Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• RIC Triangle and Tibet’s Political Aspirations

  24 December 2017

  by Pradeep Nair and Sandeep Sharma
  ‘Look East’ is a phrase which pops up occasionally among the Asian nations whenever they seek to counter Western dominance and the West’s vested agenda. The possible reason for this East-ward inclination could be the internal geo-polity of Asia and the domestic situation of a particular nation. Whatever may be the case, the regions like Tibet, Taiwan and Xinjiang which are fighting a battle for autonomy under the Chinese regimen, are pushed to redraw (…)

• Tribute: Sukharanjan Sengupta

  24 December 2017

  by B.D.G.
  Veteran journalist Sukharanjan Sengupta passed away on December 9 in a Kolkata hospital at the age of 85. He was suffering from old-age ailments for some time. His association with and reportage of the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971 made him well known.
  He began his career in the now defunct Loksevak daily of the erstwhile Krishak Mazdoor Praja Party (which later merged with the Socialist Party to become Praja Socialist Party) in 1950. After the paper closed down he joined (…)

• Ransoming Educational Institutions: Remembering J.P. Naik’s Idea of “Educational Revolution”

  24 December 2017

  by Murzban Jal
  The imposing tower of misery which today rests on the heart of India has its sole foundation in the absence of education. —Rabindranath Tagore.
  For the last year-and-a-half after the JNU incident, many reflections on the malfunctioning of universities have been articulated mostly from the liberal democratic framework. Such reflections work on the binary: liberalism=good/authoritarianism= bad. While such binaries seem to be ever present in the cranium of the liberals, what (…)

• 

  After Twentyfive Years

  10 December 2017

  EDITORIAL
  We have observed yesterday the twentyfifth anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition, an incident in post-independence India that—like the assassi-nation of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948 and the Gujarat genocide of 2002—was not only a blot on our much-cherished secular democracy but actually shook the very basis of our republic.
  Indeed a day after the demolition of the mosque on December 6, 1992 activists of various persuasions owing allegiance to secularism had marched to the BJP (…)

• BJP Routed in UP Urban Local Bodies’ Elections

  10 December 2017, by Sandeep Pandey

  On December 2, 2017 most newspapers flashed a front-page story that the Bharatiya Janata Party had swept the urban local bodies’ elections. Pictures of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath offering sweets to one of his Deputy CMs or the State BJP President and all of them displaying victory signs also accompanied the report.
  Nothing could be farther from the truth. The BJP has actullay been routed in these elections having managed to win a mere 18.7 per cent of all seats whereas the Opposition, (…)

• Judges Must Cross Lakshman Rekha

  10 December 2017, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Jawaharlal Nehru showed the judiciary its place when he said in the Constituent Assembly in 1949: “No Supreme Court can make itself a third chamber. No Supreme Court and no judiciary can stand in judgment over the sovereign will of Parliament. If we go wrong here and there, it can point it out, but in the ultimate analysis, where the future of the [country] is concerned, no judiciary can come in the way. And if it comes in the way, ultimately, the whole Constitution is a (…)

• Way to Socialism through Socialist Unity

  10 December 2017

  by Prem Singh
  This comment is about the situation that has arisen after the split in the Janata Dal (United). The comment is made by me as a citizen with a socialist background, and not as a member of the Socialist Party (India). The National Election Commission of India has decided in favour of Nitish Kumar’s faction on the party symbol dispute. The Sharad faction, however, has gone to petition the High Court in order to challenge the decision of the NECI but is simultaneously engaged in (…)

• Sporting Moustache represents the New Format of Dalit Politics

  10 December 2017

  by Arun Srivastava
  In three separate violent incident at least three Dalit youths were recently thrashed in the Gujarat villages by the Rajputs for “sporting moustache”. Humiliating and thrashing Dalit youths in Gujarat for sporting moustache by upper-caste people is a new element in the long drawnout tactics to assert might through coercive and violent means. An insight into the atrocities of Dalits in the State points to the fact that a serious endeavour is on to make Gujarat a Hindutva (…)

• Human Rights: Basic Issues

  10 December 2017, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Human Rights Day is observed on December 10 every year commemorating the day, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To mark the occasion we are reproducing the following article N.C. wrote twenty five years ago.
  The government’s decision to set up a National Human Rights Commission is a significant indication of its being able to read the signs of the times. The Prime Minister has made the eloquent claim about (…)

• Not Sorrow but Atonement

  10 December 2017

  The following piece, which was published as ‘Political Notebook’ in Mainstream (December 12, 1992), is being reproduced on the twentyfifth anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Its significance is heightened due to the ongoing offensive of the Hindutvavadi forces following the seizure of power at the Centre by the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah-led BJP in May 2014. — Editor
  The vandalism that brought down the Babri Masjid structure on December 6 will remain a Black Sunday in (…)