Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Reservations sans Development

  3 October 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  Leaders of different communities had so much confidence in the fairness of the country when it won freedom that none of them wanted reservations. The Muslim leaders rejected the then Home Minister Sardar Patel’s offer of a 15 per cent quota in government jobs and educatio-nal institutions. Their argument was that reservations fostered a parochial thinking. The country had paid an enormous price in the shape of partition for the communal electorate introduced by the British.
  Law Minister (…)

• Democratic Constitution and Political Violence in Nepal: A Part and Parcel of the Transition Stage?

  3 October 2015

  by Sanjal Shastri
  Over the last few days, Nepal has taken giant steps in its journey to become a constitutional democracy. The accepting of the Constitution marks a new stage in a decade-long effort to usher in a constitutional framework. Unfortunately, this important phase has been marred by significant violence and protests. The two questions in everyone’s mind are: who is to blame and what can be done to make this transition a peaceful one?
  We need to keep in mind that Nepal’s road to (…)

• Nepal: Modi’s Dream Merchants Messed Up Policies

  3 October 2015, by M K Bhadrakumar

  At times one cannot but feel sorry for the Foreign Secretary. Over the years, his has become a thankless job. The incumbent official, S. Jaishankar, is being pilloried for having been lackadaisical in preventing Nepal from adopting just this sort of an unhelpful Constitution that it has chosen to adopt.
  His lapse? Apparently, the detractors and critics say Jaishankar should have visited Kathmandu to do some arm-twisting in the month of August when the country’s draft Constitution was in (…)

• Need for Synergy and not Rupture between Indian and Nepali Polities

  3 October 2015

  by Vijay Pratap
  Nepali, Indian and international media—all have published extensively the debates on the dynamics of Constitution-making and its promul-gation in Nepal. The viewpoints of both the establishments of India and Nepal have been aggressively and explicitly stated. But the views of the Indian civil society have not seen the light of the day adequately in the mainstream media, social network sites or even the alternative media.
  A small section of the Indian civil society and (…)

• Federalism: Nepal’s Final Frontier

  3 October 2015

  by Jayant Prasad
  Nepal’s transition to a pluralist democracy faces a final challenge — failure of the three major parties to accommodate the legitimate demands of Janajati and Madhesi groups for true federalism. Greater consensus and not the imposition of an artificial deadline can help overcome it.
  The long-awaited promulgation of a new Constitution within the next few days in Nepal was expected to be the culmination of its transition to a pluralist democracy. The institu-tionalisation (…)

• Forceful Case for an Alternative Development Model

  3 October 2015, by B P Mathur

  BOOK REVIEW
  To Choose Our Future by Ashok Khosla; Development Alternatives and Academic Foundation, New Delhi; 2015; pages 127.
  Sustainable Development holds the key to India’s future and its prosperity. Unfortunately the model of development we have adopted, post-1990s economic liberalisation, is leading to vast environmental degradation, threatening the very existence of life in our planet, simul-taneously creating a dysfunctional economy, in which a vast army of hungry and deprived (…)

• Threat to our Pluralist Ethos

  28 September 2015, by SC

  EDITORIAL The arrest of Sameer Vishnu Gaikwad, a “full-time” member of the radical Hindu organisation, Sanatan Sanstha, by the Kolhapur Police on September 16 in connection with the murder of CPI leader and rationalist thinker, Govind Pansare, has by now helped the police of find a link between the killings of Pansare last February and rationalist leader Narendra Dabholkar (an anti-superstition crusader whom Pansare acknowledged as his mentor) in 2013. This was suspected for long but now, (…)

• Refugee Crises in Europe: A Human Catastrophe

  28 September 2015, by Bharti Chhibber

  How images affect the human mind is quite evident with the kind of effect the picture had of a crumpled body of a three-year old face-down, washed ashore the Turkish coastline or that of rubber dinghies overfilled with desperate women, men and children. These images have brought out the enormity of the contemporary refugee crises in Europe, the biggest movement of people to Europe since the Second World War.
  However, how ironical is the fact that the civil war in Syria, which is entering (…)

• To Modi, From Aurangzeb

  28 September 2015

  by Rohit Chopra
  Your Highness, Emperor of India, host of Mann ki Baat, harbinger of achhe din, Lord of the bhakts, I hope you are well. I trust you will not mind if I call you Emperor. I know you are a democratically elected leader, but your regal bearing and magnificent sartorial adventures are worthy of the finest traditions of hereditary monarchy and feudal nobility. And, beside, as pretty much most Indians know, you don’t necessarily have a liking or patience for parliamentary (…)

• Life and Times of a Good Communist

  28 September 2015, by Arup Kumar Sen

  Liu Shaoqi, the prominent leader and theoretician of the Chinese Communist Party, wrote his would-be famous book, How to be a Good Communist, in 1939. He was ruthlessly criticised by Mao during the Cultural Revolution and then purged. He died in 1969 under harsh treatment.
  What is important to us is not to judge the ‘political correctness’ of Liu Shaoqi’s thought. The fact that the Communists of earlier days were concerned with ethical questions, even though in regimented terms, is the (…)