Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Chinese Threat on Border and India’s Defence Preparedness

  11 October 2009, by Amitava Mukherjee

  Notwithstanding the assertion made by S.M. Krishna, the Indian External Affairs Minister, that the India-China boundary happens to be one of the most peaceful of our borders, continued Chinese incursions along the Line of Actual Control and the series of strategic moves being undertaken by Beijing in regard to its relations with some smaller countries of the subcontinent, point to a sinister Chinese design of encircling India. It appears that Beijing still rues its decision of voluntarily (…)

• Unfinished Agenda of Gandhi’s Gram Swaraj: Fifty Years of Panchayati Raj

  11 October 2009, by Ranbir Singh

  Although the Father of Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, advocated for ‘a village based political formation fostered by a stateless, classless society’ for the creation of Gram Swaraj, the idea of Panchayati Raj did not find a place in the Draft Constitution of India. This happened because the Congress Constitution Committee rejected the idea ‘believing that the Congress could neither forgo its political role nor become so utterly decentralised’ as envisaged in the Gandhian concept of Gram Swaraj. (…)

• Open Letter to the CM of Bihar

  11 October 2009, by Shree Shankar Sharan

  Respected Chief Minister,
  I would put your by-election losses behind you and think ahead of the future. Elections reflect voter sovereignty It would be vain to expect the voter to line up all the time behind you even if your total score-card has been great but there have been some misses here and there. It is these misses that the voter picks on in by-elections with a view to drawing your attention rather than deserting you.
  Every government has two main problems, the party (…)

• Remembering Lohia: A Legacy for the Left

  11 October 2009, by C.N. Chitta Ranjan

  (October 12 this year marks the fortysecond death anniversary of Dr Rammanohar Lohia, the stormy petrel of the Indian socialist movement who, besides being one of the most versatile personalities in our freedom struggle, was a profound, innovative and original socialist thinker. Incidentally, his birth centenary celebrations have begun from March 23, 2009, which was Dr Lohia’s nintyninth birth anniversary. On this occasion we are reproducing Mainstream’s first editor’s tribute to the (…)

• Gandhi and Dr Lohia—Eternal Optimists

  11 October 2009, by S.R. Nene

  (The following is a chapter from the author’s forthcoming book, Lohia Remembered.)
  The twentieth century politics belonged to the endeavours of just one man: Mahatma Gandhi. Dr Lohia was one of the thousands of Indians who were inspired by Gandhi to dedicate their lives to public service beginning with the urgent task of India’s freedom from British rule. By his own admission, Dr Lohia was inspired by two men, fully by Gandhi and partly by Nehru.
  Dr Lohia was introduced to Gandhi (…)

• Great Loss to the Media World

  11 October 2009, by A K Dasgupta

  COMMUNICATION
  I am sorry to learn that the veteran journalist and media critic, G.S. Bhargava, passed away on September 22. It is a great loss to the Indian media world. I had been an avid reader of his writings in Mainstream and his Sunday column “Blue Pencil” in The Pioneer when Vinod Meta was its editor. The Editor’s Guild in a statement had aptly summed up his contributions thus: “The Blue Pencil column was looked forward to by journalists with both eagerness and uneasiness, as he was (…)

• Subjective Obsessions diminish Quality of Historical Analysis

  11 October 2009, by K.P. Fabian

  BOOK REVIEW
  Jinnah: India-Partition Independence by Jaswant Singh; Rupa and Company, New Delhi; pages 669; Rs 695.
  As I completed the enjoyable navigation through the ponderous, pompous, and pontificatory prose of Jaswant Singh, I was reminded of three other famous writers:
  Oscar Wilde: The only duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.
  Benedetto Croce: All historiography is contemporary historiography.
  Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to (…)

• Reply: Private versus Public Purpose

  11 October 2009, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  I am grateful to Ms Vasudha Dhagamwar for raising a debate about the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill 2009 [‘On Opposition to the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill’ by Vasudha Dhagamwar, Mainstream (September 19, 2009)—a rejoinder to my ‘Why We Must Oppose the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill of 2009’, Mainstream (August 14, 2009)]. It is only through the clash of ideas that new ideas are born.
  To take her “small matter” first, I received a copy of the Bill from the Ministry of (…)

• Crisis from the Balkans to Caucasus: Munich Speech to Reset Button

  11 October 2009, by Younes Bhat

  This article was written before the latest declaration of US President Barack Obama reversing the missile defence system that has been welcomed by Russian PM Vladimir Putin.
  The declaration of independence by the Kosovo Assembly in the Muslim majority region of Serbia, on February 17, 2008, has posed serious challenges before the world community. This declaration received conflicting reactions from the international community and is strongly opposed by Serbia which continues to claim (…)

• Gandhi should have Led a Nationwide Movement to Save Bhagat Singh

  11 October 2009, by Bharat Dogra

  COMMUNICATION
  In the important debate in Mainstream on Gandhiji’s efforts to save the life of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru (the latest contribution to which has appeared in the September 12, 2009 issue), various points of view have been well articulated. Some participants in the debate have said that Gandhiji made as much effort as he could under the circumstances, while some have said that he failed to make adequate effort.
  However, my view is that the issue of saving the (…)