2013

This article was written before the attack on Syria was deferred in view of the Russian initiative, in response to Kerry’s suggestion, on the table. Launching the military attack against a far-away country in real slow motion is not an easy thing to do and the most taxing part of the diplomatic acrobatics by the United States as it embarks on the strikes against Syria is to be borne by Secretary of State John Kerry.
The strain is beginning to show. It seems certain now that Kerry will (…)

Zubin Mehta, before leaving for Srinagar to conduct his orchestra, said: “There will be no violence.” German Ambassador Michael Steiner, who facilitated the concert, said at Srinagar that the world was watching Kashmir. Both observations have a ring of truth. The success of the concert has proved that.
If New Delhi has been able to put across a message, the Hurriyat leaders have to blame themselves. They, also known as the separatists, unnecessarily made the concert an issue by playing (…)

by Pranjit Agarwala
India is facing an economic emergency with the free fall of the rupee and a high rate of food and fuel inflation despite comparative stability in the global crude oil and commodity markets. Fluctuations in the international currency markets are quite common and any excess volatility is normally absorbed by the economy’s inherent structural checks and balances. But the Indian economy’s built-in course corrections, necessary in a globalised economy, are apparently weak (…)

This article was written before the BJP leadership formally decided to make Narendra Modi its prime ministerial candidate.
Resignation letters of suspended officers—who are in jail under serious charges—are never a cause of concern for the powers that be. But with Dahyaji Gobarji Vanzara, the suspended DIG of the Gujarat Police and head of its Anti-Terrorist Squad, who once happened to be very close to the powers that be and has the potential of further embarrassing them, the situation is (…)

by Arani Basu
This article reached us sometime ago but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons.
With federal elections round the corner, it is a matter of concern for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) if the next government in Germany would be able to save the country from financial crisis—a malice gone viral all over Europe. Economically stability therefore is undoubtedly the biggest deciding factor when it comes to analysing this year’s (…)

by Abhijit Ghosh
Introduction Is sixtyfive years (1947-2012) enough time to declare that any political agenda has failed? But more than half-a-century is a reasonable period to dissect any political agenda. Left politics in these sixtyfive years failed to leave any effective mark on the Indian political system barring a few exceptions. Several political complexities had developed in the Indian political scenario during the British departure from the country. While the Muslim League with (…)

TRIBUTE
Vinod Raina, the eminent educationist who made a significant contribution to the right to education legislation and to enriching science education at the grassroots, breathed his last in Delhi on September 12. He had been suffering from cancer.
Raina (1950-2013) left a comfortable job as a Physics teacher in Delhi University to devote himself to strengthening science and education at the grassroots. This included a lot of work in Hoshangabad district (Madhya Pradesh), preparing (…)

TRIBUTE
Sanjay was a Professor at the Indian Institute of Science and I was a teacher at St. Joseph’s College. He was a mechanical engineer and I taught political science. While he was a Communist, I was a Jesuit, a member of the Catholic Church. He was a Bengali and I am a Mangalorean, born and bred in the State (Karnataka). We met more than two decades ago. We were different and yet not once did we feel that we were not comrades in a common mission. We grew into intimate friends and (…)

TRIBUTE
Vivek Kumar Srivastava
Why is the killing of Sushmita Banerjee so impactful for India, the world and women in particular? Not for the reason that she was assassinated in a gruesome manner by those people who still symbolise primitiveness in the modern age, but for the reason that she was a symbol of courage, steadfastness, and unflinching faith in human values and lived with a concern for the common people who had no other option in life except to coexist with the orthodoxies, (…)

by Ather Farouqui
Distinguished readers of Mainstream may remember my article, “Urdu Needs Kiss of Life and Not Myopic Policies” (vol. L, no.33, August 4, 2012), which was very critical of the policies of the Delhi Chief Minister, Ms Sheila Dikshit, as far as the promotion of Urdu language was concerned.
I argued in that piece that Ms Dikshit was simply enamoured of the idea of Urdu as a ‘language of culture’ romanticising it if you will, while ignoring the vital need for making it an (…)