2019

EDITORIAL
As the campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections hots up, the two star campaigners of the ruling BJP—PM Narendra Modi and party President Amit Shah—are spouting venom against the Opposition leaders and simultaneously seeking to polarise the voters along communal lines. In the process the issue of development has not only been relegated into the background but actually vanished from the BJP’s electoral propaganda in the face of the muscular anti-Pakistan, and by implication (…)

by Ram Puniyani
Seeing the pattern of the justice delivery system of India currently it seems getting justice, punishing the guilty is not easy. The judgments come as an outcome of the evidence produced by the executive, police in front of the Magistrates. The attitude of the ruling dispensation matters a lot in matters of the crimes related to the ideology being propounded and defended by the ruling party. Sometimes the assertion and strength of the ideologies, which are dominant but not (…)

by Arup Kumar Sen
A scholar of Museum Studies, Andrew Whitmarsh, made some seminal observations regarding war memorials: “...museums of war act as memorials to those who were killed or served in war...War museums have often been accused of sanitising or glamorising war...War is a controversial subject, not only because of the death, destruction and suffering involved. Memory of war often forms part of a nation’s self-image. Taking a critical attitude towards past wars may therefore provoke (…)

The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) takes serious note of the dramatic declaration of the Indian Prime Minister, on March 27, early afternoon, claiming, in a nationally televised address, successful testing of an ASAT missile by way of destroying an Indian military Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite at an altitude of almost 300 kms, over the Bay of Bengal.
Whatever be the actual military significance of the claimed successful test, it definitely makes the current regional (…)

Dr Rammanohar Lohia’s 109th birth anniversary fell on March 23 this year. Since his birthday coincided with the day of martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru, Lohiaji never wanted his followers to observe or celebrate his birthday. However, we remember him and offer tributes to the abiding memory of that stormy petrel of the Indian socialist movement on this occasion by reproducing the following article. Written by a veteram journalist (the first editor of Mainstream who later became (…)

WOMEN’S WORLD
by Bijayalaxmi Nanda, Nupur Ray, Ritwika Mukherjee, Richa Jairaj
The following study is a part of an ongoing research project, “Declining Child Sex Ratio and Violence against Women: Examining Girl Child Discrimination in India”, under the Centre for Studies of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi, supported by the Indian Council of Social Science Research. Bijayalaxmi Nanda, the Project Director, is an Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Miranda House, (…)

by Anwar Ali Tsarpa
On February 14 a horrific suicide attack in Pulwama, Kashmir on security personnel killed 40 CRPF jawans. The terror attack, conducted by a local Kashmiri militant, Adil Dar, triggered an uproar across the country heightening the feeling that the new generation in Kashmir is more radicalised than its predecessors.
A few weeks before the attack in Kashmir, more than two million Filipinos in the Philippines chose to form a Bangsamoro (meaning Moro nation), a new (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
In 1967, that is, more than fifty years ago, N.C. visited the Kashmir Valley for a few days and held detailed discussions with a wide cross-section of opinion-makers and political personalities of all shades there. On his return he wrote a series of pieces on Kashmir in Mainstream. The following is the fourth and last instalment of the series ‘Special Report on Kashmir’ and was published in this journal’s November 18, 1967 issue. It is being reproduced now that Kashmir (…)

BOOK REVIEW
by Muzamil Yaqoob
India After Modi Populism and the Right by Ajay Gudavarthy; Delhi: Bloomsbury India; 2019; pages: xxx+236; Rs 599.
“Even nationalism demands a dialogue, Love for the nation has to be nurtured, not shoved down throats. Diversity has to be acknowledged, not merely by recognising various social identities, but the ideas that come with them.”
At a time when the domestic politics of many well-established democracies is reeling under Right-wing populism (…)

EDITORIAL
Yesterday’s development is a major achievement for which fulsome praise must legitimately go to our scientists, especially those in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The DRDO scientists had developed a Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) Interceptor, similar to the ones which intercept and destroy incoming missiles, and this was fired from the Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Island launch complex, off the coast of Odisha, south of Balasore before it struck an Indian (…)