Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• BJP’s Pull-out from J&K’s Coalition Government

  9 July 2018, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  The BJP’s political games are writ large in the Kashmir region soon after its pull-out from the PDP-BJP coalition government in J&K. In fact, to go a step backwards, it was more than obvious that the BJP-PDP pairing was more of a mismatch; yet the power-hungry PDP decided not just to form that alliance with the Right-wing but even to go ahead with it, in spite of repeated humiliations that the PDP’s top brass had to face. In fact, the Kashmiris of the Valley hated this alliance (…)

• Christianity and Development among the Tribes of North-East India: Pros and Cons

  9 July 2018, by J.J. Roy Burman

  A majority of the tribes in all the States of North-East India, except Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura, have embraced Christianity leaving behind their traditional religions. However, their traditional social structure based on exogamous clan systems remained intact. This helped in controlling the lands through custodial rights. The traditional dress codes for attending the church masses, particularly for the women, are still in vogue. The traditional festivals, mainly linked to agricultural (…)

• Preliminary Inquiry into Mega Projects of South America and South Asia

  9 July 2018

  by Gopal Krishna
  Simile of Water
  In his Budget speech in July 2009 Pranab Mukherjee (as India’s Finance Minister) announced the setting up of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) as a major step in improving governance with regard to delivery of public services. He underlined that it was part of “projects of vital national importance”.1 (Mukherjee, 2009) He added: “The UIDAI will set up an online data base with identity and biometric details of Indian residents and (…)

• People’s Movement and the Story of the RTI

  9 July 2018

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Rakesh Kumar Singh
  The RTI Story: Power to the Peopleby Aruna Roy with the MKSS Collective; Roli Books, New Delhi; 2018; pp. 424; Rs 495.
  The RTI Story: Power to the People is about one of the most powerful people’s movements in the late 1980s and 1990s which resulted in the passing of the RTI Act of 2005 giving indians the right to information. The book chronicles the career of the movement and provides its detailed treatment. The fascinating story needed to be retold (…)

• Tribals need Justice for Land and Forest Rights

  9 July 2018, by Bharat Dogra

  It is by now widely agreed that tribal communities in India have suffered in many cases from extreme injustice in most basic livelihood contexts of farmland and forest rights.
  In a widely quoted paper ‘Review of land-reforms during 1950-95’ Sukumar Das, a senior government official, has written,
  “.... Land legislation to protect the tribal people has failed to achieve its basic objective. In fact, more than 50 per cent of the total land allotted by the government has already been (…)

• Release Dr G.N. Saibaba, urge UN Experts

  9 July 2018

  The following report has come from Geneva on June 28, 2018.
  United Nations rights experts (Catalina Devandas, Special Rapporteur on Rights of Persons with Disabilities; Michel Forst, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders; Dainius Pûras, Special Rapporteur on the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health; and Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, In-human or Degrading Treatment or (…)

• Diverting Attention, BJP Style

  30 June 2018, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  We have just observed the 43rd anniversary of the Imposition of internal Emergency that constituted a blot on our development as the world’s largest democracy. But one was startled to find petty politics being played by our national leaders on this occasion. On June 26 (the Emergency was proclaimed on that day in 1975) one of the major newspapers in the country had this headline in its second lead on the front page: “Jaitley compares Indira to Hitler, PM backs him”.
  One does (…)

• An Apology Overdue

  30 June 2018, by Kuldip Nayar

  Certain dates are so important in a nation’s history that they cannot be forgotten. One such is June 25, when Mrs Indira Gandhi, then the Prime Minister, switched off the lights of democracy. Instead of resigning from her office after the Allahabad High Court verdict for a poll offence, she suspended the Constitution and did the worst kind of excesses. One hundred thousand people were detained without trial and many were killed because they were the staunch critics of Mrs Gandhi. (…)

• The Legacy for Tomorrow

  30 June 2018, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  June 27 this year marked Nikhil Chakravartty’s twentieth death anniversary. On this occasion we remember him by reproducing the following articles he had written at different times. We are also carrying tributes to him by several personalities who knew him quite closely or had worked under him.
  Lenin once asked a group of Soviet students as to whom they regarded as the greatest literary figure of Russia. “Mayakovsky,” they replied. “Yes, but what about Pushkin?” (…)

• Mohan Kumaramangalam — Cameos / Has Government a Kashmir Policy? / Reflections on the Constitution / Iraq Crisis and Gujral Government

  30 June 2018, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  On May 31, 1973 Mohan Kumaramangalam passed away in a tragic air accident. On N.C.’s twentieth death anniversary we reproduce the following tribute that the founder of this journal penned under the pseudonym ‘An Old Comrade’. M.K. and N.C. were indeed close comrades since their days in England in the 1930s and the friendship bloomed during their collective struggle in the communist movement; it was retained in subsequent years and even when Mohan joined the Indira Gandhi Cabinet as a (…)