Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• America’s Role in Kashmir

  22 July 2010, by Salfie Muzaffar

  REVIEW ARTICLE
  The Limits of Influence: America’s Role in Kashmir by Howard B. Schaffer; Viking Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 2009; price: 499; pages: 272.
  Howard B. Schaffer, Deputy Director and Director of Studies of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, has tried to make a superb history of the many efforts made by the parties and international community to settle the long-running and dangerous Kashmir (…)

• Kashmir and Conscience

  22 July 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  In the brochures and posters of Indian tourism, Kashmir still figures with its enchanting attractions. In reality, however, the picturesque Valley of Kashmir is becoming out of bounds for the peace-loving citizens of this country.
  In a sense, Kashmir today represents the gravest challenge to Indian democracy—perhaps much more than what happened at Ayodhya on December 6 and all that followed. If the bomb blast in Bombay on March 12 and the blow-up of the bomb storage in Calcutta that came (…)

• A New Dimension of Employment

  22 July 2010, by Vinod K Anand

  Employment has many connotations. This write-up focuses on one new connotation. Before we do that let us briefly see what employment means and how it is measured.
  Employment cannot simply be defined as the number of people with jobs. Such a wide definition would also include children are who are too young to work and all those who choose to take up paid employment. In fact, employment refers to all those people who are willing and able to work, and are in a position to find work. (…)

• When and How in Kandahar

  22 July 2010, by Uddipan Mukherjee

  The interviews for an article in the Rolling Stone magazine has cost General McChrystal his job. Nevertheless, the Obama Administration is keen to move ahead with the Counter-insurgency (COIN) Doctrine in Afghanistan since the offensive at Marjah. Against this backdrop, this article looks into various aspects of the COIN for the impending battle in Kandahar: the Taliban’s fortress.
  Since McChrystal has now expectedly capitulated to his Rolling Stone misdemeanor, the American COIN (…)

• Heading Towards Another Emergency?

  16 July 2010, by SC

  Last week the CPI (Maoist) spokesperson and one of the topmost leaders of the organisation, Cherukuri Rajkumar (popularly known as Azad) was killed in a dense forest in Andhra Pradesh’s Adilabad district. The official version was that Azad was having a meeting with some people in the jungle when the Andhra Pradesh Police, on a tip-off, swooped down on them. There ensued a gunbattle at the end of which two were killed—Azad and another person who was first thought to be Sahdev, a tribal young (…)

• Kashmir: The Turmoil Within

  16 July 2010, by Humra Quraishi

  Why can’t the Commission-cum-Panel on Child Rights order a probe into the killings of school-going boys on the streets of Srinagar city? Rather blatant killings out there, in broad daylight. And when this Commission can order a probe into any unnatural death of any child across the country, so shouldn’t the children of the Valley come in its very focus? In fact, last evening whilst hearing that follow-up on that young student of Kolkata’s La Martiniere School who’d hung himself within days (…)

• Azad’s Communication to Swami Agnivesh on Chidambaram’s Offer for Talks

  16 July 2010

  Late at night on July 1-2, 2010 Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, the CPI (Maoist) spokesperson, was killed in the Jogarpur forest area near Sarkapalli village in Andhra Pradesh’s Adilabad district. Azad was shot dead by the Andhra Police.
  According to an official of the Special Intelligence Branch (SIT), “We raided on a tip-off. About 25 Maoists were present there. The fire-fight started late in the night and ended at 3 am. Two persons were shot dead by police while the rest escaped. One of (…)

• ‘Let Us Not Make Truth A Casualty In This War’: Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad

  16 July 2010

  TRIBUTE
  Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, killed by the Andhra Pradesh Police, was a brilliant student of Regional Engineering College, Warangal, where he studied M.Tech in the late seventies. He led the Andhra Pradesh Radical Student Union after the Emergency. Subsequently he went underground and had been looking after political and organisational responsibilities for over 30 years. He was a member of the CPI (Maoist) Central Committee and Political Bureau and functioned as the party’s (…)

• Give the Adivasis a New Deal and Change the Development Paradigm

  16 July 2010, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  TO FIGHT PSEUDO-MAOIST MENACE
  Few, among the top political executives, realise that our own fate is inextricably linked up with the fate of the adivasis. If mankind is to survive, it has to imbibe the quintessence of communitarian spirit and conservation ethics of the tribals. Modernism’s accent on individualism has led to acute self-centredness of a rapacious civilisation that has reached its peak in assured mutual destruction. Redemption from the looming threat of self-destruction lies (…)

• Jnaneshwari Express Sabotage and Mass Murder Case

  16 July 2010, by Dipak Kumar Ghosh

  Jnaneshwari Express Sabotage and The people of the unfortunate State of West Bengal will recall the five famous cases of Bhikhari Paswan murder, Choto Angaria mass murder, Tapasi Malik rape and murder, Nandigram mass murder and Rizwanur Rahaman murder. There are some more similar cases, but the people distinctly remember these five important cases where the findings of the State CID were completely overturned by the subsequent CBI investigation.
  Since the disastrous results in the last (…)