Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• A Movement having the Potential to Benefit Millions of Poorest People

  30 October 2010, by Bharat Dogra

  The movement initiated by the ‘Campaign for Information and Employment (Suchna Evum Rogjar Adhikar Abhiyan—SERAA)’ in Rajasthan has the potential to benefit millions, even crores, of poorest people not only in Rajasthan but eventually all over India.
  The ‘yatra’ and people’s contact programme of this movement started in September with the predominant demand for increasing the minimum wage rate for workers. The State Government had last notified the minimum wage rate at Rs 100 per day for (…)

• Dams on Rivers: Learning from Overseas Experience

  30 October 2010

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Raj Kumar Sen
  Economics of River Flows: Lessons from Dam Removals in America by Bharat Jhunjhunwala (ed.); Kalpaz Publications, Delhi; pp. 311; Rs 750.
  This book under review attracts the attention of its readers from the pictures on its front and back covers. These are respectively of the Embrey Dam in operation, the Embrey Dam being removed, and the Rappahannock River flowing freely after removal of the dam. In a nutshell these three pictures tell the story of what (…)

• CWG, Karnataka, POSCO, Mumbai

  24 October 2010, by SC

  Last week it was written in these columns:
  Despite all the mismanagement, inadequacy of preparations and allegations of mega-size corruption that at one stage threatened the very holding of the XIX Commonwealth Games in the Capital, the Games have on the whole gone off well….
  The Games have indeed been a success defying all the initial fears and misgivings. Now has begun the probe into all the charges of corruption. The government had promised to conduct, after the gala sports (…)

• Majority of Posco Enquiry Committee Confirms - POSCO Project Is Illegal

  24 October 2010

  by Abhay Sahoo
  Today (October 18, 2000), three of the four members of the Committee set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests confirmed that the POSCO project is illegal and that all of its clearances were obtained by breaking the law. The Committee has also found that the project has potentially very dangerous impacts on issues like water, air pollution, and the coastline, and none of this was ever properly evaluated. After a detailed discussion of the huge number of criminal (…)

• Simplicity Extraordinaire: S.R. Sankaran (1934-2010)

  24 October 2010, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  TRIBUTE
  An Indian Airlines flight arrived at the Agartala Airport one late afternoon. It was a full flight. All the passengers scrambled down to pick up their baggage and leave for home. Among them was a short-statured, frail, middle-aged person wearing an ordinary bush shirt and slightly crumpled trousers. The only remarkable feature was his thick crop of well-parted shining black hair. He saw some flamboyant busybodies briskly moving up and down in search of somebody. The gentleman (…)

• Asiad, Akalis and AIR

  24 October 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  November nineteenth is Indira Gandhi’s birthday. Normally, her birthday so far has been a very private affair, not an event in the public calendar. Not so this year. If anything, it brings out in bold relief the strange convergence of events, unconnected with each other, but together generating tensions that add up to a first-class crisis. At the age of sixtyfive, the Prime Minister of India faces challenges which she finds difficult to overcome, largely because of the (…)

• UN Security Council Seat Will Test India’s Mettle

  24 October 2010, by M K Bhadrakumar

  Joy erupted within the establishment in New Delhi late on Tuesday evening (October 12) as news arrived from New York regarding India’s election to a non-permanent two-year Asian seat in the United Nations Security Council. A dutiful media ecstatically tagged along. The infectious excitement was not without good reason.
  A 19-year slice of memory was definitively breaking away—dating to the dark day when India was badly bruised as it contested against Japan and received hardly (…)

• Faith, Fact and the Law in Ayodhya — An Appeal in the National Interest

  24 October 2010, by S G Vombatkere

  Most people believe that there is a divine law, the details of which are a matter of faith, since the existence of each person’s God can neither be proved nor disproved. One can only pray, “Ishwar-Allah tero naam, sab ko sanmati de bhagawan” for communal harmony and peace. But why discuss this now? The reason is the troubled Ayodhya—Babri mosque-Ram Janmabhoomi issue—that has come to a critical juncture with the split Allahabad High Court verdict of September 30, 2010.
  Matters of (…)

• Federal India’s Ideal on Trial in Kashmir

  24 October 2010, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  Two momentous developments took place in the second half of September. An all-party delegation of parliamentarians visited Kashmir to study the ground reality at first hand; and following the visit, an eight-point package was announced by the Government of India. The all-party delegation of MPs symbolised the whole of India’s interest (i) in Kashmir’s sentiments and views about their future, and (ii) in knowing precisely the factors that gave rise to the unrest.
  The eight-point (…)

• State Terrorism in Kashmir Valley

  24 October 2010, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  [The following piece was sent to us quite sometime ago but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons.]
  It pained me to read of Sikhs receiving threats in the Valley and as I sat back wondering the whys to it, I found it almost unbelievable. For all along, all these years, even during the peak of the earlier crisis phases, I always saw great unity between the Valley Sikhs and the Muslim population. In fact, the bonding seemed perfect, with just about no hint or a strain (…)