Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Protect Tribal People, Rework Strategy to Tackle Maoism

  24 April 2010, by D Raja

  The following is the speech CPI leader D.Raja delivered in the Rajya Sabha on April 15 on the Maoist attack on the CRPF’s 62nd Battalion in Chhattisgarh, Dantewada.
  Mr Deputy Chairman, sir, at the outset, my Party, the Communist Party of India, condemns the killings of CRPF jawans in the strongest possible terms. My party extends its sympathies to the kith and kin of those victims. Sir, the Home Minister’s statement is a specific statement on the incident in Chhattisgarh. I want to be very (…)

• In Resurrection of Gunnar Myrdal’s Asian Drama

  24 April 2010, by Arup Maharatna

  Indisputably enough, India on many a count was a distinguished colony of the British empire. While courting colonial domination over a fairly long span, India—unlike its many peers (for example, the African countries)—happened to have an illustrious heritage of a long-settled civilisation, with a complex social structure and organisation, culture, and religion. Ironically, India’s distinction on this score proved eventually more of a curse as it turned, in the course of a long indirect and (…)

• India and Iran’s Afpak Policy

  24 April 2010, by Atul Aneja

  Iran’s recent hyper-activism in neighbouring Afghanistan and Pakistan has caused conster-nation in large parts of the globe. In media circles, think-tanks and world chanceries, highbrowed mandarins and their well-heeled affiliates are trying to make sense of the latest, seemingly inscrutable, piece of the Persian puzzle.
  Yet Iran’s deft moves in an area the Persians have known well for thousands of years originate from deeply deliberated and well-grounded funda-mentals. Ever since (…)

• Other Dimensions of the Women’s Reservation Bill

  24 April 2010, by Syed Shahabuddin

  The continuing debate on the proposed reservation for women in legislatures through a constitutional amendment has raised much froth and fury on both sides of the political fence but has left out many conceptual, constitutional and social aspects unattended.
  In Article 15(1) of the Constitution any discrimination on the ground of sex alone is prohibited and the proposal is prima facie a blatant violation of this mandate. It may be argued that the raison d’etre of the proposed (…)

• Women’s Reservation Bill

  24 April 2010, by Vijay Kumar

  The 108th Amendment of the Constitution, better known as the Women’s Reservation Bill mandating one-third reservation in favour of women, avowedly for ensuring their adequate representation in highest legislative/ deliberating body at federal/state level and thereby empowering women, has been passed in the Rajya Sabha with just one vote against it. The object is undoubtedly wholesome and yet critical scrutiny will not be out of place to ascertain whether this Bill will readily lead to (…)

• Experiencing the Indian Democratic State

  24 April 2010, by Suranjita Ray

  Institutional Democracy
  A conceptual understanding of the democratic state often distinguishes it from other forms of non-democratic/absolutist/feudal aristocracy institutions. By displacing monarchical sovereignty with popular sovereignty the democratic state champions the cause of public interest based on the basic principles of equality, liberty, rights, freedom and justice, enshrined in the Constitution. To strengthen democracy and its functioning further, procedural methods are (…)

• Women and the Indian Political Process

  24 April 2010, by Bharti Chhibber

  The crux of democracy lies with the people. Participation of the people grants legitimacy to the government. Though women form a sizable part of India’s population, their political representation and participation is definitely below the mark.
  Of late the Rajya Sabha (the Upper House of the Indian Parliament) took a historic decision. It passed the Bill which provides for 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies. The Bill seeks to reserve a third of the (…)

• Women’s Reservation Bill and Gender Justice

  24 April 2010, by Nisha Jain

  The passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha is surely a historic and giant step and assumes significance due to the prevalent gender discrimination and increasing marginalisation of women on the one hand and their under-representation in political bodies on the other. One aspect of introducing the 108th Amendment Bill is to combat the marginalisation of women in political institutions and creating a political space for them. Despite 60 years of independence and (…)

• The Communist Rishi

  24 April 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  On May 19 passed away a man in Madras about whom fulsome obituaries have been written, and condolence messages conveyed; the funeral procession wended its way through the dusty streets of Vijayawada, the city which in the past was one of the main centres of his tireless activity. But all this does not bring out the real identity of the man.
  Putchapalli Sundarayya was not a mere mortal. He was of a special mould, and he helped with his two hands to mould a whole generation of his (…)

• China’s Policy towards Non-Military Threats

  24 April 2010, by Simi Thambi

  A nation’s security is no longer the “traditional national defence” but has economic, environmental, and human dimensions as well. All three dimensions are often subsumed under the rubric of “comprehensive security”, a new umbrella concept that grew out of the post-Cold War debate over the ramifications of security and over security studies as a field of inquiry.1 This essay presents a coherent exposition of some non-traditional threats in the context of China which have become especially (…)