Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Warmongers in India, Pakistan Denounced

  20 June 2015

  The following is a statement issued on June 16 by the Indian and Pakistani Chapters of the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy.
  We, the peace loving people of Pakistan and India, are strongly condemning the recent war of words between the leaders of both countries and are deeply concerned about the diminishing sanity of the leaders who are passing on intimidating remarks time and again which will risk the lives of many innocent people and risk the possibility of a (…)

• Extreme Distress of Maruti Workers and their Family Members

  20 June 2015, by Bharat Dogra

  Following certain tragic incidents at the Manesar (Haryana) plant of Maruti Suzuki on July 18, 2012—which led to the death of a human resources manager—as many as 147 workers of this plant were arrested in a highly arbitrary way, in most cases with hardly any evidence of their involvement in the tragic incident.
  Since then several reports have drawn attention to the extreme anti-worker bias of the Haryana Government, then ruled by the Congress, in the cruel victimisation of workers. (…)

• Is This Not Corruption?

  20 June 2015, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  If Cabinet Ministers and Chief Ministers helping fugitives is not corruption then what is it? Nah, in this day and age there is nothing called humanitarian help! External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj helping out tainted Lalit Modi because of ‘family ties’ drags along the vital fact that he is a client of Swaraj’s lawyer daughter, Bansuri. Wouldn’t you call this a nexus of a definite kind? And before layers to this nexus could be peeled off, there comes another name with another (…)

• Juvenile Jingoism is alien to True Patriotism

  13 June 2015, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Last week it was written in these columns that the “clinically executed ambush in Manipur’s Chandel district” on June 4, that killed 20 of our soldiers and injured over a dozen of them, was the “deadliest terror attack on Army personnel in the last 33 years in the region”. Within five days the swift retaliation came from the Indian security forces: early on June 9 special forces (para commandos) of the Indian Army carried out surgical operations deep inside Myanmar inflicting (…)

• Somnath Temple Entry

  13 June 2015, by P.B. Sawant

  The management of the Somnath Temple has issued an order that non-Hindus will have to take its permission to enter the temple premises. The order may be legal under Article 26 of the Constitution, but is ludicrous on the face of it. The fact that the present holder of the office of the Prime Minister is a Trustee of the temple makes it ominous, The reasons given for issuing the order are self-defeating. One reason is that the sanctity of the temple will be polluted, and the other is that the (…)

• Bangladesh: India Rectifies a Policy Deficiency

  13 June 2015, by Apratim Mukarji

  For decades, diplomats in South-East Asia approached New Delhi for forging closer relations with India and were in turn ignored by the latter. Their governments were in turn left wondering why India, the only conceivable counter-weight to China in Asia, was so unwilling to play its due role. That India has since woken up to the reality in South-Eastern Asia is another matter altogether.
  By comparison, Bangladeshis must have been a far more bemused people when considering how they had been (…)

• Meaning of Mujib / Communal Amity in Post-Liberation Bangladesh

  13 June 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Meaning of Mujib
  When Dacca, in the grip of an unprecedented mass upsurge on the triumphant home coming of Bangabandhu, heard lakhs of voices spontaneously calling for “Joi Indira Gandhi”, it was not only an expression of well-deserved personal tribute to the Prime Minister of India for all that she has done for the libertion of Bangladesh and for the freedom of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. It was much more significant: a memorable landmark in India’s contribution towards (…)

• An Avoidable Ambivalence

  13 June 2015

  by Vinay Kaura
  China’s support to India’s quest for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) remains a distant dream. There was no grand gesture from China on India’s bid for a permanent seat in the UNSC during the just-concluded three-day China visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Due to its zero-sum intransigence, Beijing has again shut a window of opportunity to reach out to those in India who harbour deep suspicions, real or perceived, of China’s geopolitical (…)

• Indiscreet President

  13 June 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  Heads of institutions are not generally assailed. The idea behind such thinking is that the criticism may harm the institutions, which are essential for the sustenance of democratic polity. Germane to this idea is the presidency. Therefore, the President is spared even when he or she crosses the line that the office delineates. Because of this consideration, President Pranab Mukherjee has escaped censure even when a person at an equally high office has been crucified. This does not, however, (…)

• Passage to Lahore: A Mughal City

  13 June 2015

  by Chitralekha Zutshi
  I recently spent a week in Lahore. This was my first trip to the city and indeed also to Pakistan. As I crossed over the Wagah border from Amritsar into Lahore, I had no idea what to expect. A few weeks before the crossing, I had attended the flag-lowering ceremony at Wagah, which is usually how Indians usually interact, if at all, with this border. After having experie-nced this overly histrionic nationalist ceremony that included the requisite amount of (…)