Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Did RSS Participate in Freedom Movement?

  9 September 2017

  by Ram Puniyani
  Freedom movement was an all-inclusive movement with the participation of people of all religions and regions. Its underlying premise was pluralism and the concept of a Secular Democratic India, which bound all the people in the bonds of fraternity. Those who were for Muslim and Hindu nationalism kept aloof from this movement for ideological and political reasons.
  Since the last few decades the Hindu nationalists have been claiming that they also participated in the (…)

• Pentagon’s Loss

  9 September 2017, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Last month was observed the twentyninth death anniversary of General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s third military dictator, who was killed in an air crash in that country in August 1988. Despite the repeated anti-US demonstrations in Pakistan today, the fact is that General Zia happened to be “an indispensable factor in the Pentagon’s scheme of things”, as noted in this incisive editorial N.C. had written on August 17, 1988 (it was published in the August 20, 1988 issue of (…)

• Godmen, Grief-ridden Scenario, Dissent

  9 September 2017, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  Don’t tell me there is no nexus between the self- proclaimed godmen and the politicians! How can abusive fraud babas flourish for long years without the rulers and the administration not being part and parcel of the long list of the horrifying happenings...well, so horrifying that it gets difficult to believe that ‘developed’ we stand or sit or survive.
  Tell me who can believe that we are marching ahead (don’t ask me where to!), when there exist well-constructed ‘gufaas’/caves (…)

• Kerala: Democracy, Society, People

  9 September 2017, by K Saradamoni

  It is sixty years since the State of Kerala was formed and one year since the present Left Democratic Front Government came to power. People were fed up by the never-ending stories of corruption and nepotism of the previous Congress-led government. The first election to the new State, which brought a Communist Government to power in 1957, created big news within and outside the country. It was the first time that a non-Congress government came to power anywhere in free India.
  The first (…)

• Appointment of the CAG - Memorandum by Indian Audit and Accounts Service Retired Officers Forum

  9 September 2017

  An appointment to the post of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) is to be made very shortly as the present incumbent, Shri Sharma, is retiring in the last week of September. In the past the government has been following an opaque and arbitrary method of appointing the CAG. The Indian Audit and Accounts Service (IA&AS) Retired Officers Forum is concerned about the matter and met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on August 25 to emphasise the need for transparency and (…)

• Kaladan Multimodal Corridor: A Catalyst for India’s North-East

  9 September 2017

  by Jajati K. Pattnaik
  The Kaladan multimodal corridor, as an important component of the Act East policy,1 is poised to link India’s North-East with the ASEAN2 through a multimodal transit system based on road, river and seaways.The corridor, initiated during the UPA regime under the canopy of ‘North-Eastern Region Vision 2020’,3
  is being prioritised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reinforce the region’s development through cross-country economic corridors. Moreover, the timely (…)

• Why are People being Denied the Right to Read a Well-Researched Book on Baba Ramdev?

  9 September 2017, by Bharat Dogra

  Baba Ramdev is one of the most well-known and colourful personalities of contemporary India—a celebrity of a different kind—and so when word spread that a well-researched book about him had just been released, many people were looking forward to reading this book. Just then, however, a district court’s injunction deprived them of their right to buy and read this book. This has raised serious questions about the freedom of expression as well as the right to information.
  The reference here (…)

• Denying Children Admission on Technical Grounds goes against the RTE Act’s Spirit

  9 September 2017, by Sandeep Pandey

  The following article is being published on the occasion of Teacher’s Day which fell on September 5.
  The founder-manager of the City Montessori School in Lucknow, Jagdish Gandhi, has recently published full-page advertisements in the local editions of all national dailies claiming that even though he would like to admit children under section 12(1)(c) of the Right to Education Act, 2009, the children, whose admissions were ordered by the District Magistrate and the Basic Shiksha Adhikari (…)

• Tripura: Left Citadel Under Siege

  9 September 2017

  by Basubrata Roy
  The small hilly State of Tripura, unlike other North-Eastern States, is a Left citadel since 1977; except for a brief period in the 1990s.
  That’s why the BJP has made it a prestige issue to defeat the CPI-M-led Left Front in the coming Assembly poll, slated for February 2018.
  With the elections being informally declared at least three months in advance, the local party, Indigeneous Peoples‘ Front of Tripura (IPFT), is organising rallies and meetings with the open (…)

• Lethal Game

  9 September 2017, by Samit Kar

  The world seems to be riding a Time Machine. Almost every day, people come across surprises and horrors never heard of before. The world has always led to a series of path-breaking events and epochs leading to lapidary social changes. But many of the recent changes are simply unbelievable and no socio-psychological explanation can prove to be worthy to find a plausible answer. The recent spate of incidence of the Blue Whale Game by a large number of students and adolescents repeatedly (…)