Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Lalgarh and Jungle Mahal: Where are we Heading?

  28 November 2009, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  The events in Lalgarh and Jungle Mahal portend a grim disaster. Even if it is temporarily suppressed by large concentration of security forces, the resentment will be smouldering. More powerful and more widespread protest movements will emerge later. Unless handled with deep understanding of the genesis of the unrest and profound concern for the people, it can lead to a countrywide adivasi revolt in the first phase, which can develop into peasant-lower middle class-student revolt—in a word, (…)

• Foreign Policy Perspectives and the American Scene

  28 November 2009, by P N Haksar

  November 27 this year marks the eleventh death anniversary of P.N. Haksar, the eminent administrator and distinguished diplomat as well as one of the country’s foremost thinkers. The former Principal Secretary to PM Indira Gandhi was also a recognised authority on foreign policy. On this occasion we offer our sincere homage to his abiding memory by reproducing the following article from the December 1980 issue of Man and Development, the quarterly journal of the Centre for Research in Rural (…)

• Remembering P.N. Haksar: A True Friend of Bangladesh

  28 November 2009, by Monaem Sarker

  I feel humble to remember a distinguished son of India, Parmeshwar Narayan Haksar, diplomat, statesman, architect of the Simla Agreement 1972, an Indian from Kashmir but truly a citizen of the world. Above all, he was great friend of Bangladesh. Ever since the death of P.N. Hakser on November 27, 1998, I have continued to suffer from a sense of personal loss. I have also felt that it has been a national loss to Bangladesh too. Haksar was a symbol of humanism. His humane approach brought him (…)

• Emerging Role of Kazakhstan

  28 November 2009, by Satish Kumar

  In the last one month two Presidents of European countries visited Kazakhstan. One was the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the other Austria’s Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman. Sarkozy visited the country for the signing of an energy pipeline deal. Two other major deals were signed. One was restructuring of the banking system that was hit hard in the recession. Sarkozy went to establish good terms for energy-rich Kazakhstan with the French companies. The French companies (…)

• Politics and Economics of Sugar

  28 November 2009, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The government had an awkward time facing an angry Parliament on the sugar price scandal. Although the adjournment motion could be defeated by the government in the Lok Sabha by the sheer force of its brute majority, it was clear to the members of the Treasury Benches that in the wider arena of general public all over the country has come the perception that not only mismanagement but sufficient black money deals might be involved in it to graduate the scandal into the category of a scam. (…)

• Austerity: Is it a Drive or the Usual Practice?

  28 November 2009, by Pankaj Naithani

  The recent appeal for austerity due to the hike in oil prices has become a burning issue to discuss and deliberate upon. Whereas a number of sensible reasons can be attributed for such calls in our country, some of them are obvious. Any country where income is unevenly distributed, poverty is prevalent, illiteracy and ill-health of people is persistent has to have austerity as part-and-parcel of its socio-economic policies. It is imperative for institutions and individuals to practice (…)

• India Steps Up Climate Change Efforts

  28 November 2009, by Sunita Vakil

  India’s commendable action of promoting environment friendly economic development provides more hope for the Copenhagen climate talks.
  As the countdown to Copenhagen has begun, India is fast positioning itself as a resourceful and responsible leader ready to meet the climate change challenges head on. The fact that the country has already set up a Ministry to promote alternative sources of energy and has targetted to cut carbon emissions by 2020 demonstrates that it takes the climate (…)

• Remembering Gopi

  28 November 2009, by K. Natwar Singh

  TRIBUTE
  G.K. Arora, who was a Special Secretary in the PMO during Rajiv Gandhi’s stewardship of the country in the eighties, passed away in New Delhi on November 5. A brilliant product of the Allahabad University, he was the trusted lieutenant of D.P. Dhar, the Indian ambassador in Moscow, during the Brezhnev period of the USSR in the seventies. He has been branded as a “pro-Moscow man with a Marxist crap” by those who knew him from a distance, but those who saw him from close quarters and (…)

• An Analytical Look at McChrystal’s Report

  28 November 2009, by Uddipan Mukherjee

  Is the inexorable march of the NATO-led coalition forces, through the cobweb of insurgency in Afghanistan led by non-state actors, coming to a grinding halt? It is no longer a mere wishful thinking by the resurgent Taliban that the NATO-led forces are on the brink of defeat; rather it appears to be an ineluctable destiny for the US-spearheaded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) unless bolstered by an invigorating strategy and further resources. This is the prognosis put forth by (…)

• Privatisation of Judiciary!

  28 November 2009, by K G Somasekharan Nair

  The increase in the number of civil cases in a country is its social mascot, as it symbolises the abundance of law abiding civilised citizens accepting the authority of the judiciary to get their grievances redressed. Otherwise, they would have turned to self-retaliation or employed roughnecks, a usual practice in America and Britain enkindled by their criminal heritage, to enforce justice in their own way; hence all civil litigants may be reputed for their civility. But the increase in the (…)