2012

Dear Reader,
Freedom is in peril; let us defend it with all our might.
The threat to our freedom and national integrity has in the last few days assumed menacing proportions. The new wave of Chinese aggression all along the northern frontier, particularly in the NEFA region and in Ladakh, has brought about a national emergency of unprecedented magnitude.
The manner and intensity of the attack appear to have come as a surprise to some high-ups in the Capital. To readers of Mainstream (…)

The following appeared under Editor’s Notebook in the first Mainstream issue to come out after the proclamation of Emergency (June 25, 1975).
Somewhere in the excitement of National Emergency, the editor has lost his notebook. However, Rabindranath Tagore has, in the abundance of his generosity, lent him his own notebook:
Freedom from fear is the freedom I claim for you, my Motherland!—fear, the phantom demon, shaped by your own distorted dreams;
Freedom from the burden of ages, (…)

The following is the editiorial that appeared in the first issue of Mainstream (September 1, 1962)
Dear Reader,
The other day a letter arrived at our desk from a senior leader of the Indian National Trade Union Congress. Referring to our request for a contribution to our columns, he put a blunt question: “Is your journal affiliated to any political party directly or indirectly?” We had no reason for a hesitant answer: Mainstream owes allegiance to no political party or group. Its loyalty (…)

Agriculture continues to be the weakest link in the chain of India’s Plan-progress. In a certain sense this is true for every country, whether advanced or backward, or whether under the capitalist or socialist system; because, as yet, there is an inherent difference between industry and agriculture. The main distinctive feature of the latter consists in its dependence on weather, as the science of astronomy and weather-control is yet very undeveloped. The application of science in (…)

The question is often asked: Is taxation in this country equitable? On the one hand national income has gone up, on the other economic disparities have widened. In this article, which is based on an exclusive interview to Mainstream, one of India’s foremost economists gives expression to trenchant views on this vexed subject.
The fiscal policy of the Government of India in the last ten years has not been specifically oriented towards reduction in inequalities of income.
If we look at the (…)

by L.K. Advani
Shortly after assuming office as the Prime Minister in January, 1985, Rajiv Gandhi invited various party spokesmen in Parliament, one by one, for a series of informal talks on problems facing the country. My meeting with him lasted for about 45 minutes. He discussed mainly Punjab, Assam and Centre-State relations. On my part, I emphasised the urgent and imperative need of electoral reform. I was impressed by his very positive response. I felt even more gratified, when a few (…)

by Congressman
The dust of the Lok Sabha election is settling down… Well, not quite, because the Assembly elections in several States to be held shortly will be the final act after which the country will hopefully settle down to the performance of a term—full or less than full, as the case may be.
It is, therefore, a bit premature to embark on a comprehensive forecast of the political situation—as to which way the camel will sit, as they say. But surely a recapitulation of what (…)

by Madhu Limaye
In a scarcely noticed address to the 12th Joint Conference of the CBI and State Anti-Corruption Bureau Officers on October 20, 1994 the Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, called for “a multi pronged action plan to tackle the menace of corruption”. He assured the Enforcement Agencies that “all legislative and administrative measures would be taken to help them tackle the corruption problem”. In view of the fact that this plague of corruption is the single greatest obstacle (…)

Early in the morning on August 18, there passed away in Calcutta a pre-eminent exponent of Rabindra Sangeet, truly a people’s artiste whose vast repertoire was always ungrudgingly at the service of the stricken society around him, his death marking almost the end of an era, the era that saw the bursting into the scene of the Indian People’s Theatre (IPTA) movement in the early forties, the new wave, the new dimension, the new categories of comprehension, as it were, which then suffused our (…)

by S. Mohan Kumaramangalam
The recent victory of the DMK in the Tiruchengode by-election has once more drawn all-India attention to this party. Naturally, throughout the country and even in Tamilnad itself, these questions are being asked with increasing concern: What is this party? What is its past? What is its programme? What do its victories in the general election and more recently in the Tiruchengode by-election mean for the future of our people?
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is not (…)