Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Kerala mid-term elections: Dress Rehearsal for 1972

  24 October 2015

  by C. Achutha Menon
  Kerala has been the laboratory for all kinds of political experiments, especially for various kinds of United Fronts with all sorts of permutations and combinations among a variety of political parties.
  Here it was that the Indian National Congress first lost its absolute majority in 1952 and tried to bolster itself up with a coalition with the Tamilnad Congress, a dissident group. Here it was that the first experiments in contesting elections on the basis of a Left (…)

• Mood in Kashmir Valley

  24 October 2015, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  I have been restless and upset by the disgustingly communal moves of the govern-ment of the day. And in the midst of this I decided to travel to the Kashmir Valley to report on the flood victims’ survival in the backdrop of the fact that a considerable majority of those rendered homeless are still squatting homeless. Yes, even after a year, even as autumn is paving the way for another harsh winter. But before I could get to hear details of the dismal realities on that front, I was (…)

• Tribute to R.M. Pal

  24 October 2015

  Dr R.M. Pal, a well-known educationist and human rights activist, is no more. He breathed his last in Thane, where he was staying with his wife for the last several years, on October 13, 2015 at the age of 88. (He was born in Comilla in East Bengal, later East Pakistan and now Bangladesh, on July 17, 1927.)
  Dr Pal, who was for sometime the Principal, Rajdhani College, University of Delhi, was the President of the People’s Union for Civil Liberty, Delhi a few years ago and also edited the (…)

• How Nepal was ‘Lost’: An Exquisite Foreign Policy Disaster in Kathmandu

  24 October 2015

  by Harish Khare
  These days, one can’t swing a dead cat in New Delhi without hitting a professionally wise person who can be relied upon to rapturously proclaim how Narendra Modi has “won” and “conquered” the West. But one is hard-pressed to find anyone who can explain how Nepal was “lost” on the Prime Minister’s watch. Nor will anyone be able to recall when it was last that Nepal chose to take its grievance against India to the United Nations. The correct answer: 1989.
  It is the most (…)

• The Lost World: Oscillating between Hope and Despair

  24 October 2015

  REVIEW ARTICLE
  by L.K. Sharma
  Building A Just World: Essays in Honour of Muchkund Dubey edited by Manoranjan Mohanty, Vinod C. Khanna and Biswajit Dhar with a Foreword by Boutros Boutros-Ghali; Orient BlackSwan, Hyderabad; 2015; pages: 406.
  This book is in honour of a Foreign Secretary who retired in 1991. Muchkund Dubey is remembered as an official who energised India’s economic diplomacy and fought the battles for development and disarmament that were considered crucial both by (…)

• Governments Neglecting RTI Responsibilities

  24 October 2015, by Bharat Dogra

  COMMUNICATION
  The completion of 10 years of the Right to Information (RTI) is a cause for celebration. India’s RTI law has been widely recognised as one of the best legislations on this issue in the world, and millions of people have used this legislation in effective and socially relevant ways. However, this sense of achievement has been impaired to a significant extent because of increasing tendencies on the part of the government authorities, at the Central as well as State levels, to (…)

• 

  Rise of the Hindu Right

  19 October 2015

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  In the competitive radicalism of the Hindu Right the Shiv Sena is trying to upstage the Sangh Parivar. The latest instance of this is blackening the face of Sudheendra Kulkarni, a close associate of senior BJP lealder Lal Krishna Advani. Kulkarni’s ‘crime’ was to invite former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri to launch his book, Neither a Hawk nor a Dove, in Mumbai. The function was organised by the Observer Research Foundation of Mukesh Ambani. Not only was (…)

• Do Not Play With Fire

  19 October 2015

  The recent Vedic Sanskrit conference held at University of Delhi shows a deliberate effort being made by the BJP Government to create a divisive strategy. No, I have nothing against Sanskrit. I myself had taken it in my Intermediate class as one of the choice subjects. But to be frank, it was more because it is a scoring subject than out of any foolish boastful claim of its supremacy amongst the languages. Each language has a claim of its own and area and philosophy. Languages which in daily (…)

• Continuity and Change within the Sangh Parivar

  19 October 2015

  by Irfan Engineer
  Our PM Narendra Modi travels across the globe soliciting global capital to India and announces various deals making India a very attractive destination for multinational capital to earn its dream profits. PM recently met the CEOs of various companies in the US for Digital India. Spectacular events were staged and attractive announcements were made. The CEOs—whether of Indian origin or nationals of other countries— are accountable only to their share-holders for the (…)

• Dog, man’s best friend, has turned into a problem. Others control it with laws. Why can’t we?

  19 October 2015, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  We can understand the controversy over beef; it is a subject intertwined with spirituality, faith and nowadays fanatic intolerance. But dogs? In no culture is the dog an object of canonical homage. Yet dogs arouse human passions other animals don’t. Is this because they often show loyalty and intelligence that are rare in the animal kingdom? Dogs’ faithfulness to their masters is matched by the owners’ devotion to their dogs. At one end we have Queen Elizabeth proudly strolling (…)