Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Synthesis: Acceptance of the Political Hindu

  14 May 2017, by Diptendra Raychaudhuri

  Quite a few weeks have passed since the verdict of March 2017 that gave a real boost to the saffronites while leaving the secular liberals hurt and clueless. Now, it’s time to define, honestly, what has happened, and more importantly, why it happened. While the larger perspective of any such analysis remains constant—how to advance towards an India that is internally at peace with the right to freedom of expression and dignified life of all citizens ensured—an objective comprehension of the (…)

• Does India Need to Respond to Chinese OBOR?

  14 May 2017

  by Jajati K. Pattnaik
  The OBOR (One Belt, One Road) is a trans-national connectivity project which was initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 to connect China with Asia, Europe and Africa through the land corridor (SREB—Silk Road Economic Belt)1 and the sea corridor (MSR—Maritime Silk Road)2 to augment global trade and economic cooperation. But the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), ‘the flagship project’ of OBOR which passes through Pakistan- occupied Kashmir (PoK), has (…)

• Forest Conservation, Tribals and a Decade of the Forest Rights Act in India

  14 May 2017

  by Madhusudan Bandi
  Introduction
  India has a repertoire of ‘environmental laws’, all of which are important. One among them is ‘The Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA) of 1980’. The original legislation was enacted in the colonial era in 1927 with an objective of controlling the transit of forest produce and levying duty on it besides rules to penalise the violators. It covered the four categories of forest, namely, reserved forests, protected forests, village forests and private forests. (…)

• Reading Capital Politically

  14 May 2017, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The year 2017 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Karl Marx’s celebrated text, Capital, Volume I. In his preface to the first German edition of the text (1867), Marx stated: “England is used as the chief illustration in the development of my theoretical ideas”. He expected that his readers would read the text with an open mind. To put it in his own words: “I presuppose, of course, a reader who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself”.
  Capital (…)

• Rabindranath Tagore: An Extraordinary Zamindar

  14 May 2017, by A K Biswas

  To mark the 156th birth anniversary of poet Rabindranath Tagore, the author has submited this article, as his tribute, underlining the poet’s role as a an enlightened zamindar in East Bengal, now Bangladesh. His role there was marked by uncommon generosity in promoting education in villages though his contemporary feudal class was extremely exploitative and orthodox.
  Poet Rabindranath Tagore was also a landlord of considerable estates his grandfather Dwarka-nath Tagore had acquired in East (…)

• Convention against Communalism

  14 May 2017, by Barun Das Gupta

  A State-level Convention against Communa-lism, organised by the Sampradayikata Virodi Manch, was held at the University Institute, Kolkata, on May 3, 2017. The Convention adopted a resolution that resolved to fight the commu-nalism of both the majority and the minority communities, build up public opinion against extra-judicial killings by the State passed off as ‘encounter deaths’ and the attempt of the ruling dispensation to transform India from a secular and democratic republic to a Hindu (…)

• Vanishing Trick

  14 May 2017

  Where are the inebriated rats
  who nine lac litres of liquor drank
  Outsmarting the Inquisitor’s guarded cellar
  in rollicking Epicurean prank?
  Has anyone seen these pagan legions?
  Are they in stupor sound
  in shaded bunkers of Patliputra,
  unsighted by the official hound?
  Or are they dancing in the air,
  invisible to the human eye?
  will they fall in one fell swoop
  and the tormentor’s throne occupy?
  Who are these that shake a leg
  dressed in khaki apparel?
  Are these men (…)

• How to Meet the Worsening Scenario in J & K

  8 May 2017, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  While those in power at the Centre are supremely nonchalant, the situation in J&K has been progressively turning from bad to worse. It was quite natural therefore that Pakistan would take advantage of such conditions in the Valley.
  That is why besides allowing terrorists, trained on its soil, to infiltrate into India, it carried out a barbaric act on May 1: two Indian soldiers, one of the Indian Army and the other of the Border Security Force (BSF), were killed and beheaded (…)

• Madhu limaye’s Ninetyfifth birth anniversary: Call for Unity of Progressive Forces

  8 May 2017

  Socialist leader, parliamentarian and ideologue Madhu Limaye’s 95th birth anniversary was aptly observed in New Delhi on May 1 through a public meeting attended by leaders of three streams of the Opposition—Socialist, Communist and Congress—with the resolve to forge unity of the progressive forces, so essential at the present juncture when the Hindutvavadis are seeking to subvert the Constitution and turn the country into a Hindu Rashtra.
  While Congress leader Digvijay Singh urged the (…)

• Ugly Side of War

  8 May 2017, by Kuldip Nayar

  War is ugly. It becomes uglier when it is between two inveterate neighbours. They go to any extent to harm and humiliate each other. Pakistan has mutilated and killed two Indian soldiers when they are said to have crossed the Line of Control (LoC). Understandably, India has retaliated and destroyed Pakistan’s posts on the border.
  Defence Minister Arun Jaitley has condemned the reprehensible and inhuman act saying that “such acts don’t take place even during war. It is an extreme form of (…)