Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Samjhauta Express Bomb Blast: Can we Ever Unravel the Conspiracy?

  17 September 2010, by Subhash Gatade

  With no breakthrough in the over three-year-old Samjautha Express blast case, the government has decided to hand over its probe to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to unravel the conspiracy. “The Samjhauta blast case has been handed over to the NIA,” Special Secretary (Internal Security) in the Home Ministry Utthan Kumar Bansal told reporters on the sidelines of a function in New Delhi.
  Sixtyeight people were killed when bombs were set off in two coaches of cross-country Samjhauta (…)

• So, What Colour Is Terror?

  17 September 2010, by Badri Raina

  “Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity.” —Shelley
  I
  Shelley was never more wrong, but to that I shall return.
  Currently, one of the “burning issues” on media channels here in India is what colour we may ascribe or not ascribe to terror. A conundrum, if there ever was one.
  The matter has arisen from a comment made by the honourable Home Minister (read Minister of the Interior, incharge of “security” of the realm) to a conclave of senior (…)

• Call for Ban on Hindutva Terrorist Organisations

  17 September 2010, by Syed Shahabuddin

  Syed Shahabuddin, President of All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, has issued the following statement.
  The ugly face of Hindutva terrorism stands fully exposed, alongwith its connection with the Sangh Parivar and some Hindu religious figures, as well as its tentacles in some sections of the Army, the intelligence agencies and the police.
  Since 2001 several acts of terrorism were attributed to the Muslims even before completing the investigations. It is now clear that many of them were (…)

• Indian Economic Reform as an Example of Disaster Capitalism

  17 September 2010, by Abigail Dawn Mcgillivary

  Most people who survive a disaster want the opposite of a clean slate. They want to salvage whatever they can and begin repairing what was not destroyed; they want to reaffirm their relatedness to the places that formed them. But disaster capitalism’s ‘reconstruction’ begins with finishing the job of the original disaster by erasing what is left of the public sphere and then quickly moving to replace them with corporate-designed economic and political structures before the victims of the (…)

• Pulling Out is not Peace, Obama needs to Re-do his Sums

  17 September 2010, by H K Dua

  Most reports emanating from Washington indicate that the United States is caught in an acute dilemma over Afghanistan. Having spent nine years fighting in the mountainous terrain without achieving what it wanted to, policy-makers in Washington are debating not the pros and cons of a pull-out, but when to pull out of Afghanistan.
  The issue will be clinched in December when President Barak Obama has called a high-level review conference after which he will take the call about the time-table (…)

• Karzai Reaches Out To Delhi: A Refreshing Sight

  17 September 2010, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The consultations by Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasul and National Security Advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta in New Delhi in successive weeks will be noted regionally and internationally. They took place at a critical juncture in the geopolitics of the region.
  For Indian foreign policy-makers, Afghanistan assumes an unprecedented priority today as the stakes are high for national security, and harmonising our vital interests and core concerns with those of the international community (…)

• An Open Letter to Mahashweta Debi, D. Bandyopadhyay, Suvaprasanna, Sujato Bhadra and Other Friends...

  17 September 2010, by Sumanta Banerjee

  Sumanta Banerjee, an eminent political activist-cum-author and journalist, has written the following open letter to distinguished intellectuals, literary figures, artists and human rights activists of West Bengal criticising their current alignment with Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee with the objective of electorally defeating the CPI-M in the forthcoming Assembly polls next year. We are publishing, for the benefit of our readers, this piece along with a reply to Sumanta Banerjee by (…)

• On Sumanta Banerjee’s Open Letter

  17 September 2010, by Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri

  Sumanta Banerjee is shocked at actions by intellectuals of West Bengal which might help the TMC electorally. He thinks a TMC victory will be a disaster for the people of West Bengal, and points to the bad performance of TMC-led panchayats, Mamata Banerjee’s Congress (and Youth Congress) antecedents, including support of the Emergency and closeness to Siddhartha Ray, her political mistakes, her controversial acts of commission and omission as the Railway Minister.
  Sumanta Banerjee (…)

• Beyond the Ascent of the Starving Hill

  17 September 2010

  Beyond the ascent of the starving hill
  We reach now this valley,
  At the end of the precipitious battle of the roads,
  Does this cool shade construct homes?
  Here in trees life is sap,
  Here in hutments songs are simple,
  Here man’s honour lives easy.
  Have we come to our life’s own valley?
  We have crossed all our beggar days
  Crossed with the wind of the azure sea,
  We have fought out the famine nights
  The cloudy nights, we have the Sun
  With whom we build the autumn dawn. (…)

• Remembering Ravi Narayan Reddy

  17 September 2010, by Mohit Sen

  Ravi Narayan Reddy was the outstanding leader of the Telangana armed struggle. His birth centenary celebrations took place last year and are still continuing. September 7 marked his death anniversary and September 17 is the Hyderabad Liberation day. We offer tributes and salutations to Ravi Narayan Reddy by publishing the following article (constituting the introduction to RN’s autobiography) written by the renowned Marxist ideologue and CPI leader, late Mohit Sen.
  The continuity of his (…)