2013

David Cameron, the Prime Minister of England, is not the first one to call for an international inquiry into allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka. Perhaps, he will be the first one among the heads of state to visit the war-ravaged north of Sri Lanka where he will meet people directly impacted by the civil war that ended in 2009 after the genocide of roughly a lakh-and-a-half of people. Sri Lanka has refused to answer the many questions on those war crimes. They have boldly stated that what (…)

COMMUNICATION
Here is a response to Kobad Ghandy’s “Questions of Freedom and People’s Emancipation” (a six-part essay that appeared in this weekly, the first part on August 18, 2012, the sixth on January 26, 2013) from Bernard D’Mello, Deputy Editor, Economic and Political Weekly, Mumbai, Kobad Ghandy’s reply to this response in the form of a letter will be carried in the following issue of Mainstream.
Dear Kobad,
Thanks for giving us this six-part essay on “Questions of Freedom and (…)

IMPRESSIONS
Manmohan Singh, considered ineffective and unassertive, was noticeably effective and assertive on one issue: India moving closer to the United States. He succeeded so well that today India is seen as a strategic partner of the US in the Asia-Pacific theatre. This gives useful leverage to the US. What does it give to India? Certainly no leverage vis-à-vis Pakistan; the US has just re-started its massive economic aid to the country and continues to lend an attentive ear to (…)

Junior Strategic Partner
American spying challenges comprise three categories, namely, friends, enemies and problems. The top two challenges are Brazil and Egypt. That India is No. 3 challenge to U.S intelligence [Ref. 1] is strange, considering that India’s PM, Dr Manmohan Singh, is known to be submissive to US policies and pressures.
Perhaps this submissiveness began with the July 2005 India-USA strategic framework signed in Washington, between US President George W. Bush and Dr (…)

by Bishwajit Sen
This, in my view, is the most revealing self-criticism in recent times to have come from a Communist Party (CPI) which is a part of the Left Front that ruled West Bengal just two years back. The self-criticism comes on the heels of the debacle of the Left Front in the recently held Panchayat elections. It was published in the Ananda Bazar Patrika on 13.09.2013.
It narrates a strange story, that is, the story of the Left’s servility to the rural bourgeoisie which (…)

EDITORIAL
It is yet another feather in the cap of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The successful launch of Mangalayaan—the country’s first probe mission to Mars—made every Indian proud. The ‘blast off’ from the first launch pad in Sriharikota on November 5 afternoon and the subsequent injection by PSLV-C25 of the Mars orbiter spacecraft into an Earth orbit resulted in India’s first Mars mission being pronounced a success. If all goes well and Mangalayaan is able to (…)

by I.A. Rehman
To describe and celebrate the life of a person like Nikhil Chakravartty cliché-ridden encomiums obituary writers often rely upon are not needed. His life speaks for itself. That he was not content with understanding the world but also wanted, in Marx’s famous words, to change it is evident from the choices he made for himself.
Armed with a brilliant academic record at Kolkata’s Presidency College and Merton College at Oxford, he had ample opportunities in India during the (…)

Dear Sumit,
An unfortunate accident is preventing me to attend the gathering in Delhi in honour of your illustrious father and my friend Nikhil Chakravartty. We had become friends in the early nineties when I became active in improving relations between India and Pakistan. I had occasion to visit India four or five times every year. The very next morning of my arrival in Delhi, Nikhil very graciously would be there to visit me at the residence of Syeda Hameed at Jamia.
We would discuss (…)

The following is the paper the author presented on November 5 at the last session of the two-day conference held in New Delhi in honour of N.C. on his birth centenary.
I am privileged to have the opportunity to honour the memory of the late Nikhil Chakravartty, our Nikhilda. I remember him with profound respect and affection ever since we came into close contact during the early years of Bangladesh. His deep commitment to independent Bangladesh, and his wise counsel was invaluable in (…)

The birth centenary of Nikhil Chakravartty, the founder editor of Mainstream and the first Chairman of Prasar Bharati, was observed in Kolkata on November 3. Among those who spoke was the nonagenarian Jolly Mohan Kaul, a former secretary of the undivided CPI’s Calcutta District Committee who had worked closely with N.C. during a critical period of the party in the 1948-51 period. He recalled those days when N.C. was given the important task of maintaining contact between the party leaders (…)