Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Indian Republic in Political Imbroglio

  31 January 2011, by P R Dubhashi

  This article was written sometime ago but could not be published earlier due to unavoidable reasons. It is now being carried as its contents retain their validity.
  As we approach the next Republic Day on January 26, 2011, the people of India are finding their sixty-year-old Republic in a state of disarray with Parliament, our highest representative assembly, trapped in a political imbroglio and the governance of the country caught in a creeping paralysis under the impact of successive (…)

• Independence Won: Independence Lost

  31 January 2011

  by Pushpa M. Bhargava
  The year was 1942. The ‘Quit India’ Movement. I had just joined the Lucknow University and was, like millions of others, intimately involved in the freedom movement.
  Not without reason. At the India Coffee House in Hazratganj, I turned the cup and saucer over. Made in Great Britain (GB). So were the straws, pencil, paper, nails, pins and clips. We produced no manufactured product. The shirt I wore, came from Lancashire mills in England woven from Indian cotton. We (…)

• National Role for India’s Veterans—Learning from USA’s Veterans

  31 January 2011, by S G Vombatkere

  With deepening strategic ties between India and the USA, there is also increased military-to-military contact for training and inter-operability. Both India and the USA are democracies, one the largest and the other the oldest, both with volunteer militaries statutorily under civilian control. Just as the two democracies have much to learn from each other, so too, have their respective militaries and their respective veterans.
  However, there are differences in the national strategy, (…)

• On Review of Jolly Kaul’s Memoirs

  31 January 2011, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  COMMUNICATION
  After the publication of my article reviewing Jolly Mohan Kaul’s book In Search of a Better World: Memoirs, I find that the first subheading that I gave in it was inappropriate. Actually it intended to convey “No Difference in Lifestyle-related Objectives between the Soviet and Capitalist States”; the omission of the word ‘lifestyle-related’ was an error for which I take full responsibility.
  A reader asked me if my statement (under the subheading “Reasons for Collapse of (…)

• Thoughts on Bihar Assembly Elections 2010

  31 January 2011, by Syed Shahabuddin

  The massive victory of the JD(U)- BJP alliance in the recent Assembly elections in Bihar has been eulogised to the skies by the civil society and mass media and depicted as the beginning of new politics in Bihar, cooling the caste cauldron and changing the prevailing anarchy to order. It has been said that the people of Bihar have voted for the Nitish Kumar-led alliance because it generated a new hope and sense of pride among the people as well as an inspiration for the future. The analysts (…)

• Questions and Answers on Kashmir Issue

  31 January 2011, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  The following are the author’s answers to the questions he received on phone in response to his three articles on Kashmir published in the Mainstream. You have been eloquent about Kashmiriyat. What is so special about it? You have also said that Wahabi Islam has eclipsed Kashmiri culture. What is Wahabi Islam and how could it submerge Kashmiriyat?
  Ans: Kashmiriyat is a culture founded in the teachings of Shaykh Nooruddin, who was also called Nund Rishi. His father was an early convert to (…)

• Wisdom in Short Supply

  31 January 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  The security environment in which the Republic of India steps into the thirtyeight year of its eventful career this week, is, to say the least, disturbing indeed. While one earnestly hopes that the Pakistani arms build-up along our frontier may not escalate into one more tragic war between the two neighbours, the climate of confrontation seems of have already set in. This by itself is an extremely unsettling development which not only threatens to vitiate normal (…)

• A Visit to the Killing Field of Netai

  31 January 2011, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  Netai is a medium-sized village situated deep inside Jungle Mahal of West Bengal’s West Midnapore district and on the banks of the river Kangsabati, locally known as Kasai. The popu-lation of the village is around 2000. The villagers’ main occupation is agriculture. The area is famous for winter vegetables because of their quality and size. It is about 3.5 km from Lalgarh town.
  It had been a peaceful area. There was no intrusion from the armed Maoist groups. Except during the height of (…)

• Making an Example of Binayak Sen

  31 January 2011, by Mukul Dube

  Give a lathi to a dim-witted psychopath and his new ability to break heads and limbs with it will soon have him drunk on power. He will want ever bigger lathis with which to wreak more destruction.
  In its action against Binayak Sen the State has been that violent imbecile. It seems reflexively to have selected the most destructive weapon in its arsenal: the charge of sedition.
  It is beyond comprehension how a physician who works for the poor, and who attempts to prevent their further (…)

• India-Russia Ties in the Neoliberal Era

  31 January 2011, by M K Bhadrakumar

  If last month’s official visit by President Dmitry Medvedev to India came anywhere near being marred, it was from a most unexpected quarter —onions. Indians can’t make curries without onions but now 80 per cent of them can’t afford this vegetable. They were contemplating how to substitute onions with finely chopped leaks when Medvedev arrived.
  Yet, the visit became a page-turner and the youthful President calmed the eye on our tired, jaded political landscape. The visit was “bound to be (…)