2013

Strange, there was no meeting or seminar to remember Bhagat Singh who still lives in the memory of every Indian. I was yet in a primary school when the revolutionary Bhagat Singh was hanged 82 years ago, to be precise on March 23, 1931. Even though more than eight decades have passed, the feeling of his loss has not lessened. An uproar against the British united the country and so strong was the feeling that nobody was willing to name his comrade (Hans Raj Vohra), who agreed to be the (…)

Legendary freedom fighter and martyr Bhagat Singh was executed, along with Sukhdev and Rajguru, on March 23, 1931 in Lahore Central Jail. On the occasion of the eightysecond anniversary of their martydom and in homage to Bhagat Singh’s abiding memory (he was and remains to this day a source of inspiration for our youth), we are reproducing the following excerpts from Ajoy Ghosh’s Bhagat Singh and His Comrades (published in Bombay, 1945); a close associate of Bhagat Singh, Ajoy Ghosh was (…)

The efforts of the Pension Parishad during the last year have raised hopes among India’s elderly population in the unorganised sector that after long years of neglect they too can get some social security. So far in India a reasonable system of pensions has existed only for about 10 per cent of the population in the organised sector while the social security of the elderly in the remaining 90 per cent segment of the population has suffered from shocking neglect.
About a year-and-a-half (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
The following article, which appeared in this journal precisely fifteen years ago, happened to be the last contribution of N.C. in Mainstream. It is being reproduced after fifteen years in view of its abiding relevance in the present scenario. Outgoing Prime Minister Inder Gujral can hardly take the credit for his quietude over the American response to the Iraq crisis.
The crisis in Iraq this time has not been of the horrendous type witnessed seven years ago. (…)

Dr Rammanohar Lohia’s 103rd birth anniversary was marked on March 23 this year. Since his birthday coincided with the day of martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru, he never wanted his followers to observe or celebrate his birthday. However, we remember him and offer tribute to the abiding memory of that stormy petrel of the Indian socialist movement on this occasion by reproducing the following article written by a distinguished socialist leader and ideologue who is no more with us. (…)

Narendra Modi of the RSS is an ambitious man who seems to want to become the Prime Minister of the country. His propaganda machine never speaks of the violence in 2002 in the State he ruled and rules, but it constantly plugs his hand in its development. I do not propose here to question the claims of development that he makes or which are made for him. Better qualified people have done that and have shown that these claims are based on sleight of hand or on outright lies. I shall only look (…)

Developments within the country and in our neighbourhood have moved at a fast pace in recent days. The DMK’s decision to sever its ties with the UPA and walk out of the ruling coalition at the Centre slamming the Government of India’s apparently indifferent attitude on the issue of what has been legitimately perceived by public opinion in Tamil Nadu as ‘genocide’ of Tamil citizens perpetrated by the Sri Lankan armed forces under the direct orders of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and New (…)

by TARIQ A. KARIM
At the time when the offer of this assignment as High Commissioner of Bangladesh to India was made to me in mid-2009, I was in a think-tank in Bangladesh1 where my primary focus of attention was on how to improve relations with India and how to promote sub-regional cooperation in the region which I inhabited for the overall betterment of the lives of its people. After consulting some close friends and my wife and children, I decided to accept the offer, knowing full well (…)

by SHAHRIAR KABIR
The mass upsurge of Shahbag has passed 30 days. Not only at Shahbag, the people’s rally has maintained continuity from Chittagong to Dinajpur and from Sylhet to Khulna, that is, in most of the districts, without any active support from any politcal party or any other organisation. Some of the foreign journalists have compared this spontaneous people’s uprising with that of Tahrir Square of Egypt, some with the upsurge of Anna Hazare in India and the movement for (…)

The euphoria that the Shahbag Square movement had generated all over Bangladesh over a month ago is clearly on the wane in the face of murderous onslaughts unleashed by the pro-Pakistani Islamists who have threatened to wage a civil war so as to bring down Sheikh Hasina’s democratically elected government. Already Begum Khaleda Zia, leader of the pro-Pakistan Islamist alliance, is on record saying that her alliance’s one-point programme was to wage an unceasing movement against the so-called (…)