Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Challenge of the Maoists

  19 April 2010, by Surendra Mohan

  The Maoists have got entrenched in the forested areas inhabited mainly by the Scheduled Tribes in the mineral rich areas of Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Although the Naxalite movement had started in 1967 when the CPI-M adopted the parliamentary democratic path in the tribal packet of Naxalbari, it was quite active in Kolkata and other urban areas in the early 1970s. It struck roots in the plain areas of Bhojpur and Jahanabad in Bihar in the 1980s. However, gradually it has shifted to (…)

• Stop Operation Green Hunt, Start Dialogue with the Local People

  19 April 2010

  Interim Observations of the Jury of Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt
  The Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt (organised by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens) was held in New Delhi from April 9 to 11, 2010. Its jury comprised retired Supreme Court judge Justice P.B. Sawant, retired Bombay High Court judge Justice (…)

• Statement following April 6 incident at Dantewada

  19 April 2010

  We condemn in no uncertain terms the killing of more than 70 CRPF personnel by the Maoists in the Makrana Forests of Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada on April 6. We also condemn the killing of more than a hundred tribal villagers by the security forces since June 2009 in the same area in the course of the ongoing Operation Green Hunt. Loss of any life diminishes human values
  The April 6 incident highlights the urgent necessity of reviewing Operation Green Hunt and, if necessary, reversing (…)

• Other Side of Transactions in a Violent System

  19 April 2010, by Sumanta Banerjee

  It is understandable that human rights/civil liberties organisations should come out with statements deploring the killing of security forces (for example, the PUDR press statement on the wiping out of 75-odd CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh on April 6) on the purely humanitarian ground that any loss of life is deplorable. But civil society groups or individuals who view the issue from a larger perspective need to take a more rigorous and clear-cut stand. If they agree that the fundamental (…)

• Unpublished Letters of P.C. Joshi

  19 April 2010

  The year 2009 marked the fiftieth year of the publication of Lokayata, a seminal work on Indian materialist philosophy from the Marxist point of view. Its author, distinguished philosopher-scholar Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (1918-1993), was a life member of the CPI and closely associated with P.C. Joshi (1907-1980), the builder of the Communist Party in this country and its first General Secretary from 1943 to 1947. Joshi was keenly interested in Chattopadhyaya’s works and encouraged him to (…)

• Climate Change and Justice

  19 April 2010, by Bharat Dogra

  While the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions adequately and with the greatest urgency is widely recognised, this extremely important issue has not yet become an issue of mass mobilisation particularly among weaker sections. The reason is obvious—people are too involved in their day-to-day problems. On the other hand, if any world level planning for reducing GHG emissions is linked to meeting the basic needs of all people, then this will be a plan in which all weaker sections (…)

• No Honour in “Honour Killing”

  19 April 2010, by Sunita Vakil

  It is a matter of national shame when arguments condoning crimes like “honour killings” come in the form of tradition.
  A. Marten says: “If we would know the political and moral condition of a state we must ask what rank women hold in it.” It needs no reiteration that patriarchy runs deep in Indian society and crimes like female infanticide and foeticide still haunt the country. It is therefore not surprising that different societies in India are increasingly facing the problem of (…)

• The US War Machine—Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

  19 April 2010, by S G Vombatkere

  The Tone of the Third Millennium
  The reprehensible Al-Qaeda attack on New York (WTC) and Washington (Pentagon) in the USA on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, set the stage for the Third Millennium in its very first year. This audacious attack on the economic and military nerve-centres of the world’s greatest power shook the then US President G.W. Bush and his administration such that nobody paused to think what might be the true cause. As expected, the attacks drew retaliatory action, later (…)

• Directionless in Agriculture

  19 April 2010, by Bharat Jhunjhunwala

  The growth rate of agriculture was three per cent and that of manufacturing was 4.5 per cent during the first three decades after independence. The growth rate for agriculture has slipped to 2.8 per cent while that for manufacturing has increased to 6.4 per cent during the last 15 years. Farmers continue to commit suicides across the country. The groundwater level is declining. The country has to import wheat, edible oils and pulses year after year.
  That said we must not ignore the (…)

• Should Dalit Christians/Muslims be excluded from Reservation?

  19 April 2010, by Ambrose Pinto

  The Ranganath Mishra Commission Report was tabled in December 2009 in Parliament. Some of its important recommendations are 15 per cent reservation to minorities in education, Central and State Government jobs and social welfare schemes in the OBC quota. Out of 15 per cent reservation for minorities, the Report recommends 10 per cent to Muslims and the remaining five per cent to other minorities. It also recommends the inclusion of Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims in the list of the (…)