Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• South-East Asia: A Beacon of Maritime Collaboration?

  7 November 2009, by Harnit Kang

  According to a May 2009 interview with Rear Admiral Chew Men Leong, the Chief of the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN), in the journal Military Technology,
  Maritime Security threats are constantly evolving and cannot be dealt with by one agency or a single country. We need to continue to tighten inter-agency cooperation and expand transnational cooperation.
  Until very recently, International Maritime Law was tailored mostly to prevent naval clashes between countries. Keeping the (…)

• Mapping the Al-Qaeda Linkages in South-East Asia: How Real is the Threat?

  7 November 2009, by Tuli Sinha

  Introduction
  Terrorism is an elusive concept. It is a kind of political violence but neither academics nor policy-makers have reached a consensus on its definition. Like every social phenomenon, terrorism is malleable, constantly changing in appearance and evolving structurally, which demands any definition to be all-encompassing. It involves political objectives and goals and relies on violence or the threat of violence. It is designed to generate fear in a target audience that extends (…)

• Two Messages

  1 November 2009, by SC

  The one-day trilateral summit of the Foreign Ministers of Russia, India and China (RIC) successfully concluded in Bengaluru on October 27 with the joint communiqué issued at the end of the meet (their ninth) highlighting the need to coordinate their approaches to several major problems before the world today. These included terrorism, climate change and reform of financial institutions, issues on which their common positions came out in bold relief alongside the question of resolving (…)

• Indira Gandhi’s Place In History

  1 November 2009, by K. Natwar Singh

  October 31 marks the twentyfifth anniversary of Indira Gandhi’s martyrdom. On this occasion we are carrying the following piece by the former External Affairs Minister who had worked under her for several years and seen her from close quarters. We are also reproducing (on p. 27) N.C.’s article on her after her demise.
  From May 1966 to April 1971 I was working in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat (it was renamed Prime Minister’s Office by Morarji Desai). I was the first foreign service (…)

• To be a Kashmiri and/or a Muslim!

  1 November 2009, by Humra Quraishi

  The detention-cum-interrogation of the two young Kashmiri cricketers by the Bangalore Police is yet another of those ongoing instances of bias and insensitivity. How easy it is for the police to arrest Kashmiri Muslims! The ground-work is well prepared along that typical mindset-cum-format of Muslims being potential terrorists and the situation gets compounded if the word ‘Kashmiri’ is prefixed. And let’s not fool ourselves that this latest incident, involving the two Kashmiri cricketers, (…)

• Nikhilda: Some Nostalgic Reflections

  1 November 2009, by P.V. Narasimha Rao

  On November 3, 2009 N.C. would have completed 96 years had he been alive. On the occasion of his ninetyseventh birthday we reproduce what a former PM and a veteran journalist (both of whom are no longer in our midst) wrote about him after he passed away on June 27, 1998.
  Former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was to have released the book India-Pakistan: Themes Beyond Borders—Selections from Nikhil Chakravartty’s Writings (published by Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd.) at the meeting held (…)

• Nikhilda

  1 November 2009, by Chanchal Sarkar

  When I first came to work in Delhi the most respected journalistic figure here was Sir Usha Nath Sen, one of the founders of the Associated Press of India which eventually became the PTI (Press Trust of India). Sir U.N. once told me of his guru K.C. Roy, the real founder of the API, that in any matter concerning the Government of India, in Delhi or Simla, K.C. Roy could figure out exactly with whom the matter rested and who would take the decision.
  Delhi has grown exponentially since (…)

• Regrettable Lapse

  1 November 2009, by Nilokheri Ranbir Singh

  COMMUNICATION
  I am grateful to you for publishing my piece “Unfinished Agenda of Gandhi’s Gram Swaraj: Fifty Years of Panchayati Raj” (Mainstream, October 10, 2009). But in this context I must bring to your kind notice a serious lapse that I have inadvertently committed due to the hurry in sending the piece to you for ensuring its publication in the Gandhi Anniversary Issue. It is the omission of the following reference:
  Partha Nath Mukherji, ‘Participatory Democratisation: (…)

• Making a Farce of Vulgarity, too

  1 November 2009, by T J S George

  Mukesh Ambani’s salary is Rs 44.2 crores a year, about three-and-a-half crores a month. In a country where the poor outnumber the well-to-do, that seems vulgar. On the other hand, the big salary works out to 0.23 per cent of the Ambani companies’ net profits. That doesn’t look vulgar.
  Sun TV’s Kalanithi Maran and wife Kavery take a salary of Rs 37.08 crores each. That works out to 16.96 per cent of their net profits. Is that vulgar? Anil Ambani’s salary is Rs 30.02 crores a year, or (…)

• A Nowhere Approach to India’s Nowhere Revolution

  1 November 2009, by Ajay K. Mehra

  The political, social and administrative discourse on Naxalism, India’s hydra-headed ‘nowhere revolution’1 , that in the past five years has spread from ten States to twenty, from 168 districts to 223 (out of about 626) and 2000 police stations, is turning queer. With both the Indian state and the Maoists flexing their muscles and daring each other with their might, the space for sane speaking, dialogue and solution, if at all there was ever, appears invisible. An attack on intellectual (…)