajit Bhattacharjea

  14 April 2011, by SC

  Veteran journalist and editor Ajit Bhattacharjea, 86, passed away at his residence in New Delhi on April 4, 2011 after a protracted illness—he was battling galloping cancer originating from a tumour in his brain.
  His wife, Dr Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea, an acknowledged authority on China’s foreign relations, having predeceased him on December 13, 2009, he is survived by his son Aditya and daughters Suman and Nomita, besides three grandchildren.
  Born in Shimla in 1924, he did his BA and MA (…)

• JP’s Message

  14 April 2011, by Ajit Bhattacharjea

  Jayaprakash Narayan has left a heritage of unremitting intellectual and political pursuit of individual freedom and social justice. He campaigned for human rights everywhere, including Kashmir, Nagaland and Tibet. His transparent sincerity, simplicity, openness to new ideas and willingness to re-examine his own made it a privilege to know him.
  Yet one cannot say that the social evils against which he struggled are nearer solution today, 19 years after he left us. In many ways the (…)