Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Corruption and Immorality: An Illustration

  15 August 2015, by Arup Maharatna

  Over the recent past a great deal of hustle-bustle has been generated in our country in regard to one single phenomenon, namely, corruption. New news-channels have cropped up now and then on the TV screen, with routinised displays of what very often turn out to be nearly melodramatic performances by some of the possibly best orators—albeit skilfully moderated by professional anchors. Some sitting Ministers have been sent to jails of late in course of trials pertaining to corruption charges. (…)

• Will India Pioneer a Brave New Path, or Languish as a Poor Imitator

  15 August 2015, by Bharat Dogra

  Any comprehensive understanding of India’s possible pathways in the near future should be linked to a wider understanding of the most essential features of the present-day world. India should of course plan its future in accordance with its needs, but this has to be seen in the wider context of the world’s most serious issues and problems so that the path India chooses in it is in conformity with the world’s most urgently felt needs.
  The two most important features of the present-day world (…)

• A New Agenda for the Indian Media

  15 August 2015

  MEDIA
  by Satraajit Palchoudhury
  The execution of Yakub Abdul Razzak Memon on July 30 has given a new issue to the Indian media especially to the 24x7 news channels. Shekhar Gupta in his ‘Walk the Talk’ programme presented before us two victims, Kishore Kuvavala and Farooq Mapkar, who had to undergo the trauma of the fateful year of 1993. The Srinivasan Jain-anchored programme—The riddle of Yakub Memon—also had all the masalas to attract the viewers. However, the execution of Yakub has (…)

• Ill-timed and Ill-advised Move

  8 August 2015, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  The logjam in Parliament continues. What is more, the threat of the entire monsoon session being washed out due to the inability of the ruling party at the Centre to meet the legitimate demands of the principal Opposition party with regard to both the Lalitgate and Vyapam scams has become quite potent in the wake of the unfolding developments in the Lok Sabha in particular.
  One has to quite sharply underscore one point: the Lok Sabha Speaker’s latest action of suspending 25 (…)

• Welcome to our own Tea Party

  8 August 2015, by Badri Raina

  Finally, it is here—our own Tea Party.
  It had to happen, of course, given the drift of political/ideological predilections over the last year.
  One of India’s high constitutional authorities has admonished the state to keep “tabs” on all those who attended the funeral of the executed Yakub Memon (barring his family and friends, thankfully, although one would have argued that they indeed would have the most cause to do something untoward, no?) as “potential terrorists”.
  Now, (…)

• Resentful Kashmiris

  8 August 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  Kashmir has changed beyond recognition. In less than five years when I visited Srinagar last, the Valley has become visibly anti-India. This does not mean that it has become pro-Pakistan, although some green flags fly in the interiors of Srinagar. What it really means is that the alienation, which was perceptible even earlier, has changed into resentment.
  However, the sunny sides like the Dal Lake and its bundh (bank) are as normal as they used to be. Tourists drive straight from the (…)

• Land Acquisition Amendment Bill, 2014: U-turn by the BJP

  8 August 2015

  by M.R. Biju
  The power to take property from the indivi-dual is rooted in the idea of eminent domain. The doctrine of eminent domain states that the sovereign can do anything if the act of the sovereign involves public interest. The doctrine empowers the sovereign to acquire private land for public use, provided the public nature of the usage can be demonstrated beyond doubt. The doctrine is based on the following two Latin maxims: (1) Salus populi suprema lex (Welfare of the People Is the (…)

• PDP-BJP Coalition Government in J&K — 100 Days of Controversies and Policy Paralysis

  8 August 2015

  by Aijaz Ashraf Wani and Farooq Ahmad Waza
  This article reached us quite sometime ago but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons.
  While hundred days is surely too brief a period to judge any government, it does, however, provide an insight into the willingness and capabilities of a government as well as the direction that it is taking. And when the government is a coalition and that too made up of parties like the BJP and PDP with diametrically opposite ideoglogies and (…)

• Communists and ‘Quit India’ Struggle

  8 August 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  We reproduce N.C.’s following article on the 73rd anniversary of the ‘Quit India’ struggle.
  This was the week, fiftytwo years ago, that marked the parting of ways between the Communists and the Congress. It was the Communist opposition to the ‘Quit India’ resolution at the historic AICC session in August 1942 that ultimately led to the expulsion of the Communists from the Congress organisations in 1946. Incidentally, the eviction of the Communists from the Congress (…)

• Coming Out of the Closet: Making Sense of the Meeting of RSS and Jamaat-e-Islami Leaders in Varanasi

  8 August 2015

  by Fahad Hashmi
  ‘The masses have never thirsted after truth...Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.’ —Gustave Le Bon in The Crowd
  In what might be called a classic case of political naivety, the Student Islamic Organisation of India (SIO), the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami of India, recently organised an international seminar on ‘communal harmony’ and ‘nation-building’ in collaboration with (…)