Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• S.M. Krishna driven out of Congress, issues of Morality, Bankruptcy, Dilemmas Surface

  27 February 2017, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  There is a tragic inevitability about the doom of the Congress party. It’s a Greek tragedy where the hero’s powerful wish to achieve a goal is defeated by a flaw in his character complicated by fate and the will of the gods. Why the will of the gods should go against the Congress, we do not know. For past sins, perhaps. For present sins, the BJP may face similar wrath of the gods in due course. But that can be no consolation for the Congress now.
  Rahul Gandhi, as the (…)

• How and Why Vladimir Putin earned Global Popularity

  27 February 2017

  by R.G. Gidadhubli and Rama Sampathkumar
  The well-known international media organisation Forbes ranked the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, as the world’s most powerful man from 2013 to 2016—four times in a row. Prior to that Times magazine named Putin as the ‘Person of the Year in 2007’. In fact Putin has dominated the political scene both at home and abroad for more than one-and-a-half decade. Hence it may be worthwhile to examine and analyse as to how and why Putin has earned this (…)

• No to Instant Triple Talaaq

  27 February 2017

  by Krishna Jha
  The cultural meaning of gender, like the cultural meaning of class, is evolved by men and women, according to the spaces they occupy in the society at its roots, and this meaning in itself is intensely political. The options and choices made about how to resist or assimilate and get involved in it are the issues of race, nationality, gender, and class.
  It is in the context of these assertions and contradictions that the initiative by the Law Commission seeking views on (…)

• Implications of Latest Paris Conference on Palestine

  27 February 2017

  by Gautam Sen
  An international conference on the Palestine issue has been held in Paris on January 15, 2017, at the initiative of France and chaired by the French Foreign Minister, Jean Marc Ayrault. This was a follow-up to the earlier Paris Conference of June 3, 2016. The timing of the recent conference was significant because it was finalised just before the adoption of the UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2334 on December 23, 2016, which called for a two-state solution to the (…)

• The Litmus Test

  27 February 2017, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The menace of communalism looms large in this country today perhaps more than at any time before. With all the dire warnings being sounded repeatedly against the danger of destabilisation, the government so far has done very little to halt the advance of vicious communal hatred leading to orgies of violence in different parts of the country. It is amazing that while the Prime Minister concedes that there has been a deterioration in the communal situation—as he did at (…)

• India - US: Wheel turns Full Circle

  21 February 2017

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  Some historic comments never get stale. Marx opened his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte with these words: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” This has been quoted umpteen times on umpteen occasions by many people. Indeed, the decision of the Modi Government to allow Anil Ambani group’s Reliance Defence and Engineering to enter (…)

• Democracy in Decline

  21 February 2017

  by Ashok Celly
  Indian politics presents a distressing picture today. Both the ruling party and the Opposition have shown little regard for Parliament, the most important of our democratic institutions. Also, they seem to be totally indifferent to the suffering of the people even though they swear by them day in and day out. The last session of Parliament, which conducted zero business and thus set up a record of sorts, was the most deplorable demonstration of that.
  The Opposition parties (…)

• Sreelatha Swaminathan Is No More

  21 February 2017

  Veteran leader of the CPI-ML (Liberation) Sreelatha Swaminathan, 73, passed away in Udaipur (Rajasthan) in the early morning of February 5, 2017. She had suffered a brain stroke on January 28 night and was rushed to a hospital in Udaipur where she eventually breathed her last following a cardiac arrest.
  Born in Chennai in April 1944 she joined the National School of Drama in Delhi after finishing college and later went to London to pursue dramatics. She returned to Delhi in 1972 and (…)

• Lucknow to Delhi: Why UP Elections Matter

  21 February 2017

  COMMENTARY
  by Navneet Sharma and Divyanshu Patel
  “Whosoever rules on water shall rule upon the earth”
  If the speaker would have been aware of the politics and demographics of India he would have said something similar about the rule in UP and at New Delhi. In this commentary the argument is not only demographic but political rhetoric also. We will not only be looking at statistical reflections of the slated UP elections but the making of the popular mood and response to the governance (…)

• Is Ayodhya Issue Still Alive?

  21 February 2017

  by Nilofar Suhrawardy
  Does the Ayodhya issue still have the same relevance that it had around 25 years ago? Undeniably, there still prevail several elements keen to make religious noise over the Ayodhya issue. But does their noise have the force, mass appeal and also the level of acceptance that it seemed to have two-and-a-half decades ago? There is a difference between simply making noise over any issue and the level of fervour that the same can excite. It is no secret that when this (…)