Mainstream Weekly

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• Just Some Questions on Obamaspeak

  21 November 2015, by Badri Raina

  President Obama has invited the Muslims of the world not just to some introspection but, however suavely said, some self-flagellation as well after the terror attack in Paris. The inference here seems inescapable: whatever may have been done to the “Muslim” world, beginning from the time of the usurpation of Palestine, it is they who remain both responsible for the fate that afflicts them and obliged to find all the remedies. Curiously, all that even as the powers-that-be also tell us that (…)

• To Indira Gandhi

  21 November 2015, by Sumit Chakravartty

  On the occasion of Indira Gandhi’s 98th birth anniversary on November 19, 2015 we remember her by reproducing the following poem written a year after her death (she was killed on October 31, 1984) and published in Mainstream (November 16, 1985). a year has passed without you; tears dry up on the surface, but the pain persists down below where my heart writhes like a wounded fawn as it dawns on me with every passing day: how much we lost by losing you.
  Sumit (…)

• Gau Maata Ki Jai!

  21 November 2015, by Sagari Chhabra

  Amidst the silence of the rich and powerful And the burgeoning of the lotus, There must be more. Beyond the clamour, The onslaught of the hammer Pulverised all that was sacred Into dead meat; What an amazing feat!
  Black is the colour of the day, A face smeared with ink, By men in orange, who declare, We are in the very pink, Of health.
  Watch, how with stealth They enter the Press Club And smear Rasheed, For hosting a party with beef. Did anyone ask them to take a leaf Out of the (…)

• Social Activist of Rajasthan Dies after 32 Days’ Fast

  21 November 2015, by Bharat Dogra

  COMMUNICATION
  It is a measure of the growing insensitivity of the authorities that serious efforts were not made in time to save the life of leading social activist and former MLA Gurusharan Chhabra. This social activist died after 32 days of a protest fast to demand prohibition and a strong Lok Ayukta in Rajasthan.
  Although he was elected as an MLA from Suratgarh several years back, Chhabra was known more as a Gandhian social activist than a political leader. He was deeply troubled by (…)

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  Inestimable Value of the Bihar Mandate

  16 November 2015, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  The results of the five-phase Bihar Assembly polls are out. Proving most of the poll predictions wrong, the electorate of the State handed a decisive verdict by giving a two-thirds majority to the JD(U)-RJD-Congress’ grand alliance or mahagathbandhan leaving the BJP (which runs the government at the Centre with guidance from the RSS) and its allies way behind. The final figures are as follows: the BJP and its allies secured 58 out of 243 seats whereas the mahagathbandhan won as (…)

• Bihar Poll Results

  16 November 2015, by Barun Das Gupta

  Suddenly the spell-binder finds that his spell has been broken. The dream merchant, who peddled his never-to-be-realised dreams very successfully just a year ago, suddenly finds that there are no buyers for his wares. Suddenly one discovers that the people are not so gullible as one had thought. Suddenly the bakers of Nagpur, specialising in making hate-cakes, find these are getting mouldy, they are not selling.
  Why have things changed so completely in just a year-and-a-half’s time? The (…)

• The Republic Strikes Back: Indian Democracy Breathes Again

  16 November 2015, by Badri Raina

  What Delhi inaugurated at the beginning of the year, Bihar has sealed at the end, namely, the revolt of reason against supervening gumption. Facts and arguments are once again to the fore, defeating bare-faced assertion and false appropriation. Little women and men together have turned back the swagger of the all-assuming colossus, deluded into insufferable hubris by consuming self-love and supercilious theatrics of personal power.
  A year-and-a-half has proved too long a career for muscle, (…)

• A Victory For Secularism

  16 November 2015, by Bharat Dogra

  Trust the Indian voters to protect the basic constitutional principles whenever these are most threatened. This time it was the turn of the politically alert Bihar voter to intervene on behalf of the cherished heritage of social harmony and based on it the constitutional principles of equality for all religious communities as well as secularism.
  Certainly other issues, including those related to development, issues were also important and the Nitish Government has a good record on this. (…)

• Bihar Assembly Elections 2015: Did spectra of horror Ranvir Sena’s patrons and protagonists influence votes?

  16 November 2015, by A K Biswas

  The RJD, JD (U) and Congress coalition has inflicted a crushing defeat on the BJP and its allies in the just concluded Vidhan Sabha election 2015, successfully driving a lesson on political morality with desirable significance. It will help the vanquished see the intolerance, arrogance and aggression that jeopardised the civil society and peaceful life of the masses. In this context, it is only natural to focus on the reasons and factors for the victory of the RJD-JD(U)-Congress triumvirate (…)

• Bihar Speaks

  16 November 2015, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The massive victory of the Laloo-Nitish coalition in the Bihar Assembly elections signifies a verdict against the politics of hate and intolerance preached by the Modi-Amit Shah regime after the BJP came to power. It is also significant that the electoral verdict has belied the electoral forecasts of the corporatised media. The lone exit poll, the Axis exit poll, had predicted 169-183 seats for the grand Laloo-Nitish alliance, but its tally was withheld by CNN-IBN. The channel advertised the (…)