Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• M.N. Govindan Nair—Evaluation of a Neighbour on his Birth Centenary

  21 February 2011, by K G Somasekharan Nair

  Renowned CPI leader M.N. Govindan Nair’s birth centenary fell on December 10 last year. This article, by a neighbour in his native village in Kerala, was written at that time but could not then be used for unavoidable reasons. It is now being published here as an evaluation of the personality based on the author’s personal views, ideas and impressions.
  The birth of MN took place on December 10, 1910 at Pandalam, a remote village in Kerala. He was brought up and started his public (…)

• Kyrgyzstane: Renewed US Pressures

  21 February 2011, by Benjamin Todd

  Due to the favourable geographic location and vast natural resources, Central Asia’s importance in US calculations has been growing with every passing year. Washington is fully conscious of the fact that increasing tensions among those states which are in mutual competition over Central Asian oil and gas as well as the local crossroads on old routes between Hindustan, Europe, Russia, the Middle East and the Middle Kingdom are turning the region into one of major international powder-kegs. (…)

• Question Mark

  19 February 2011, by SC

  The national scene remains depressing on the whole with the Union Government—already busy trying its utmost to prevent the fallout of the corruption charges in the underpricing of 2G airwaves sold to telecom operators—making every effort to avert a fresh spectrum scam. It is thus taking urgent steps to cancel a palpably improper deal [involving the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)] wherein the beneficiary happens to be a private company that would have got 70 MHz of spectrum for a (…)

• POSCO Clearance — Reason Wounded

  19 February 2011, by Bharat Dogra

  On January 31, the Ministry of Environment and Forests gave conditional clearance to the $ 12 billion dollar integrated steel plant and captive port project of the South Korean Pohang Steel Company (commonly called the POSCO project). This clearance, although it is accompanied by 60 conditions, has been widely criticised by social and environmental activists. The resistance group of local people, the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (Committee for Struggle to Resist POSCO), has said that it (…)

• Scandalous Decision of Jairam Ramesh to Clear the POSCO Project

  19 February 2011

  The following is the statement issued to the press by Abhay Sahoo, President of the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), and Prashant Paikeay, the PPSS spokesperson, on January 31, 2010.
  The decision of Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh to give a comprehensive okay to the POSCO India Steel Power Production-Captive Port project, based on some additional conditions, is nothing short of a total sell-out to the politics of power and international capital. In a climate where each and every (…)

• Egypt: Fallout of US Duplicity

  19 February 2011

  by Arindam Chaudhuri
  The kind of double standards practised by America for decades, even as it arrogantly talks about democracy and preaches the virtues of free speech, dissent and human rights to the world from a pulpit, is a shame to say the least. The fact is, be it Latin America, Asia or Africa, America has always supported brutal dictators who have tortured and killed their own citizens in the most horrific manner.
  During the Cold War, America used to argue that propping up (…)

• Tunisia - Jasmine Revolution: Lessons Learnt, Challenges Ahead

  19 February 2011, by Arvind Kumar

  On Monday, January 17, while I was waiting at the Frankfurt airport for a connecting flight to Dublin, my eyes were drawn to an editorial in the Financial Times, European edition. The editorial read: “The Jasmine Revolution: Tunisians rid themselves of a corrupt old order”. This editorial made a valid point: noting the collapse of autocracy in Tunisia, it reiterated the notion that no nation will forever be able to endure political repression, denial of civil liberties and rampant corruption (…)

• Crisis in Egypt: Iran Wins, Israel Loses in Turmoil

  19 February 2011, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The two regional powers most affected by the turmoil in the Middle East are going to be Iran and Israel. Life sometimes offers strange parallels. There is much in common between the two intractable adversaries.
  These two non-Arab countries appear curiously “stable” in a region caught in a maelstrom. No one points an accusing finger at either as the “hidden hand” behind the turmoil in their neighbourhood—not even their worst detractors. In fact, both seem taken by surprise by the (…)

• Congress: Disgrace Abounding

  19 February 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  The opening of the St Kitts case brings in a new dimension to the corruption and misdeeds of those who had been in power till yesterday. From the Bofors to the telecom scandals one was getting accustomed to the maxi-bribery involved by Ministers in office—in short, what’s called the kickback category. Compared to it, the house allotment scam and the petrol pump distribution apart from the fodder scam scandal are a part of corrupt deals in which money passed through (…)

• Safeguarding the Republic

  19 February 2011, by K. Subrahmanyam

  [(TRIBUTE
  K. Subrahmanyam, 82, India’s pioneering strategic thinker, passed away in New Delhi on February 2, 2011. He leaves behind his wife, three sons and a daughter; while one of his sons, Jaishankar, is currently our ambassador in Beijing, another son, Sanjay, is a historian teaching at the UCLA, and a third, Vijay, is a Secretary in the Government of India.
  As The Times of India has aptly observed editorially,
  “The demise of K. Subrahmanyam… should be an occasion to reflect on (…)