Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• On Release of Innocents after Long Imprisonment

  5 March 2017, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  After twelve years, two innocents and one ‘half-innocent’ walked out free from the confines of the Tihar Jail, yet not a word of apology and nor a rupee in terms of compensation from the state to the three Kashmiri men—Hussain Fazili, Rafiq Shah and Tariq Ahmad Dar. They were arrested on charges of plotting and carrying out terror strikes in New Delhi in 2005.
  A Delhi court said the police “miserably failed” to prove charges against them. Of the three accused of plotting and also (…)

• Trump’s Foreign Policy of Confusion

  5 March 2017

  by Sanjal Shastri
  When Donald Trump was elected as the US President in November 2016, foreign policy observers predicted an era of uncertainty. If the first few weeks of President Trump are anything to go by, we will have to expect the unexpected. What do the first few weeks of the Trump Administration have the say about his foreign policy over the next four years? What impact would these have on the US’ allies? These are questions many around the world have been asking since November (…)

• Peace on Indo-Pak Border

  5 March 2017, by Kuldip Nayar

  The good news from the India-Pakistan boundary is that it is calm. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has said in an interview that “the temperature has come down on the border”. This could mean that India and Pakistan seem to be settling down to a relationship which was expected 70 years ago when partition took place.
  If this is the case, both countries should cut down on the defence expenditure. We have not introduced the real cut which, at present, is only marginal. Unfortunately, the (…)

• Systematically Introduce API (Academic Performance Indicators) Score in Higher Education

  5 March 2017

  by Santhoshkumar, R. and Neethu, S. Kumar
  A number discussions and suggestions were made from various parts of our country in relation to modifying, implementing and introducing API (Academic Performance Indicators) Score in Higher Education. Actually it will help to improve the quality of the higher education system in our country. However, some people have confusion in the proposed system. Because the proposed present API score-system is not properly followed in all universities in our (…)

• Proxy War of Times in Uttar Pradesh

  5 March 2017

  by Pradeep Bhargava and Anant Ram Mishra
  As the elections for the Legislative Assembly are in progress in Uttar Pradesh, the diversities in people’s lives and their contradictions come into play. A majority of people are subsistence farmers and labourers, some small artisans and service providers working their own tools, mostly primitive; we call them living in subsistence times. Then there are some goons, thekedars and power brokers whose religion seems money and they live in money times. (…)

• Smart City: A Failed Approach to Urban Regeneration for Indian Cities

  5 March 2017

  by Pradeep Nair and Sandeep Sharma
  City is not a new phenomenon. Civilisations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus Valley had a rich culture of urban life. However, not more than ten per cent of the population of these civilisations used to live in cities. (Modelski, 1997) Cities were dependent on villages to meet their everyday needs. They were geographically small and less populated as compared to the modern cities. Urban life was not much different in the cities of these civilisations (…)

• Recreating the Past, Benefiting the Masters

  5 March 2017

  by O.P. Jaiswal
  To understand the present political dimension and development, as well as Narendra Modi’s victory and the BJP’s rise to power driven by the dynamics of an unprecedented development promise, a campaign aided by corporate money power and a strong communal polarisation, these dynamics, clearly manifesting in different forms and as different challenges, cannot be glossed over. One will have to explore the ancient literature of India’s past, as the apex body of the BJP, the RSS, (…)

• Proposal for a Daily Peace and Friendship Ceremony at Wagha

  5 March 2017

  by Saeeda Diep and Sandeep Pandey
  The Indian Government has decided to increase the seats at the stadium on the India-Pakistan Wagha-Attari border, where a joint beating-the-retreat ceremony is held every evening, from 5000 to over 13,000, at an estimated cost of Rs 24 crores.
  Every evening, the Pakistan Rangers and Border Security Force (BSF) of India practice a coordinated exercise and lower their flags before closing the gates on the respective sides. The drill starts with the (…)

• Women of Tagore Household and their Impact on the Poet in Early Twentieth Century

  5 March 2017

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Taisha Abraham
  Daughters of Jorasanko by Aruna Chakravarti; Harper Collins; 2016; 344 pages; Price: Rs 399 (paperback).
  Daughters of Jorasanko by Aruna Chakravarti, set during the time of the Bengal Renaissance, is a sequel to her earlier novel, Jorasanko, the ancestral home of the Tagorefamily. Jorasanko essentially talked about the pioneering Tagore women. Set between the years 1859 and 1902 it delineated the gradual change from the feudal to the liberal mindset and (…)

• We Owe It. . . the Responsibility!!!}

  5 March 2017

  by FAYEZAH IQBAL
  We live in strange times for sure,
  Newspapers demand our attention galore to endure..
  the bizarre blots of sins and subjugation,
  filling the voids of love-seeking, and peace-loving creation.
  I flip through the pages to ensure there comes a day, that has no stories of human lives going amiss,
  But I sob inside seeing rapes, homicides, and hate crimes only getting more brisk.
  I come across news of minor girl being raped, killed and thrown like an everyday refuse; (…)