Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Karat’s ‘Poverty of Philosophy’ and Indian Left on the Kerala Scene

  12 December 2010, by K G Somasekharan Nair

  While delivering the Victor Kiernan Memorial Lecture in Cambridge University on October 23, Mr Prakash Karat, General Secretary of the CPI-M, said: “Kiernan who lived in British India between 1938 and 1946 often criticised Communists for their lack of interest in theory.” Karat admitted this deficiency and quipped that the Left in India was still banking on the concepts and theories of the 1940s.
  (New Indian Express, Thiruvananthapuram, October 24, 2010)
  This author had ratiocinated that (…)

• Exposing Churchill’s Role in Bengal Famine 1943

  12 December 2010

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Firdaus Ahmed
  Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II by Madhusree Mukerjee; Tranquebar Press, Chennai; 2010; pages 352; Rs 495.
  India’s most widely read historian, Ram-chandra Guha, rightly praises Mukerjee’s book as ‘a major contribution to Indian history and to the history of the Second World War’. The author has convincingly laid the blame for the Bengal Famine 1943 and the resulting three million deaths at (…)

• Incorporating Political Theory in the Study of Corporate Management

  12 December 2010, by Sunita Samal

  In the beginning, management education was concerned with industries and corporate bodies. Next, it was dominated by academicians and lastly it emphasised on customer satisfaction and business ethics. Corporate management has been primarily value creation. Managerial problems cannot be segregated under disciplinary boundaries. Politics can be found in all places including corporate management where inter-personal relations are involved. Decision-making by the corporate management is (…)

• Massive Mandate for Nitish Kumar

  1 December 2010, by SC

  As mega scams get unearthed one after another starting with the serious irregularities in the Commonwealth Games and Mumbai’s Adarsh Housing Society (meant for the families of the Kargil martyrs but regrettably cornered by the kin of not just leading politicians but also high-ranking retired military officers including a former Chief of the Army Staff) as well as the fraud perpetrated around the 2G spectrum, the latest being the multi-crore corporate loans scam, several important public (…)

• Dalai Lama’s Simple Words and Our Silence

  1 December 2010, by Humra Quraishi

  As scams get unearthed you can well imagine what lies ahead.Dark patches are getting darker, disillusionments are turning into nightmares, those disparities are widening,and hopelessness looms large.The crux is: the mess is getting messier. And yet there is that lingering hope that perhaps sense and sanity might prevail.
  In fact, last week-end as I sat hearing the Dalai Lama talk on the human approach to world peace, at the Institute of Social Sciences, those simple thoughts and simpler (…)

• Seoul Summit: The Real Test for G-20

  1 December 2010, by Muchkund Dubey

  The fifth Summit of the G-20 was held in Seoul on November 11-12, 2010. Before that, the G-20 had met four times at the summit level in quick succession during a period of a little over a year- and-a-half. The Seoul Summit was the first meeting of the leaders of the G-20 held in a country other than the advanced industrial countries constituting the G-7. The first three summits held during the peak of the global financial and economic crisis had achieved notable success in collectively (…)

• We will Miss your Presence, Jain Sir

  1 December 2010, by Sandeep Shastri

  TRIBUTE
  L.C. Jain Sir is no more…. a fact impossible to digest and believe. I was numbed into silence when I was first informed by a friend about his passing away… it appeared as if I had just spoken to him… his persuasive voice complimenting me for a very tentative article that I wrote and knew had serious limitations... he would have none of it and put a smile on my face with his genuine appreciation. When I informed friends about him no longer being with us, the response from all was (…)

• Politicians and Bureaucracy | Reinforcing Democracy

  1 December 2010, by P N Haksar

  Two Articles of P.N. Haksar November 27 this year marks the twelfth death anniversary of P.N. Haksar, the eminent administrator and distinguished diplomat as well as one of the country’s foremost thinkers. On this occasion we offer our sincere homage to his abiding memory by reproducing the following articles. The first one was written in November 1977 and published in Mainstream (February 21, 1987) and the second one appeared in Mainstream Annual 1989. Both are relevant in the present (…)

• China: Straws in the Wind

  1 December 2010, by H K Dua

  For quite some time, India and China have been at odds with each other and have watched their relations turning from bad to worse. The downward slide in relations between the Asia’s two neighbours has caused concern to all those who believe that it is not necessary for the two neighbours to continue living in hostility.
  The way things were going out of hand recently both in Beijing and Delhi could lead to serious consequences for stability in a region where one-fourth of the humanity (…)

• No More Sunshine

  1 December 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  Foggy days with low visibility are not unusual in this season in New Delhi but they have never been so hazardous as they are in Indian politics today. In fact, there is little sign of sunshine breaking out in the near future as Parliament meets for its Budget session in less than two weeks, on February 20.
  Twelve months ago, there was no warning from the government how serious was the economic prospect. Rather the Finance Minister, heralding the so-called new (…)