Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Nikhilda

  27 June 2010, by Chanchal Sarkar

  When I first came to work in Delhi the most respected journalistic figure here was Sir Usha Nath Sen, one of the founders of the Associated Press of India which eventually became the PTI (Press Trust of India). Sir U.N. once told me of his guru K.C. Roy, the real founder of the API, that in any matter concerning the Government of India, in Delhi or Simla, K.C. Roy could figure out exactly with whom the matter rested and who would take the decision.
  Delhi has grown exponentially since K.C. (…)

• A Saint Editor

  27 June 2010, by Prabhash Joshi

  Nikhilda had turned eightyfour. Some people live for hundred years and stay perfectly agile, alert and healthy. Though he had an ageing physique, Nikhilda was not a person who would live by obeying the regulations of keeping fit.
  Four years ago, he took a taxi and went out in the hills. Alone. He was to meet me at the institutes in Mussoorie/Nainital. He reached there on time, attended the workshops, but again went out in the hills. I returned to Delhi and then left for Calcutta where I (…)

• The Ajatashatru

  27 June 2010, by M.V. DESAI

  It was the strangest of happenings that I should come to know of Nikhil Chakravartty in the late 1950s on account of his wife Renu Chakravartty. While she, living most of the last few years in Calcutta and therefore getting more and more remote in acquaintance became a distant figure, he grew over the last forty years as a journalist, philosopher, historian, critic, most uncritical of friends and friendliest of critics. Renu Chakravartty was discovered in person in August 1958 when she took (…)

• EMERGENCY (1975-77) Mainstream’s Rewarding Struggle

  27 June 2010

  To mark the passage of thirtyfive years since the imposition of Emergency by Indira Gandhi on June 25-26, 1975, we reproduce some extracts from the story of “Mainstream’s Journey Through Emergency” which was published in the June 25, 1977 issue of this journal. —Editor
  The story of Mainstream during the nineteen months of Emergency is both exciting and rewarding. It has many lessons to impart. The confrontation with a despotic authority could not possibly be direct and formal: by its very (…)

• The Roots of the Emergency

  27 June 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  As years pass by, one after the other, the past recedes more and more into distant memory. There are certain events in the life of a nation as of individuals, to which distance does not lend enchantment to the view. Rather the ugly visage falls into the pattern of historical evolution and lives on as such. One such event in our lifetime, and in our very land was the Emergency which was promulgated on June 25-26, twenty years ago.
  Twenty years is but a short space in the vast canvas that (…)

• Open Letter to the Chief Justice of India, Chairpersons of NCW and NHRC

  27 June 2010

  The following open letter to the Chief Justice of India and the Chairpersons of the National Commission for Women (NCW) and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) by women’s groups was sent to us for publication in Mainstream in the last week of May but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons. —Editor
  Respected Chief Justice of India,
  Chairperson of National Commission for Women,
  Chairperson of National Human Rights Commission,
  Subject: Appeal for justice in the case of (…)

• Russia peers into Kyrgyz Void

  27 June 2010, by M K Bhadrakumar

  Eighteen is a difficult age to own decisions or assume responsibility—especially concerning the fortunes of wayward younger siblings. By a curious coincidence, Russia has been tasked with taking a monumental decision of assuming responsibility on the 18th anniversary of its national day when on Saturday (June 12) the Kremlin received a formal communication from the President of the interim government of Kyrgyzstan, Roza Otunbayeva.
  By Otunbayeva’s own description, “We need the arrival of (…)

• Afghanistan: The March of Folly

  27 June 2010, by Maharajakrishna Rasgotra

  The United States is in the process of committing a historical blunder with grave consequences for not only Afghanistan but also the regions surrounding it. President Barack Obama’s decision to begin withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan in 2011 is under-standable: the long and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taxed the patience of the Americans, and the President himself must start planning his campaign for the second term. But it is the manner of the planned exit and its (…)

• Congress in a Tight Spot

  20 June 2010, by SC

  Inflation has once again touched the double-digit mark causing considerable concern in government circles (never mind the brave face put up by the Finance Ministry officials and the Finance Minister hinting at a tighter monetary policy regime and asserting that the Reserve Bank of India would take appropriate measures to tackle the problem). The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) figures for May have put inflation at 10.2 per cent over the year. It has been particularly high in case of certain (…)

• Some Lessons from the Bhopal Outcome

  20 June 2010, by V R Krishna Iyer

  The court verdict shows that India is still in a Victorian imperial-feudal era, distances away from the socialist dream
  The mass slaughter that occurred in Bhopal on December 2, 1984 was the consequence of an American multinational corporation dealing with Indian lives in a cavalier manner. Some 20,000 people were “gasassinated”. Yet, after 26 years of trial, the culprits get two years of rigorous imprisonment as punishment. Such a thing can happen only in bedlam Bharat.
  The (…)