Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• India Tries to Forge a New Relationship With China

  22 May 2015, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to China last week (May 14-16) was never going to be easy. Modi was hard-pressed to juggle his agenda of economic reinvigoration at home (“development agenda”) with his firmer assertion of India’s security interests. The balance-sheet of his visit underscores the policy dilemma.
  Modi has reason to feel relieved that he is not returning to India quite empty-handed. His travels abroad and wanderlust (visiting 18 countries in the past one year) (…)

• Do Our Leaders Follow Kings’ Six Qualities? Do they Avoid 14 Vices? Are Priests Pure?

  22 May 2015, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  These are frustrating times. True, there are big things that put India on centre-stage, such as the Prime Minister’s visit to China. But there are also petty things that shame us. We have farmers whose sense of honour makes them commit suicide when they are unable to repay their debts—and we have a Minister in Haryana who calls them “cowards”. We have a film star who runs his car over destitutes sleeping on footpaths, killing one—and his friend condemns
  footpath sleepers as (…)

• The Indian National Congress: It Is Back

  22 May 2015, by Badri Raina

  One of the least prepossessing features of some recent Indian journalism—especially of the electronic channels—has been an unpleasantly motivated obsession with Rahul Gandhi. Barring a few “senior” journalists, who have sensitively sought to context Mr Gandhi;s difficulties within the limitations and impera-tives of an embracing historical framework—both of the Congress and the country—most embedded commentaries tiresomely, one suspects even to the commentators themselves who could be seen (…)

• A People’s Historian Passes Away

  22 May 2015, by Barun Das Gupta

  TRIBUTE
  Death snatched away Dr Amalendu Guha, a historian, an economist, a prolific writer and a Marxist whose ideological conviction remained unshaken till the last day of his life. He breathed his last at Guwahati on May 7 at the ripe old age of 91. Though he was known for his profound erudition and vast knowledge of the historical, social and cultural evolution of Assam and the North-East, he also kept himself up to date with people’s movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
  Born (…)

• BJP’s Pep Talks fail to Enthuse the Electorate in Bengal

  22 May 2015

  by Arun Srivastava
  The BJP lost the fight for strategic political relevance in Bengal to the CPI-M. Well before the elections to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation was announced, the BJP’s Chanakya, Amit Shah, had pepped up the saffron cadres and its sympathisers to get ready to celebrate the victory of the fall of Mamata. Ironically the BJP vanquished even before the Battle of Bengal could be fought on the streets of Kolkata. What was worse for Shah, the party dropped to the third (…)

• Nayar’s Views have Disturbed . . .

  22 May 2015

  COMMUNICATION
  Kindly refer to the article of senior journalist Kuldip Nayar, “Disturbing Trend at AMU”, published in your prestigious publication on May 16, 2015.
  Mr Nayar, while expressing his dismay and concern after returning from Aligarh, has claimed that “Aligarh is the place where Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the eminent freedom fighter, was abused before the country’s partition. The students had found him in a train compartment. He was travelling from Delhi to Calcutta from his (…)

• Courts Tilt towards the Rich

  22 May 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  As a law-abiding citizen, I have faith in the Court to rectify the wrong done to me. I have never been cheated except when the Emergency was declared and I was detained without any rhyme or reason.
  The two-judge Bench accepted my wife’s habeas corpus petition and released me. The reason for my release was that since I did not belong to any political party and pursued my journalistic work professionally, there was no ground to detain me. Both the judges were, however, punished. The senior (…)

• Aping the Adversary

  22 May 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  It is surprising how intelligent people in politics sometimes take up positions which should logically belong to their adversaries.
  The Muslim League in 1940 picked up the so-called ‘two-nation theory’ which a bunch of extremist intellectuals had first coined to back up their demand for Pakistan. Other parties in India rejected it. The Congress made it clear that it did not accept the theory itself though it agreed to the partitioning of the country on the basis of (…)

• History as Insurrection: Searching for a Radical Science

  22 May 2015

  by Murzban Jal
  Humanity is the immediate object of natural science. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
  For apart from inquiry, apart from praxis, humanity cannot be truly human. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
  Three Ideas of Science
  The crisis afflicting the domain of politics in India, besides being inexorably linked to the crisis of global capital accumulation and the legitimation crisis of the political elites, is also bound to a larger crisis of the (…)

• Times have Changed, We Must Move Forward

  22 May 2015

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Rushda Siddiqui
  Denied by Allah by Noor Zaheer; Vitasta Publishing House, New Delhi; pages 162; Price: Rs 250. ISBN 978-93-82711-58-2
  The Muslims in India are a minority community. They have been socially, politically and economically marginalised and over a period of time stigmatised for belonging to a particular religion. In most parts of the country, the terror of communal violence has forced them to live in ghettos. As the country rolls into the sixth decade of (…)