Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Grim Warning from Bhopal

  20 June 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The following are the pieces on the Bhopal tragedy written by N.C. soon after the disaster that rocked the Union Carbide plant as well as the nation in the night of December 2-3, 1984. The first was written as ‘Observer’ and the second as ‘Sentinel’.
  It was a massacre of innocents by all counts. What happened at the Union Carbide plant at Bhopal in the early morning of December 3 was not just a tragedy but a heinous crime which killed nearly two thousand and (…)

• Bhopal: Some Questions for Scientists

  20 June 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The ten days that followed the Union Carbide’s killer gas leak in its plant at Bhopal on December 3 have not only seen the death of nearly three thousand people and more than a lakh hospitalised, but have brought in its train dramatic developments with far-reaching implications. The Chairman of the Union Carbide Corporation, Warren Anderson, was arrested and bundled out of Bhopal, while the Chairman of the Indian branch of the Union Carbide, Keshub Mahindra, and its Managing Director, V.P. (…)

• Oaths, Promises, Lucre and Bhopal

  20 June 2010, by Mukul Dube

  In what are generally, though not always, correctly called democratic countries, governments are elected by the people. Typically, the members of elected governments take oaths when they assume office. In these oaths they promise to do certain things. Without exception, the things they promise to do are to be in the service and defence of the people who elected them. No Minister in India, for example, has sworn to harm India’s people. His or her duty, the justification for her or his (…)

• Bhopal Verdict—A Cruel Joke

  20 June 2010, by Soma S. Marla

  Twentysix long years after the gruesome accident of methyl isocyanate (MIC) toxic gas leak from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, the district court of Bhopal has finally delivered its verdict. Eight persons, including the former Chairman of the plant Keshub Mahindra (who is next to the CEO of the plant, Warren Anderson), were found responsible for negligence that led to the death of countless innocent citizens of Bhopal. But to the dismay and frustration of the world and the families of (…)

• Constitutional Crisis in Manipur

  20 June 2010, by Nandita Haksar

  From the time I first visited Manipur I have been painfully aware of the divisions within the Manipur society. And I have also been aware how deeply ignorant the rest of us in India are about the history and geography of the area.
  The first time I went to Ukhrul was in 1982 as a part of a women’s team to investigate into the human rights violations by the Indian armed forces during a counter-insurgency operation. The team was headed by Pramila Dandavate. In her first speech in Ukhrul (…)

• Muivaha’s Intended Visit to Somdal Stirs up Demand for Nagalim

  20 June 2010, by Aveivey. D

  The demand for a Greater Nagaland or Nagalim and the intended visit of the General Secretary of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM), Thuingleng Muivah, to his ancestral village Somdal in the Ukhrul district of Manipur has brought the State of Manipur to the centre stage of political controversy. Isak Swu and Muivah of the Greater Naga movement, and popularly known as the leaders of NSCN-IM, have been demanding a separate homeland for the Naga people scattered across the (…)

• ‘Thank you’ Speeches and Kasab: in the Structure of Perverse Capitalism

  20 June 2010, by Priya Naik

  What does one attribute individual action to?
  The question that underpinned the very foundation of liberal thinking is hitherto key anchorage for the mindset in the capitalist structural arrangement. As we sift through newspapers there appear threads connecting and narrating the tale for a theoretical reflection.
  Thank you, said Lebow when she won her Oscar this year for best director. The gratitude was not for the golden figure she clasped. It was a thank you to the her (…)

• Trinamul’s Massive Win at the Cost of Pranab, CPM

  20 June 2010, by Amitava Mukherjee

  Letter from Kolkata
  Of all the recent elections of West Bengal, perhaps the last one involving a large number of corporations and municipalities has turned out to be the most important. The importance lies in the fact that it has conclusively confirmed the death-knell of Left politics in the State. It has also swept away at a stroke whatever confusion remained in the minds of the Congress policy-makers as to who really is the undisputed leader of the anti-CPM political mainstream in West (…)

• Powerful Exposition of the Western Economic Model’s Instability and Inadequacy

  20 June 2010, by B P Mathur

  BOOK REVIEW
  Global Economic Crisis—A People’s Perspective: Fiasco of Neo-liberalism; Alternative Survey Group; Daanish Books, Delhi; 2009; pp. 257; price: Rs 450.
  Margaret Mead, a distinguished social scientist, had observed that “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” It is this spirit that has inspired a group of dedicated scholars to bring out uninterruptedly for the last fifteen years an Alternative Economic Survey, (…)

• Sonia in Jammu, Israelis pound Aid-carrying Ships in Besieged Gaza

  20 June 2010, by Humra Quraishi

  Sonia Gandhi’s advisers should have suggested to her that if she had travelled as far as Jammu she should have travelled still further. Towards Shopian to meet the affected family of the two slain women—Neelofar and Aasiya Jan. After all, last week-end the entire Valley was observing the first death anniversary of these two young women, whose murder still remains wrapped in layers and is one of those blatant cases of a cover-up of sorts. And if anger over these murders couldn’t be contained, (…)