Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Frozen Certainties

  27 January 2018, by Badri Raina

  What a time of frozen certainties. Nothing flows. More the clout, Keener the icicles hang in the heart, Less the questioning and the doubt.
  Even when the lips grin, Nothing moves in the eye; Unbeknown, closest of friends And relatives in proud isolation die.
  The birds that freely came to feed Now come gingerly; Scout however they might, There is no welcoming tree.
  That which was spiritual Is now blasphemy; Success makes bosom friends Of religion and currency.
  Songs of bonhomie now (…)

• Discourse on Challenges for the Left: Several Vital Queries Unexplored

  27 January 2018

  by Sobhanlal Datta Gupta
  BOOK REVIEW
  Challenges for the Indian Left by Murzban Jal (ed.); Aakar Books, Delhi; 2017; 576 + xcii pages; Rs 895.00.
  This is an edited volume, comprising thirty-seven essays, penned by noted scholars and political activists belonging to various streams of the Left. It is an attempt to make an anatomy of the Left in India in the context of the growing menace of the Hindu Right and the Left’s decline. The editor has undertaken a gigantic task of putting in one (…)

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  We Shall Overcome!

  24 December 2017, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  With this issue Mainstream completes fifty five years of its long, arduous, modest yet purposeful existence.
  Affirming that what we face today in this country “has no parallel”, it was written in these columns a year ago on December 20, 2016:
  From the time the present dispensation at the Centre seized the levers of power in mid-2014, the attack on the minorities—in order to distort the face of India and transform the country into a Hindu Pakistan by subverting the (…)

• Gujarat Results, Off the Cuff

  24 December 2017, by Badri Raina

  COMMENTARY
  However Mr Modi might flash the victory sign, in the heart of his heart he knows that he lost in Gujarat.
  The steady, strenuous, and well-thought-out campaign mounted by Rahul Gandhi was a bold and unrelenting buzz in the elephant’s ear; and the buzz drew echo from far and wide in the Gujarat hinterland. Rahul Gandhi’s elegant refusal to be provoked by the mud thrown at him, and the decency of his articulations and advisements has clearly raised him to the stature of a leader (…)

• Ray of Sunshine / Pakistan: Reporter’s Jottings

  24 December 2017, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Against the backdrop of the recent anti-Pakistan tirade resorted to by the PM in the context of the Gujarat Assembly elections in order to corner the Opposition and gain electoral advantage, we are reproducing here two pieces by N.C., written and published twentytwo years ago in 1995, highlighting the importance of people-to-people interaction between Indians and Pakistanis for removing misunderstandings between the two neighbours and bringing about India-Pakistan (…)

• CPM Polit-Bureau should listen to Freedom Song

  24 December 2017

  by M.K. Bhadrakumar
  The worst thing that can happen to a political party is when it begins to look trivial. The miserable decline of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh is a recent example. By and large India’s political parties have avoided such a catastrophe. And that explains the angst today in the minds of the supporters and fellow- travellers of the Left movement in India.
  The fact of the matter is that the Communist Party of India-Marxist is the leading formation in the Left (…)

• Supreme Court reopens Gandhi’s Case

  24 December 2017, by Kuldip Nayar

  I think the Supreme Court’s order to appoint an amicus curiae in Mahatma Gandhi’s assassi-nation is important. More about how it happened and why—are the two points which need to be pursued. The plea filed by Dr Pankaj Phadnis, a trustee of Abhinav Bharat, however, suggests a foreign hand. But that remains to be proven.
  I recall that the assassination was the biggest security lapse. I was working at the news desk of Anjam, an Urdu daily, when the PTI teleprinter rang the bell which a news (…)

• Everyday Agnipariksha of UP Madrasaas to prove Patriotism: Hindutva Attack Must Be Faced Innovatively

  24 December 2017

  by Shamsul Islam
  On the eve of the 70th anniversary of India’s independence, the Government of UP led by a senior leader of the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS, Mahant Adityanath Yogi, came out with a stunning order for madrasaas (Islamic semi-naries). They were ordered to compulsorily observe the Independence Day, August 15, and the same had to be video-graphed to be sent to the administration as proof. The order was issued by the Registrar of UP Madrasa Shiksha Parishad, Rahul Gupta. The (…)

• Middle East in Renewed Turmoil

  24 December 2017

  by Harish Chandola
  With the killing of a few Palestinians on the West Bank on December 8, the Middle East has again been thrown in a turmoil after the announcement by the US President, Donald Trump, on December 6, declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Demonstrations broke out almost all over the Moslem world, from Turkey to Malaysia and Indonesia, against that announcement and clashes broke out in Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River between Palestinians and Israelis (…)

• India: Tales of ‘Progress’ and ‘Pain

  24 December 2017

  by Arup Kumar Sen
  Very recently, a communication from the Prime Minister’s Office reminded us that “demonetisation proves to be a game-changer”. While highlighting the “multi-dimensional benefits of demonetisation”, the aforementioned communication disclosed that “stone-pelting incidents in Kashmir came down by 75 per cent from the previous year”. In his public speech, addressed to the Indian community in Manila, Philippines (November13, 2017), the Prime Minister announced: “India is the (…)