Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Kashmir Stalemate

  24 October 2010

  by Sajad Padder
  One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand the importance of the Kashmir issue which has been like a thorn in Indo-Pak relations for over sixty years. How different that relation-ship might have been, had there not been this interminable dispute over the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir! Open borders and unrestricted movement between one country and another, such as now occurs throughout Europe; trade, cultural, educational, social exchanges, free (…)

• Activist in Search of an Alternative: Reflections on Contemporary People’s Movements in West Bengal

  24 October 2010

  by Sumit Chowdhury
  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
  it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness... we had everything before us, we had nothing before us...
  —Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)
  Reflecting on the historic people’s movements in West Bengal in recent years, my mind harks back over and over again to those immortal lines from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Indeed, for someone who has been involved with Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh in (…)

• 1962: Twenty Years Later

  24 October 2010, by Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea

  [(October 20 this year marks the fortyeighth anniversary of the Sino-Indian border war that witnessed the first ever bloody conflict between the two Asian giants resulting in heavy casualties on the Indian side. On this occasion we are reproducing the following article that appeared on the twentieth anniversary of the border conflict in Mainstream (October 1982). Its author, Dr Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea, an acknowledged authority on China’s international relations, passed away in New Delhi on (…)

• Growing Chinese Assertiveness: Love Thy Neighbour?

  24 October 2010

  by Vaishnavi Tannir
  Many feel that the recent Chinese activity in the region of Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan spells trouble. At this point, fully comprehending the critical implications this move has, and will have, on the region and its participants, we have to carve a way forward. Moreover, an under-standing of the underlying motives and perceptions of China, India and Pakistan is most significant. This particular manoeuvre affects these countries most directly, and the US in an (…)

• Taking Solar Energy to Remote Villages: Barefoot College Shows The Way

  24 October 2010, by Bharat Dogra

  While renewable energy was always considered more desirable from the point of view of environment protection, its importance has increased several times in these times of climate change. Solar energy is particularly seen as a very promising source in energy planning for the future in tropical countries like India. Interest in realising the potential of solar energy is fast increasing and organisations which have been pioneers in solar energy are attracting a lot of well-deserved attention. (…)

• Burma/Myanmar: A Boycott turns the Clock Back

  24 October 2010

  by Khin Zaw Win
  In the emotion-wracked months following the popular uprising in 1988 in Burma/Myanmar, I had thought of writing something titled A Burmese Sense of the Tragic. Now, 22 years later, something I write could well be titled A Burmese/Myanmar Sense of the Ironic. A country and people who have been cut off from democracy for 48 years are going to have elections on November 7, but a whole slew of vocal ‘democrats’ are clamouring for a boycott of those polls.
  I am not about (…)

• Dr Suraj Bhan

  24 October 2010, by Ranbir Singh

  TRIBUTE
  The death of Prof Suraj Bhan, who passed away at the age of 79 years at Rohtak on July 14, 2010, has left a void which cannot be easily filled. He was an embodiment of courage, conviction and consistency. Dr Suraj Bhan could squarely fit into the category of academician-as- an-activist designed by the doyen of social sciences in India, Prof Rajni Kothari.
  Prof Bhan, who had a Ph.D degree in Ancient History from M.S. University, Baroda, distin-guished himself as a teacher in (…)

• Acclaimed People’s Theatre and Music Director, Communist and Friend

  24 October 2010, by Shamsul Islam

  TRIBUTE Acclaimed people’s theatre and music director Amitava Dasgupta, known to his friends as Amit-da, breathed his last on October 9, 2010 (he was born on July 1, 1947). He did not recover well from a heart surgery in July and continued working until his very last days. His was a four-decade career of an outstanding and distinguished pro-people cultural activist whose passion to use music and theatre against injustice never diminished.
  The German theatre director, Fritz (…)

• Our Shame overshadows Our Glory?

  19 October 2010, by SC

  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 till now and as we approach the end of the sporting event indications are that the Delhi CWG would go down as quite successful not just for India (which has been able to win a record number of gold medals thus exceeding its gold-tally at the Manchester Games in (…)

• Faking an Encounter: Killing the Peace Process

  19 October 2010

  Report of the All India Fact Finding Team on the Killing of Azad and H.C. Pandey