Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Extended LAC

  16 July 2017

  by Bhartendu Kumar Singh
  Until now, India had only one Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China. But if things work well as per the Chinese strategy, the China- Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) could soon double up as another LAC. At least this is what one can make of the twelfth round of China- Pakistan bilateral defence and security dialogue held recently in Beijing.
  The Beijing round comes at a time when the two countries have already invested heavily in the CPEC. The Pakistan Army (…)

• New Turn in Bengal Politics

  16 July 2017, by Arup Kumar Sen

  Explosive exchange of words took place between the West Bengal Governor, Keshari Nath Tripathi, and State Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, over the recent communal flare-up in Baduria and adjacent areas, including Basirhat, Swarupnagar and Deganga, in the North 24 Parganas district. Mamata alleged: “The Governor telephoned me and said certain objectionable things. He spoke like a block President of the BJP.” In his response, the Governor said that the “allegations of the Chief Minister (…)

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  Modi in Israel, China’s Muscle-flexing in Doko La

  11 July 2017

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  India’s traditional foreign policy is getting distorted beyond recognition under Narendra Modi who has become the de facto Foreign Minister, relegating Sushma Swaraj, the actual incumbent of that office, to an obscure background. Modi’s recent visit to Israel and signing billions of dollars of contracts for supply of military hardware while making it a point not to visit Palestine is a deliberate snub to the Arab world which has stood by India all through.
  From the (…)

• Modi’s Trump Card

  11 July 2017, by Kuldip Nayar

  Every statement or a visit by a foreign dignitary has to be related to our attitude on Pakistan. Even if there is no mention of Islamabad, we stretch the observation to the point where it is meant to be so. American Presidents have so far been hedging an open criticism of Pakistan because the US has been supplying arms to Islamabad. But for the first time, America has dropped ifs and buts to pull up Pakistan for abetting terrorism and giving shelter to the militants.
  President Donald Trump (…)

• Lynching Mobs, Repressive Regime and Glamorisation of War!

  11 July 2017

  by Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal
  A society made habitual of violence, intimi-dations, suspicions—where killings, torture, sexual abuse and pellet-gun related blindings are the norm—is so brutalised that it will try to respond with its own idiom of brutality. Humanity today, sadly so, stands throttled in Kashmir and there is need to reflect and introspect, if this trend is to be reversed or even arrested.
  No ifs and buts; and no denials. The lynching of Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohammad (…)

• UK Parliamentary Poll Results After Brexit - As the Dust Settles, what are the Important Takeaways?

  11 July 2017

  by Sanjal Shastri
  It has now been more than a week since the UK parliamentary election results were announced. Just like the Brexit vote, which had baffled pollsters, the recently concluded elections were equally puzzling. Political pundits had predicted a landslide in favour of Teresa May. However, the elections resulted in a hung parliament.
  Apart from the most obvious impact on Mrs May’s political future, the elections have certain important takeaways. From the demographic factors, to (…)

• Rethinking Rajni Kothari’s Political Thought

  11 July 2017, by Arup Kumar Sen

  We are going through a political time in which our cherished notions of politics and democracy are at stake. This crisis propels us to revisit the political thought and political life of late Rajni Kothari, in search of an alternative notion of politics. The editors of a volume of essays dedicated to Rajni Kothari observed in the mid-1990s that his “contribution to the survival and deepening of Indian democracy is evident not only in his scholarly work but also in his life-long engagement (…)

• Sangh communalising Indian Army for serving its Ulterior Motives

  11 July 2017

  by Arun Srivastava
  The RSS and BJP have embarked on the mission to communalise and politicise the Indian Army. Behind the façade of nationalism, the main thrust of the saffron brigade has been to create a situation where even an objective analysis or criticism of the Army is taboo, a pariah. Never in the past has the Army been so much in news as it is today notwithstanding the fact that it fought many glorious wars against Pakistan which were even applauded and appreciated by the global (…)

• India’s Cyber Vulnerability and PSUs

  11 July 2017, by S G Vombatkere

  Ransomware worm WannaCry struck at and crippled the UK’s National Health Scheme, causing a national emergency of sorts. The operations systems of British Airways, Luf-thansa and Air France were targets of cyber attack on passenger handling, causing economic loss but fortunately no accident. All this is cause for concern in India, because of India’s huge vulnerability to cyber attack. Now [“India’s Su-30MKI likely downed by China’s Cyber Weapons”; ], an Indian Air Force Su-30 Mk-I jet fighter (…)

• A Major Lacuna in our Education and Research Establishments

  11 July 2017

  by Kunal Ghosh
  In the first week of June, 2017, the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings declared a list in which IIT, Delhi and IIT, Bombay ranked 172 and 179 respectively and the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (hereinafter abbreviated to IISc) ranked 190. However, the IISc is the sixth best institute in the world in terms of the QS’ ‘Citations per Faculty’ rating. (Ref: The Indian Express, June 8, 2017, Ahmedabad) This rating measures the quality and impact of (…)