2012

International Rating Agency Standard and Poors had downgraded the outlook on India from BBB+ to BBB- in April. Since then the dismal data for the last quarter of 2011-12 ending in March have come out. Now Standard and Poors has threatened that it may actually downgrade India because the consensus in favour of economic reforms is eroding.
S&P has mentioned four reasons for this change: investment and economic growth have slowed, current account deficit has widened and political (…)

by SHAZIA NIGAR
A Delhi High Court judgment pronouncing that a minor married Muslim girl be allowed to stay with her in-laws, as she wished, has once again been portrayed as the protracted war between archaic Mohammedan law and the modern, secular Indian Constitution. While this is how Mr. Bal Thackeray and the Hindutva brigade, in an attempt to gain mileage out of the issue, would like to argue the case, the point of it lies elsewhere. It is not a clash of civilisations, as they would (…)

by MANISH THAKUR and NABANIPA BHATTACHARJEE
Observers of the political scene in Bihar would have hardly failed to notice a renewed interest in the life and works of Swami Sahajanand Saraswati (1889-1950), the founder President of the All India Kisan Sabha, and arguably the most influential peasant leader of Bihar in the 1930s and 1940s. Over the last decade or so, his birth (February 22) and death (June 26) anniversaries have been celebrated with great pomp and show with full attendance (…)

On June 27 this year falls Nikhil Chakravartty’s fourteenth death anniversary. On this occasion we reproduce the ‘Political Notebook’ by S. Viswam in the first issue of Mainstream to appear on July 4, 1998 following N.C.’s demise, the then President K.R. Narayanan’s message on N.C.’s death, and two pieces by M.V. Rao and Biman Sen on N.C. (published in the issues of August 1, 1998 and June 26, 1999 respectively).
Death snatched away from Indian journalism last week (June 27, 1998) one of (…)

The following is the message of K.R. Narayanan, the President of India, on the demise of Nikhil Chakravartty.
Quietly and unobtrusively as he lived, Nikhil Chakravartty has slipped out of life. At once gentle and formidable, his was the most seasoned voice in Indian journalism. Over a period of five-and-a-half decades, Nikhil Chakravartty witnessed human affairs with the impatience of a rebel and at the same time with the dispassion of a historian. Committed socialist that he was, Nikhil (…)

He was all grace when we (my wife and I) met him our last time. That was a few weeks before Nikhil’s final departure. My wife placed a bunch of flowers on the small table before him and was moving back, when Nikhil rose unsteadily to his feet, beckoned her closer and held her hands fondly for a moment, asked us to sit, sat himself, got us some tea and spoke haltingly. If his memory was slipping, he did not let it. With a shy smile, he quietly confirmed for himself and for us that he (…)

by BIMAN SEN
On June 27, 1998, our beloved Nikhilda left us forever. Months have passed by; still I have not been able to reconcile myself with the idea that he is no more in our midst. However, I can feel his presence, whenever I sit down to write about some complex problem and get stuck on some ideas or suitable vocabulary; I can see his sweet smiling face assuring me not be dishear-tened but to think. I always got the right answer. This feeling, I am sure, will last till the last day of (…)

TRIBUTE
by VIVEK KUMAR SRIVASTAVA
With the passing of Elinor Ostrom (August 7, 1933 - June 6, 2012), an intellectual life ends but not the philosophy of humanity which is likely to dominate the future generations in the years to come. She was a political scientist and won the Noble Prize in Economics (The Sveridges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences) in 2009. She was the first woman to receive the Noble Prize in Economics and belonged to the evolving rare group of intellectuals who came (…)

FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
The Earth Summit has one solid achievement to its credit. It has put the issue of environment protection at the centre-stage of polities, both at the global and domestic levels.
Prior to the massive gathering of statesmen, scientists and activists at Rio, the problems of environment were treated for all practical purposes as something peripheral, not a basic issue in the development process. The problem of rapid deforestation used to be looked upon in isolation. (…)

India has about 16 per cent of the world’s population and two per cent of the world’s land. The livelihoods of nearly two-thirds of India’s population are linked to farmlands, village com-mons and forests. Given the scarcity of land as well as the extent of livelihoods linked to it, it is of the greatest importance to plan land-use in such a way that the base of sustainable liveli-hoods is protected. The importance of this task has further increased immensely in recent times of escalating (…)