Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Fresh Breeze from Niyamgiri Hills

  2 September 2010, by SC

  The Union Government, and the PM in particular, have reasons to heave a sigh of relief: the contentious civil nuclear liability Bill has been passed in the Lok Sabha—the outcome of a broad consensus between the Congress and BJP with the former giving in to the latter’s insistence on a crucial change in Section 17(b) of the legislation reinforcing thereby the liability of the supplier in the event of a nuclear mishap.
  However, this nuclear liability Bill was not the only issue that (…)

• Tryst with Destiny — Its Kismet on August 15, 2010

  2 September 2010, by V R Krishna Iyer

  Max Muller said of India, the following eologatary felicitations:
  If we were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that nature can bestow—in some parts a very paradise on earth—I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well (…)

• Black Economy and the Nation’s Ills: Would Churchill Feel Justified?

  2 September 2010, by Arun Kumar

  Another Independence day has come and gone with the usual reflections on the nation’s achievements and its ills. With the shadow of another round of ferocious protest/violence in Kashmir, the continuing Maoist movement (‘the biggest internal security threat’, according to the PM) and inflation troubling the common man and leading to a united Opposition onslaught in Parliament, the mood of the nation and the rulers was sombre. These are the biggest worries but the smaller ones are no less (…)

• Make the Directive Principles of State Policy Enforceable by Court

  2 September 2010, by Chaturanan Mishra

  There is worldwide discussion today about inclusive growth. Our government and Planning Commission have also mentioned it now. To make growth inclusive some measures like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Right to Information Act, Right to Education Bill, Right to Health Bill, Right to Food Bill etc. have been taken but none of these, barring the NREGA and RTI Act to some extent, is being implemented in a way that would help all the people concerned. If the government is really (…)

• Kashmir Diary: Where do We Go from Here?

  2 September 2010, by Tapan Bose

  August 13, 2010
  Four more were killed in the Valley. It was the first Friday, Jumma of the Holy month of Ramadan. The killing began immediately after the morning (fajar) prayer—in Trehgam near Kupwara, Bommai near Sopore and in Patan. Throughout the day in different parts of Srinagar slogan shouting youthful demonstrators and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), aided by the Jammu and Kashmir Police, continued to clash. While there was no curfew in the morning, by mid-day it was (…)

• Iraq: Continuing Occupation with a New Codename

  2 September 2010, by Ninan Koshy

  “There are people in Washington who never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq and they are looking for ten, twenty, fifty years in the future. The reason that we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region and I have never heard any of our leaders say that they would commit themselves to the Iraqi people that ten years from now there will be no military bases of the US in Iraq”
  —Jimmy Carter (former US President), February 3, 2006
  President Barak (…)

• Karat versus Maoists: Total Advantage for the Fundamentalists

  2 September 2010, by Diptendra Raychaudhuri

  At last, Prakash Karat has gathered enough courage to call a spade a spade. At Vijaywada, where the CPI-M had a meeting of its extended Central Committee, he reportedly told his comrades that farmers’ land should not be taken without their consent. He admitted that Nandigram was a blot on a party’s face that thrived as a pro-poor pro-peasant party. It clearly shows that he wants to bring the lost Leftist sheen of his party back. What remains to be seen is whether he and his party changes (…)

• Faking an Encounter: Killing the Peace Process

  2 September 2010

  DOCUMENT
  The following is the preliminary report of the All India Fact Finding Team on the killing of Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad and Hem Chandra Pandey. This was released to the media at Hyderabad on August 22, 2010.
  The Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisations (CDRO) put together a team of concerned citizens consisting of Prof Emeritus Amit Bahaduri, JNU, Delhi, Senior Counsel of Supreme Court Prashant Bhushan, Kavita Srivatsava, human Rights worker from Rajasthan, Gautam (…)

• Gopalaswamy Parthasarathi

  2 September 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  The month of August marks the death anniversaries of distinguished diplomat-administrator-educationist G. Parthasarathi and renowned journalist C.N. Chitta Ranjan (who, apart from being the Editor of National Herald, Assistant Editor of Patriot and Editor of Link, was the first Editor of this journal in 1962-63). Parthasarathi passed away in New Delhi on August 1, 1995 and Chitta Ranjan breathed his last in the Capital on August 2, 1990. Remembering them today, we are (…)

• Our First Editor

  2 September 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  It was in 1960-61 that I came to know Chitta Ranjan who was then working in The Hindustan Times. I had met him earlier in Madras where he was desperately trying to run a daily brought out by a working journalists’ cooperative. When that project folded up, Chitta Ranjan moved to Delhi.
  When we first met, he was a staunch Congressman, an ardent follower of Kamaraj. I was in search of a forum where there could be dialogue between Congress opinion and the Left, to start with; and then if the (…)