Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Mandir and Masjid can Co-exist

  10 December 2017, by Kuldip Nayar

  On December 6, the demolition of the Babri Masjid would be 25 years old. Instead of making amends for what the Congress Government did in 1992 with the connivance of the then Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party Government is bent upon building a temple at the site where the Masjid stood once.
  RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has made a statement that only a ‘grand temple’ would be built in Ayodhya and nothing else. This is unfair to the Muslims or the liberals who (…)

• A Long Road Ahead

  10 December 2017

  by Prabira Sethy and Rakesh Kumar
  Introduction
  India has been pitching for a permanent seat since 24 years in the expanded membership of the United Nations Security Council arguing that the existing body does not truly reflect the contem-porary world realities. India—along with Brazil, Germany and Japan—has formed the Group-4 to press for speedy UNSC reforms and their inclusion in the powerful organ of the world body. India’s demand for a permanent seat in the UNSC with veto rights is a (…)

• Helping the Homeless

  10 December 2017, by Bharat Dogra

  As a train approaches an important station, there is a spurt of activity, particularly mobile phone calls, as passengers confirm about the car coming to pick them up. Even if they are not going to their home, most passengers are confident about where they will go at the end of a long train journey. But more often than not there are also some passengers who do not even know where they’ll go in the big city. Imagine coming to a crowded city without any confir-mation of where you can stay or (…)

• RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND INDIA-VI

  10 December 2017

  by Shaukat Usmani
  According to the decisions of the Third Congress of the Comintern a new university came into being in Moscow. This was then commonly known by the abbreviated name of the KUTV.
  It got contingents from India (the Indusky Kurs section), from China, Indonesia, from all nationalities using Turkish language, and many others from the Far East.
  The Indian and Chinese students were living in adjoining rooms in the same hostel. And there was complete amity between the students (…)

• Impact of Bolshevik Revolution on South Asian Politics

  10 December 2017

  Harris Khalique, a poet and essayist, is the author of Crimson Papers: Reflections on Struggle, Suffering, and Creativity in Pakistan. He has remained associated with labour, minority and women rights movements. He was recently interviewed on behalf of the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle by Shail Shams. It is being reproduced with due acknowledgement.
  DW: What impact did the Russian Revolution have on anti-colonial movements in British India?
  Harris Khalique: I find it interesting that (…)

• Indira Gandhi — her Ideology of Action

  10 December 2017

  by Vivek Kumar Srivastava
  This year completes hundred years of Mrs Indira Gandhi’s birth. She was born in the year of the Bolshevik Revolution and died when the chain of orthodox Bolsheviks was on the decline. Her age existed almost with the Russian Communism and she witnessed and dealt successfully the most tumultuous phase of modern history, the age of the Cold War.
  Her ideology of action was human-centric which found support from socialism; she was also the first economic reformist as (…)

• The Legacy of Indira Gandhi and Inherent Perils of Populism

  10 December 2017

  by Sheel Bhadra Kumar
  On November 19, 2017, we have celebrated and marked the birth centenary of late and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. This is also an appropriate moment to reminisce about her political actions, her struggle against hostile political odds and her contributions to the making of India. But before recollecting those, let us discuss the current terminologies being hotly debated but reminiscent of the Indira Gandhi era. They are popular and populism. Etymologically a (…)

• Unbridled Surrogacy: A Pathway to Next Generation Crime

  10 December 2017

  by G.K. Goswami and Siddhartha Goswami
  Abstract
  Surrogacy may potentially result into genetic bewilderment because of diffused parentage if the gamete donors are not known. In the absence of known parental pedigree, forensic tools like DNA may not be able to establish an individual’s identity, causing difficulty in the execution of national and international laws. This forensic void may attract transnational criminal syndicates to exploit surrogacy and produce tradable ‘designer (…)

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  The Intent behind the Hysteria

  2 December 2017

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  The mass hysteria created over the film Padmavati is acquiring dangerous dimensions. A BJP hothead of Haryana has announced a reward of Rs 10 crores to anyone who will behead the film’s director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and mutilate the face of the film’s heroine, Deepika Padukone. He has also threatened West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that the same fate will befall her as befell Surpanakha, Ravana’s sister. Mamata has, as was to be expected, dismissed the (…)

• Yogi Cannot Continue as a Chief Minister

  2 December 2017

  Justice Rajinder Sacher, Senior Member, National Executive, Socialist Party (India), and Dr Prem Singh, President, Socialist Party (India), have in a press release stated the following.
  The Preamble to our Constitution specifically states that India is a Secular Socialist State. The Supreme Court of India has held that “Secularism” is the basic feature of our Constitution and any State Government which fails in upholding this basic feature has no right to continue. In fact in the Bommai (…)