Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• India’s First Woman Ambassador

  7 November 2009, by V R Krishna Iyer

  TRIBUTE
  C.B. Muthamma, India’s first woman ambassador, passed away on October 15 at the age of 85.
  Frailty, thy name is woman, they say. That is not a true statement at all. So long as social justice is an integral part of our constitutional fundamentals and judges remain sensitive and not pachydermic, gender justice will remain a non-negotiable article of faith. Professional gender bias and discrimination have no place in the civilised scheme of things: those were traits of (…)

• Developed Countries Must Pay for Historical and Ecological Debt

  7 November 2009

  As we write this to the Government of India, different country governments are busy with intense climate negotiations at the ongoing UNFCCC sessions in Bangkok. As people all over the world have realised, the face of climate negotiations has been dramatically altered with the call given by a large number of developing country governments in their official submissions to the UNFCCC, demanding that the climate debt of the developed countries must be repaid, and this payment must begin with the (…)

• Outcome of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Election 2009

  7 November 2009, by P R Dubhashi

  Maharashtra, one of the larger States in India, went to polls on October 13 for electing 288 representatives in the Legislative Assembly. The electorate was 7 crore 8 lakh 11,245 strong comprising 3 crore 60 lakh 76,460 female voters and 3 crore 97 lakh 34,770 male voters. As many as 3559 candidates set up by 92 political parties as well as independents stood for election. The Congress put up 174 candidates, NCP 114, Shiv Sena 169, BJP 119, MNS 143, Third Front 258. Of the candidates only (…)

• Haryana: Setback in Electoral Battle after Defeat in War on Development Deficiency

  7 November 2009, by J. George

  The Congress party nearly lost the electoral battle for the Haryana Assembly election because of the development of faultlines. Stability with security for inclusive and sustainable development therefore has emerged as the major concern. That must guide the future course of choices as the calculus of Cabinet formation is being worked out. This in essence is the mandate given by the voters in Haryana. The emergence of a strong Opposition must therefore be used towards sustaining the growth (…)

• Journey beyond Marx

  7 November 2009, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  This article is being reproduced on the occasion of the ninetysecond anniversary of the October Revolution (that look place on November 7, 1917). This was written a couple of months before the seventyfourth anniversary of that Revolution on November 7, 1991 (the first time it was observed in the USSR without any official sanction and the last time it was celebrated before the collapse of the Soviet Union).
  In the midst of the excitement over the dramatic (…)

• Reflections on October Revolution and Crisis in Communist Movement Today

  7 November 2009, by Mohit Sen

  Renowned Marxist ideologue and veteran Communist leader Mohit Sen passed away in early 2003. On the occasion of the eightyninth anniversary of the October Revolution on November 7, 2006 we carried excerpts from the chapter ‘Reflections’ from his memoirs A Traveller and the Road—The Journey of an Indian Communist (published by Rupa and Co., New Delhi) to bring out his views on the October Revolution and its aftermath in the light of the latest developments on the global scene and our own (…)

• Requiem for the October Revolution

  7 November 2009, by Subrata Sen

  On the occasion of the October Revolution’s ninetysecond anniversary we reproduce, with the author’s consent, the following piece that appeared in Nagpur Times eighteen years ago.
  Facts must be faced. Masses in the Soviet Union are today bent upon doing away with all vestiges of the October Revolution. Attempts to “analyse” the developments carefully avoiding the cardinal issue of the Stalinist legacy are obviously ridiculous. The current mass upsurge in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (…)

• Reminiscing the Political Legacy of Balagopal

  7 November 2009, by Gilbert Sebastian

  TRIBUTE
  This condolence note for K. Balagopal, the eminent human rights activist who expired at the age of 57 from a cardiac arrest on October 8, 2009, is motivated by the feeling that the political man in Balagopal is often given a short shrift.
  As with Marx, Balagopal had also undergone an epistemological break in 1993. So we had two Balagopals: the early Balagopal, the Marxist-Leninist who was an advocate of ‘new democratic revolution’, and the late Balagopal, who turned a (…)

• Save Aami River and Lakhs of Villagers from Pollution

  7 November 2009, by Bharat Dogra

  COMMUNICATION
  The Aami river flows in Sidharthnagar, Gorakhpur and Sant Kabir Nagar for nearly 100 kms before merging into the Rapti, a sub-tributary of the Ganga. This river had close ties with the lives of Gautam Buddha and Sant Kabir. Gautam Buddha gave up his royal dress to take up sanyas on the banks of this river. Sant Kabir breathed his last on the banks of the river in Maghar. His memorial has been built here including a temple as well as a mosque.
  However, in recent years (…)

• Outstanding Champion of Human Rights

  7 November 2009, by Vidya Bhushan Rawat

  Professor Iqbal Ansari, the one-man army of documentation of facts relating to issues of Muslims in India, passed away on October 13 in his home town of Aligarh, where he grew up and developed a vast treasure of friends working on human rights all over the country. Even those who might have disagreed with some of his overemphasised and simplistic observations, would not disagree with the fact that he was overwhelmingy concerned about the growing animosity on Hindu-Muslim unity, a subject (…)