Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The ‘New’ Idea of India

  1 July 2017

  by M.A. Sofi
  How does one describe a political formation, a party, an outfit whose single most purpose of being in politics is to win elections, never mind the tools and methods being employed in fulfilment of this goal as its raison d’etre? With its gaze now firmly fixed on 2019, the party at the helm seems to be pulling no punches in ensuring a repeat of the UP miracle at the hustings, using all the tricks in the trade to that end. The effortless ease with which it has been using the (…)

• Why RSS pushes for the Cattle-slaughter Ban

  1 July 2017

  by Kumudini Pati
  On May 30, 2017, newspapers reported that the BJP chief, Amit Shah, had rushed to the Nagpur RSS headquarters and was closeted with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in an in-camera meeting for the whole day on May 29. Naturally, speculation was rife among journalists that the BJP had developed cold-feet in the face of the massive opposition to its cattle-slaughter ban, especially in the southern States, which even threatened to precipitate a constitutional crisis of sorts with (…)

• Cow—Metamorphosis from being a Divine Anmal to a Political Animal!

  1 July 2017

  Though many Biblical stories are associated with many animals, it is rare to see an animal elevated to the status of the divine in the Western societies. Why divinity of the cow is unique to India? Cow is not only the main source of nutrition after land and vegetation, it is also the principal means of production in the agricultural village communities in India from time immemorial. The approach of the peasants towards cow was, however, mixed. On the one hand, as a key source of their (…)

• Indian Democracy at Crossroads — A Lesson from India’s Past

  1 July 2017

  by O.P. Jaiswal
  We have numerous references of gana-sangha or gana-rajaya in Buddhist, Jain and Greek literature. It was an alternative polity to the kingdom and probably may represent the continuation of an earlier system. Monarchies or hereditary kingdoms were authoritarian in nature, based on the Brahmanical ideology and depriving the overwhelming majority of the masses their surplus and other rights. “In the later vedic age changed socio-economic back-ground sought to do away with the (…)

• Nikhil Chakravartty’s nineteenth death anniversary: Tributes to N.C. from the Archives

  1 July 2017

  Nikhil Chakravartty’s nineteenth death anniversary fell on June 27, 2017. On this occasion we are reproducing some write-ups on him by three leading journalists who knew him quite closely and a well-known administrator-cum-parliamentarian with whom N.C. was associated for sometime. These tributes to N.C. appeared in the Mainstream issue of June 29, 2013 that marked N.C.’s fifteenth death anniversary.
  Journalists’ Journalist
  S. Nihal Singh
  Evoking the memory of Nikhilda, as he was (…)

• Open Letter to Pravda / Marx and Marxism: A Personal Testament / Journey beyond Marx

  1 July 2017, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The following open letter to Pravda, the Soviet Communist Party’s daily organ, was written fiftyfive years ago by N.C. as an ‘Indian Marxist’. In the introduction to the letter it was pointed out that the author was an ‘Indian Communist of 20 years membership record’ of the Communist Party. It appeared in Mainstream (November 3, 1962). (It was on that day that N.C. turned 49.) This was a reply to a Pravda editorial, published on October 25, 1962, recommending the (…)

• Stark Realities a Muslim faces in India Today!

  1 July 2017, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  Something seems to be going wrong. The minority communities of the country have never felt so helpless and insecure ...mind you, their apprehensions and worries are growing with every single day. The Dalits are fuming; detailing the discriminations they face, not overlooking the latest bait thrown their way, adding: ‘Appointing a Dalit at that top slot is akin to putting a man in a golden cage! Can our cries be heard out there!’
  And as I’m writing this column on Eid-ul- Fitr, to (…)

• Pimps and Procurers of Judiciary a threat to Indian Democracy

  1 July 2017, by A K Biswas

• Water Situation would Worsen due to Expensive, Ecologically Destructive Mega Projects

  1 July 2017, by Bharat Dogra

  COMMUNICATION
  Recently at the peak of the heat wave situation I visited several villages of Bundelkhand region to report on the water scarcity and related problems of this region. This region, spread over 13 districts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, has often been in news due to its recurring water shortages. I found the water shortage for human beings as well as farm and other animals to be very acute in all the eight villages that I visited.
  At the same time, however, people in (…)

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  Ideological Struggle in Presidential Poll

  24 June 2017, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  As we go to press, it has become clear that the country will face yet another presidential election next month. The Opposition parties, as many as 17 of them, decided today to put up, by rare consensus, a Dalit candidate of eminence, Ms Meira Kumar, for the presidential poll against the current Bihar Governor, Ram Nath Kovind, a non-Jatav Dalit, who the BJP had nominated for the post last Monday (June 19) as the ruling NDA’s candidate. So is this a Dalit-versus-Dalit contest for (…)