Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Who’s Afraid of Caste Census?

  10 July 2010, by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

  Ever since the Centre announced that it would collect data on various castes during the ongoing Census, the media has created a hue and cry saying that this would harm the nation and open a Pandora’s Box of caste conflicts. On the other hand, those who seek caste enumeration are of the view that this would clear the cobwebs and deliver proper data on other backward classes (OBCs) that will help implement reservation policies and welfare schemes better. The collection of caste data was not a (…)

• Caste Wise Census

  10 July 2010, by Shree Shankar Sharan

  It has become difficult to engage in an honest and objective discourse on policies overladen with the caste question if you happen to belong to the upper caste, lest you lose the trust of the OBC whose social and economic emancipation has been the passion of your life.
  That is the reason why so many committed social workers of the upper caste have opted to join casteist parties; they would otherwise not have joined, because of their desire to express solidarity with their so-called lower (…)

• Caste Census of India 2011?—Justification and Objective for Braking Caste

  10 July 2010, by A K Biswas

  In existence as an intractable institution since immemorial, caste is based on divine authority of unchallengeable sanctity. The Rig Vedas propounded it. Manu, Yajnavalkya, Parasara and many others trumpeted it in earshattering pitch. Every scripture, mythological fiction and ancient epic adopted this pre-ordained line and parroted it. As foot soldiers, sages and seers were in the forefront in preaching messages of divinity of caste across India. Given this historical background, the present (…)

• And Football Produces Gods

  10 July 2010, by T J S George

  Not all the misplaced genius of the Lalit Modis and the Sharad Pawars of our land can generate the drama and passion football inspires. India is a net loser in becoming a cricket-only country. On the one hand, it destroys the spirit of cricket itself by turning it into a crass money machine. On the other, it leads to the neglect of glorious games like hockey and football.
  Cricket covers but a few countries; football is universal. Cricket is colonial; football is democratic. Cricket, (…)

• Kerala: Issue of Identity Politics and New Election Strategy of the CPI-M

  10 July 2010, by N A Karim

  Identity politics is the latest ideological issue that is being hotly discussed by political intellectuals particularly in the party precincts of the Communist Party of Kerala-Marxist. This issue was in circulation among a narrow section of Left ideologues specially after the publication of the book Manifesto of the Victims in Malayalam, written a few years ago by Prof K.E.N. Kunjahammad, a staunch supporter of the CPI-M and a much sought after writer and speaker of the party and its front (…)

• Tribal Areas in Ferment

  10 July 2010, by Syed Shahabuddin

  Tribals are, on the whole, the poorest section of the Indian people, socially and educationally the most deprived, economically the most back-ward and the most exploited, whose community land has been taken away on one pretext or the other, whose forests, even their minor products, have been placed out of bounds for them, whose non-renewable mineral resources have been handed over to outsiders for profitable extraction in the name of national development, who have been suffering injustice (…)

• Nehru, Maoism and Bhadralok

  10 July 2010, by Dipak Malik

  Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh’s missive against Chidambaram’s law and order driven Green Hunt Operation has drawn the attention of the entire nation. After a free for all, untramelled journey, scripted by the neo-liberals, this was definitely a timely break which reminds us that the Congress ought to go back to its roots, much of what was crafted out of the Nehru and essentially Gandhi discourse. The Congress party need not take recourse to the long dead agenda of Cold War (…)

• I Have Seen Her Crying

  10 July 2010, by Gladson Dungdung

  On June 13, 2010, we, 12 human rights activists of Jharkhand, started our journey before dawn. We had heard a horrible story about an Adivasi woman who was killed in crossfire between the security forces and the Maoists. Her name was Jasinta. She was a mere 25-year-old married woman enjoying her life with her family in a village. Of course, she was a mother of three kids whose lives are at stake now. Therefore, we wanted to know the truth. We wanted to know whether she was a Maoist. The most (…)

• China-Taiwan Relations: A Comment

  10 July 2010, by Gunjan Singh

  China since 1949 has claimed that Taiwan is not only an inalienable part but also an internal matter of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). But at the same time one sees that there exists a very strong dimension to the Taiwan affair. Since the 1980s there has been a major shift in this dynamics. After its democratisation in the 1980s it has clearly formed a very unique characteristic vis-à-vis China. These differences have been the cause of a number of clashes. Mainland China did show its (…)

• Manmohan’s Progress

  10 July 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  With Parliament rounding off the general debate on the Budget, this is the point of time when certain reflections on the government’s presentation of the economic crisis before the nation may be in order.
  Right at the outset, there was both curiously and appreciation on the Prime Minister having chosen a distinguished economist as his Finance Minister. An outsider in the arena of party politics, Dr Manmohan Singh raised expectations that he would present before the nation a fairly (…)