2015

by Ravindra K. Jain
Prime Minister Modi’s rousing reception by Indian diasporics in advanced Western countries—the USA, Australia and Canada in particular—has been a constant refrain and cause for celebration in a number of media reports. Given the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Right-wing and corporate-friendly investor policies, has the intelligentsia in India seriously queried the reasons, characteristics, and consequences of this mass euphoria? The phenomenon of globalisation by itself is (…)

TRIBUTE
Russia lost its great statesman, veteran diplomat and outstanding academic in the demise of Evgeny Maximovich Primakov, Russia’s former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister and one of the most eminent political leaders of the post-Soviet period. Primakov’s death brought down the curtain over an entire epoch in Russian history. Primakov—the journalist, academic, diplomat, political leader, statesman—would be remembered in Russian history mostly as the man who rescued Russia from the (…)

EDITORIAL
It was written in these columns last week that ‘Modigate’ (or more precisely ‘Lalitgate’)—the revelations of the ruling party’s bigwigs’ deep connections with the fugitive evading questioning by the Enforcement Directorate, Lalit Modi—had exposed the rampant corruption within the BJP-led Narendra Modi Government. The past one week has only magnified the scale of such connections while highlighting the magnitude of corruption.
The latest disclosures have exposed Rajasthan CM (…)

The “Modigate” is sure enough producing a lot of political heat, but not enough light is thrown into the scam. But then, no one is demanding an inquiry into the whole episode.
Some sections of the political class do not even want to hear about the scam. So strong is apparently their personal loyalty to Lalit Modi, which, clearly, makes him out to be one of the most powerful men in modern India.
Succinctly put, what we have here is an extraordinary level of personal interest that External (…)

When you came Bible-peddling, I was not numero uno; Now that I am, take back with Interest wages for that meddling, As a hundred and seventy nations Back my awesome, acrobatic show.
Watch the thrusting of my leg, Chest inflated, arms akimbo, Fire in my eye, beard aflame, Heart raging with dream Of conquest, mind intent on Weeding out all such element That questions my abhiyan, Kicking up an anti-national row. Espy these legions of health, Backed by bushel-fulls of wealth, Retreat, and (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
On May 31 this year it was the fortysecond death anniversary of Mohan Kumaramangalam. On N.C.’s seventeenth death anniversary (June 27, 2015) we reproduce the following tribute that the founder of this journal penned under the pseudonym ‘An Old Comrade’. M.K. and N.C. were indeed close comrades since their days in England in the 1930s and the friendship bloomed during their collective struggle in the communist movement; it was retained in subsequent years and even when (…)

One of my earliest reporting experiences was the great Calcutta killing of 1946. Fierce communal passions were unleashed and thousands were done to death on both sides in the course of a couple of days. But behind that gory carnage was the fight for the city of Calcutta: who should get it? Pakistan or India? Religious beliefs are made use of to rouse mass anger among innocent people, but those who whip up such passions do so only for political gains.
In our immediate context, this comes (…)

Ayodhya has become the epicentre of a cyclone that threatens to spell disaster for the political fabric of this country. For the fourth year now, it has virtually taken over the centre-stage of national politics.
What has been achieved so far is that actual confrontation is averted almost at the very last moment by a desperate move to buy time, so that a little more space may be available to tackle the dipute over the question of the proposed Ram Mandir, requiring the pulling down of the (…)

As years pass by, one after the other, the past recedes more and more into distant memory. There are certain events in the life of a nation as of individuals, to which distance does not lend enchantment to the view. Rather the ugly visage falls into the pattern of historical evolution and lives on as such. One such event in our lifetime, and in our very land was the Emergency which was promulgated on June 25-26, twenty years ago.
Twenty years is but a short space in the vast canvas that is (…)

To mark the passage of forty years since the imposition of the Emergency by Indira Gandhi on June 25-26, 1975, we reproduce some extracts from the story of “Mainstream’s Journey Through Emergency” which was published in the June 25, 1977 issue of this journal. —Editor
The story of Mainstream during the nineteen months of Emergency is both exciting and rewarding. It has many lessons to impart. The confrontation with a despotic authority could not possibly be direct and formal: by its very (…)