Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• In the Wake of the Dantewada Killings

  1 June 2010

  COMMUNICATION
  This is with reference to the killing of 44 people —including 28 civilians and 16 special police officers—reportedly by Maoists, by blowing up a bus in Dantewada district (in Chhattisgarh) on May 17. (The Times of India, May 18, 2010) Those who are familiar with the ground realities in Chhattisgarh [including intellectuals, such as B.K.Roy Burman and Arundhati Roy, journalists, such as Shoma Chaudhury and Gautam Navlakha, and civil rights groups, such as the People’s Union (…)

• CPI (Maoist) and Operation Green Hunt

  1 June 2010

  COMMUNICATION
  Introduction
  About one hundred and fifty years ago Karl Marx in a historic study observed that British Imperial Capitalism smashed the economic foundation of the then pre-colonial India based on self-contained and self-sustained village units with a static stability for centuries. This, of course, facilitated its development by the Indian bourgeoisie after independence. But it appears that vast patches of areas, by no means insignificant and inhabited by poor tribal people (…)

• Haunted by History

  1 June 2010, by Mukul Dube

  In this benighted present, with a bleak future stretching ahead, pieces of our history have come back to haunt us. There are differences, of course, but there are samenesses also.
  “Naxalism” was described as a threat in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Areas, tracts of land, were called “Naxalite infested”, just like areas that harboured malaria or pets who harboured fleas—and “Naxalites”, whose battle was political, were lumped together with common criminals both in the realm of (…)

• Change in India’s Stance Towards SCO: The Rise and Rise of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

  1 June 2010, by Ash Narain Roy

  For long India remained indifferent to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). New Delhi’s position towards the Organisation was at best ambivalent. Now that this regional grouping has acquired strength and muscle, India is showing a keen interest in joining it. New Delhi considers SCO membership vital for promoting its interests in the region. The government has written to its missions in four Central Asian countries as also in China and Russia to do the needful in this regard (…)

• UPA’s Report Card

  25 May 2010, by SC

  The ruling coalition—UPA-II—has completed one year in office. If one takes UPA-I and UPA-II together, this month the United Progressive Alliance, led by Sonia Gandhi with Dr Manmohan Singh as the head of government, completes six years.
  True, in these six years the government at the Centre has ensured communal harmony with the Hindutva forces unable to mount, at least for the present, renewed assault on our secular values and pluralist ethos even if linguistic parochialism of the (…)

• Peace Now in Tribal Areas Open Letter to President of India

  25 May 2010, by B.D. Sharma

  Dear President,
  I, with my life-long association with tribal affairs, beginning with the troublesome days in Bastar (1968) and having the privilege of being the last Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (1986-1991), am constrained to approach you at a critical time when we are witnessing virtual collapse of the constitutional regime for the tribal people while being attacked and suppressed in a war-like situation.
  I approach you directly because people (…)

• Why Afzal Must Not Be Hanged

  25 May 2010, by Nandita Haksar

  All day I have been getting calls from television channels asking me for a bite on the Afzal case. I have refused. Whatever I wanted to say has been written in my book Framing Geelani, Hanging Afzal: Patriotism in the Time of Terror.
  The question of Afzal came up because of the judgement in the Mumbai attack case and death sentence to Kasab. The facts of the two cases are different and there is no link between the two cases.
  If the media really wanted to hear Afzal’s side of (…)

• Maoism in the Mainstream

  25 May 2010, by Ajay K. Mehra

  Even as ’Operation Green Hunt’ is trekking a bumpy road to taming the Maoist challenge, the emerging trends indicate, though retaining their violent identity, the politics of the gun is being increasingly mainstreamed into India’s political culture of orderly mayhem. The recent media exposure regarding their linkages with police and CRPF gun-runners in UP and fratricide among the ranks expose that their rutted road to revolution is following some of the familiar trends in mainstream politics (…)

• Civil Society’s Call for Immediate Cessation of Hostilities and Dialogue

  25 May 2010

  We, the undersigned, welcome the public statement of Mrs Sonia Gandhi, the President of the Congress Party, that the extreme neglect of the tribal areas is at the root of the present crisis in those regions. We hope that this appreciation of the need to go deeper into the question would lead to initiatives for immediate cessation of hostilities and dialogue so that the process of people-oriented development can be made feasible.
  Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, former Judge, Supreme Court of (…)

• Understanding the Present State of Globalisation

  25 May 2010, by Amna Mirza

  BOOK REVIEW
  Socio-Cultural Diversities and Globalisation: Issues and Perspectives edited by S.R. Mehta; Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Rashtrapati Nivas, Shimla; pages 364; price: Rs 595.
  In recent times, globalisation—the process signifying interaction and integration among the people, companies, governments of different nations given impetus by international trade, investment, and information technology—has been a topic for debate, discussion and dissection amongst academics. (…)