Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Right to Privacy

  9 October 2017, by S G Vombatkere

  The word “private” has the meanings: (1) belonging to a particular person (his/her own body or his/her own property), (2) not sharing thoughts or feelings with others, and (3) not connected with a person’s work or official role. From this adjective, we obtain the abstract noun “privacy”, which means “a state in which one is not watched or disturbed by others”. Thus privacy is something precious to a biological person, and includes the need to be left alone, even while remaining a member of (…)

• Privacy vs Security: Need to Strike a Thin Balance

  9 October 2017

  by P. Arun
  In August 2017, the Supreme Court delivered a momentous judgement on privacy. In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) vs Union of India, the nine-judge Constitutional Bench utilised its interpretative jurisdiction and unanimously declared that privacy is a constitutional right. After this high-voltage judgement enthusiastic responses started overflowing in several newspaper dailies and journals. It was widely hailed as a landmark judgement for being remarkable for “its clarity of (…)

• BJP’s Dangerous Politics

  9 October 2017, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  One of my earliest reporting experiences was the great Calcutta killing of 1946. Fierce communal passions were unleashed and thousands were done to death on both sides in the course of a couple of days. But behind that gory carnage was the fight for the city of Calcutta: who should get it? Pakistan or India? Religious beliefs are made use of to rouse mass anger among innocent people, but those who whip up such passions do so only for political gains.
  In our immediate (…)

• Gandhi’s Dharma had Very Sincere Respect for All Religions and Absolutely No Room for Communalism

  9 October 2017, by Bharat Dogra

  The following article was written for the Gandhi Jayanti (October 2) but reached us late. So we are using it now.
  At a time when some powerful elements are trying to co-opt some of the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi without giving up their ideology of communalism, we need to recall that Mahatma Gandhi’s views on religion had absolutely no place for communalism and instead were based on very deeply felt, sincere respect for all religions. He went beyond tolerance and pleaded for respect for other (…)

• Why are we Silent on the Grave Threat to Prof Kancha Illaiah Shepherd?

  9 October 2017, by Vidya Bhushan Rawat

  While it is nobody’s suggestion that India was a tolerant land some three years back and has suddenly developed intolerance, none can deny the fact that the goons threatening intellectuals and activists have certainly become more arrogant and encouraged by the absolute ‘disinterest’ shown by those in power. In the past few years we have lost a number of persons for the cause of human rights and secularism and probes have reached nowhere even though links with organisations associated with (…)

• BSP in Uttar Pradesh: Analysing Its Failure

  9 October 2017

  by Nirmal Singh
  The 2017 UP Assembly election results upset the perceptions that dominated the election scene throughout its prolonged process. How-ever, this was in contrast to the doubts over the results expressed rather angrily by the BSP’s supreme leader, Mayawati, who said the electronic voting machines had been tampered with and that contributed to the BJP’s huge success. Mayawati, meanwhile, could not relish the unprecedented reversals of her party and even before the final outcome (…)

• Singular Fixation on ‘Democratic’ Elections - It’s Inherently Undemocratic

  9 October 2017

  by M.A. Sofi
  Let me begin by putting into perspective the apparent paradox that one may read into the above lines involving the title/subtitle of this essay. In the absence of evidence on the ground of the achievements and accomplishments as promised by the political parties while begging for votes from the people, an obsessive fixation with winning elections after elections and in States after States would only arouse the baser instincts among the politicians, especially those in power, (…)

• Haryana: The Gurmeet Ram Rahim Phenomenon

  9 October 2017

  by Ranbir Singh
  Haryana is once again in the news for the wrong reasons. The challenge to the authority of the State and judiciary by the self-styled Sant Gurmeet Ram Rahim Insa of Dera Sucha Sauda, Sirsa (Haryana) has created an explosive situation which has resulted in as many as 38 deaths and large-scale destruction of property. It took more than a week of pressure by the huge force of the Haryana Police, para-military forces and Army to control the situation created by Ram Rahim’s (…)

• Beyond Social Norms?

  9 October 2017

  by Mahendra Ved
  Description: Gurmeet Ram Rahim.
  He is not Gurmeet, a supposedly Sikh, nor Ram, a Hindu, nor Rahim, a Muslim. He has blemished the three faiths to masquerade his misdeeds. But how do ‘godmen’ like him get away with what they do without scrutiny? Are they beyond the society’s normative systems of accountability and responsibility?
  The unfortunate story still developing sensationally in India is that he has fooled millions of people into believing him as a saint and a (…)

• What is the RSS Agenda in Education?

  9 October 2017

  by Ram Puniyani
  In its recommendation to the NCERT, the Shiksha Sanskriti Uthan Nyas, an RSS affiliate, asks for removal of English, Urdu and Arabic words, the thoughts of Rabindranath Tagore; extracts from painter M.F. Husain’s autobio-graphy; references to the Mughal emperors as benevolent, to the BJP as a “Hindu” party, an apology tendered by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the 1984 riots; and a sentence that “nearly 2000 Muslims were killed in Gujarat in 2002”. (July 25, (…)