Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Challenges before the Human Rights Movement

  12 December 2008, by Nandita Haksar

  The attack on Taj and Oberoi Hotels in Mumbai by a group of militants has united the middle classes on the need for greater security measure, zero tolerance approach to terrorism and the corollary to that is a zero tolerance to human rights concerns. The discourse on national security poses human rights as a threat to security and the necessity for a trade-off between national security and democracy.
  In fact the need to uphold human rights values and build democratic institutions is (…)

• Denial of Right to Life

  12 December 2008, by B N Arora

  Even After Sixtyone Years of Independence, the Vast Indian Humanity Remains Sunk in the Quagmire of Poverty and Hunger
  Considerable rhetoric about violation of human rights is being heard all around us. But the negation of the most basic human right, namely, the right to life, fails to get the attention it deserves. In his historic speech in the Constituent Assembly at midnight of August 14-15, 1947, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said, inter alia, that the pledge that we shall take today is (…)

• In the Name of Ram

  12 December 2008, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The following piece, which appeared within a fortnight of the demolition of the Babri Masjid (December 6, 1992), is being reproduced on the sixteenth anniversary of that infamous event.
  To build a temple to mark the brithplace of Ram, a mosque was destroyed by deceit.
  Those who swiftly and competently did the demolition job on Sunday (December 6, 1992), did so before the very eyes of those leaders who had been assuring Parliament and the public that the disputed structure would not (…)

• Please Pay Your Bill Before You Leave, Mr Tata!

  12 December 2008, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  On October 3, 2008, at a press conference at Kolkata, Ratan Tata formally announced his decision to move out the Nano Project from West Bengal squarely blaming the agitation led by the Trinamul Congress for his decision to relocate the plant. This statement clearly reflected some of the discussions that he had with the Chief Minister of West Bengal with whom he was closeted for two hours before the press conference. He spoke persuasively with unwarranted venom.
  One cannot blame (…)

• Sonia Gandhi’s Unambiguous Pronouncements

  3 December 2008, by SC

  Congress President-cum-UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s spirited defence, at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, of bank nationalisation (carried out almost 40 years ago in the second half of 1969) and her emphatic assertion that ’’public sector financial institutions have given our economy the stability and resilience we are now witnessing in the face of the economic slowdown’’ reflect a fresh effort on the part of the head of the principal and premier national ruling party to reiterate (…)

• Extraordinary Times, Unexpected Happenings and Real Economy

  3 December 2008, by Arun Kumar

  These are extraordinary times, so strange and unexpected things occurring should not surprise us. The only thing predictable is that one cannot predict correctly (that also applies to the Indian cricket team!). The US Government, after promising under different heads a few trillion dollars, seems to be fighting a losing battle with the economy steadily declining.
  The Indian Government, after so much song and dance in the last few years about the need for strict adherence to FRBM, has (…)

• Relevance of Gandhi-Nehru Nexus

  3 December 2008, by P N Haksar

  November 27 this year marks P.N. Haksar’s tenth death anniversary. On this occasion we offer our sincere homage to one of the country’s foremost thinkers by reproducing the following piece by the former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. Haksar’s role as an eminent administrator and distinguished diplomat would remain indelible in the history of post-independence India.
  __3__
  The fundamental preoccupation of our distant and ancient thinkers was with three questions: First, who am (…)

• Indira Vs Syndicate: First Round

  3 December 2008, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The following piece appeared in Mainstream under ‘New Delhi Skyline’ shortly after Indira Gandhi carried out bank nationalisation. This was N.C.’s first contribution in this journal after that momentous step. It is being reproduced here after Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s latest speech underlining the significance of bank nationalisation for our nation in the light of the current global economic turmoil.
  From Man-on-the-moon to Morarji-in-mess, last week has been unusually exciting (…)

• Rise of BRIC, and the US’ Desperate Move to Retain its Stranglehold

  3 December 2008, by Benjamin Todd

  In the Wake of Global Economic Crisis
  Despite being responsible for the current global economic crisis, the United States is now trying to place the greater part of the burden on the developing countries to maintain the world’s financial stability. Washington is trying to impose on these countries the forms of their participation in the international financial institutions so as to continue to limit their potential to influence the process while widening the US ability of the US to use (…)

• Russian Economy is Roaring Again

  3 December 2008

  President Dmitry Medvedev is coming to India in early December on his first visit to this country after being elected the Russian head of state. The following article is being reproduced from New Dawn in Russia (a journal published by the Diplomatist magazine in association with the Information Department of the Russian Embassy) to present a glimpse of the rise of Russia in the economic field after the disintegration of the USSR
  seventeen years ago.
  When the then Soviet economy (…)