Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Narendra Modi Regime’s ‘Genes are Totalitarian’

  17 June 2017

  by Arun Shourie
  Veteran journalist and former Bharatiya Janata Party Minister Arun Shourie on June 9, 2017 warned the media against becoming the Narendra Modi Government’s “instruments for distracting your viewers and readers...from the main story”.
  He was speaking at a meeting at the Press Club of India in Delhi on June 5 to protest against the Central Bureau of Investigation’s raids on NDTV promoters Radhika and Prannoy Roy. The CBI has filed an FIR against the Roys in connection with (…)

• Demonetisation X-rayed

  17 June 2017

  by H.K. Dua
  The following is an Introduction to a new book, Demonetisation : The Jury is Still Out, edited by the author who has sent this for publication in Mainstream. The book, now under print, is likely to be out in the next few days.
  Prime Minister Narendra Modi, like Indira Gandhi much before him, has a flair for making surprising and dramatic moves to shake the country out of the mundane and the routine. Way back in 1975, Indira Gandhi shocked the nation by clamping Emergency on (…)

• Cow and Hindutva: Myths and Facts

  17 June 2017, by Shamsul Islam

  The Hindutva juggernaut, which rode on with Ram, love jihaad and ghar wapsi on top of it, is riding with the cow this time. There have been countless incidents of lynching, maiming and robbing of Muslims and Dalits in the name of saving holy cows. It is to be noted that there are a large number of such attacks which go unreported. The videos of such lynching and maiming uploaded on the social media by the perpetrators as instances of the latter’s bravado are horrendous and blood curdling (…)

• When Trump calls for a war against Islamic terrorism and praises its historical promoter, it is hypocrisy

  17 June 2017, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Abu Zubaydah, a “high-value” associate of fellow Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden, was captured by America’s CIA from a safe house in Pakistan in 2002. (Pakistan’s ISI got $ 10 million for services rendered.) Badly wounded, Zubaydah was put on painkillers. CIA strategists mani-pulated the medication until the man was hallucinated into believing that he was in Saudi Arabian custody. Feeling relieved, he gave the “doctors” a telephone number and asked them to call a member of the (…)

• Trump condemns Qatar, sets Middle East on fire

  17 June 2017, by M K Bhadrakumar

  In a shocking performance by his own standards, US President Donald Trump tore into Qatar in highly inflammatory language accusing it as a state sponsoring terrorism and casting it as an adversary of the United States.
  Make no mistake, this was no early-morning Twitter, no ‘Trumpspeak’ at the golf course in Florida in the weekend. Actually, believe it or not, it happened while reading out from a prepared text drafted by the White House aides in advance for a joint press conference with the (…)

• Nationalising’ Workforce: Indian Labour and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh

  17 June 2017

  by Navneet Sharma and Divyanshu Patel
  Workers of the world, Unite.—Marx
  Workers, Unite the world.—Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh
  If unity is to be of an abiding factor, it must be founded on a sense of kinship.—B.R. Ambedkar
  Class, as an economic category, at least theoretically and in certain exceptional circum-stances, has vertical mobility. On the other hand, caste, being a social category, neither theoretically nor exceptionally, has vertical or horizontal mobility. The staticity is (…)

• Contours of China Crisis

  17 June 2017, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Twentyeight years ago, N.C. had left for China when the Tiananmen bloodbath took place on June 4, 1989. Apart from his despatches which appeared in The Times of India on the tragedy that befell that great country at that time, he also wrote this detailed piece which was published in Mainstream (June 17, 1989). This was an enlarged version of an article in The Times of India (June 12, 1989).
  The contours of the emerging set-up in China are still very blurred as the (…)

• Babri Trial, Attack on R. Sooraj

  17 June 2017, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  After 25 Years, Advani and Company Stand in The Dock!
  The Babri Masjid was destroyed by L.K. Advani, Uma Bharati, Murli Manohar Joshi and hundreds of kar sevaks in the winter of 1992. Yet, instead of getting discarded from the political scenario they were placed up there, centre-stage. One didn’t know whether to cry or shriek or weep when L.K. Advani was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the country, when Murli Manohar Joshi was appointed the Union HRD Minister and Uma Bharati (…)

• Three years down the lane, has the Modi Government taken the citizens for a ride?

  17 June 2017

  by Ram Puniyani
  On May 26, 2017, the Modi Government completed three years in office. Various programmes such as the Modi fest were organised at various places and there are plans to celebrate them in different cities across the country. The underlying message of these programmes is that the Modi Government has done remarkable work and the country is moving towards prosperity for all. Modi has been labelled as ‘Garibon ka Masiha’ (Prophet for Poor) by his acolytes. Many channels and (…)

• A Trumped-up Charge

  17 June 2017, by Kuldip Nayar

  The Central Bureau of Investigation’s raid on the owners of NDTV for an alleged concealment of share transaction from the SEBI that has caused a loss of Rs 48 crore to a private bank has been termed by the channel as a witch-hunt based on “same old” false accusation. I tend to agree with the channel. Radhika Roy, the co-owner, and I have worked together at The Indian Express and I cannot imagine that she could have indulged in such activities attributed to her.
  I think it is a trumped up (…)