Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• ‘Marching... to keep Hope Alive for Us All’

  21 May 2010, by Arundhati Roy

  [On Arundhati Roy’s Essay on Maoists in Chhattisgarh
  Noted author Arundhati Roy’s 32-page essay on Maoists in Chhattisgarh—“Walking With The Comrades” (Outlook, March 29, 2010)—has caused ripples in different circles. Veteran journalist B.G. Verghese wrote a piece—“Daylight At The Thousand-Star Hotel” (Outlook, May 3, 2010)—criticising Arundhati’s essay. Thereafter former Secretary, Union Ministry of Rural Development, and architect of ‘Operation Barga’ in West Bengal, D. (…)

• Daylight At The Thousand-Star Hotel

  21 May 2010, by B.G. Verghese

  Roy’s distorted Maoist idyll aside, tribals are non-development’s casualties
  The CRPF massacre in Dantewada was brutal though avoidable, with two beheadings thrown in for bestiality. The Rammohan inquiry will tell us more about what happened. It was done, Arundhati Roy informs us (Walking With The Comrades, March 29), by “Gandhians with a gun”, with the timely reminder that there is no humbug about her Maoist Gandhians. They fight to protect beautiful tribal homelands against the state, (…)

• Denizens of the Other India

  21 May 2010, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  Ms Arundhati Roy’s “Walking With The Comrades” (Outlook, March 29, 2010) is one of the finest pieces of political travelogue in the current Indo-English literature. It compares well with the classic socio-political writings about the Chinese Revolution like Red Star Over China, Fan Shen, The Scalpel and the Sword and the like. Any convulsive political event does produce such literature from the pens of sensitive and empathic writers.
  That such a piece would create discomfort and (…)

• Where is Brahmeshwar Singh ‘The Great’?: Myth of Misuse of Laws meant for the Protection of Dalits and Tribals

  21 May 2010, by Subhash Gatade

  Is the law supposedly meant for the protection of Dalits and tribals put to misuse?
  It is a theme which recurs regularly in the discussions engaged in by the chattering classes of the country. While nobody can deny that frivolous cases are not filed under this Act, the manner in which the issue gets raised creates an impression that the only ‘use’ of this law is its ‘misuse’. Neither the members of our polity nor the articulate sections of our society seem ready to go for a reality (…)

• Afghanistan - Guarantees are the Best Way Out

  21 May 2010, by H K Dua

  Afghanistan has always been a prisoner of its geography and history and this imponderable has blocked its emergence as an independent and sovereign nation with a will of its own. Its strategic location could have been an asset for the region and the world; on the contrary, it has turned out to be the cause of its troubles and long spells of political instability.
  Other nations have often found it tempting to meddle in Afghanistan’s affairs and play games—great and not so great—on its (…)

• Back to Market Fundamentalism: The Myth of Inclusive Budget

  21 May 2010, by K B Saxena

  The changes introduced in the strategy of growth during the past two years had created an impression that politics has triumphed over economics in the sense that the concerns of the poorer sections of society have prevailed over the ambitions of economists and the dominant social groups to pursue an investment led model embedded in the primacy of the market and withdrawal of the state pursued since the onset of the reforms. As these changes had come about in the wake of the collapse of the (…)

• India Closes Ranks with Hamid Karzai

  21 May 2010, by M K Bhadrakumar

  Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s recent visit to New Delhi lasting two days took place at a defining moment in the Afghan civil war. Karzai is about to embark on a crucial peace and reconciliation project. He just completed talks in three important regional capitals—Islamabad, Tehran and Beijing—explaining his strategy, for the success of which he needs the understanding from the regional powers. Tehran and Beijing were forthcoming in their support of the Afghan Government whereas Islamabad (…)

• Bribing Iraqi Officials, US-Style

  21 May 2010, by Benjamin Todd

  Executives at the US security firm, Blackwater, approved secret payments of about one million dollars to Iraqi officials to “silence their criticism” after company guards killed 17 civilians in Baghdad in 2007, according to the New York Times.
  Citing interviews with four unnamed former Blackwater executives, the newspaper disclosed that the company’s President at the time, Gary Jackson, approved the bribes.
  Money was sent from neighbouring Jordan to their top company manager (…)

• Death Sentence to Ajmal Kasab

  10 May 2010, by SC

  In the end the Indian judicial system and democracy have triumphed. Ajmal Amir Kasab, the young Pakistani who with his group of motivated terrorists, trained in and supervised from Pakistani soil, carried out the audacious Mumbai terror attack in November 2008, killing in the process 166 persons, both Indians and foreigners, and who was personally responsible for 72 deaths due to indiscriminate firing, has been convicted and sentenced to death by Special Sessions Judge M.L. Tahiliyani in (…)

• Parliament and the People

  10 May 2010, by Surendra Mohan

  A cut motion was moved by the Opposition parties in the Lok Sabha on April 27 to ensure that the government is censured on the issue of raising the prices of petrol and diesel. Simultaneously, 13 Opposition parties called for a Bharat bandh to protest against price rise. These parties excluded the parties in the National Democratic Alliance. Earlier, on April 21, the NDA had organised a big public demonstration on the issue of rising prices. While the bandh had a partial success, the cut (…)