Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• In Defence of Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand

  23 February 2015

  We are shocked to learn of the rejection of the Anticipatory bail applications of Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand by the Gujarat High Court. Media stories suggest that the bail applications have been turned down because Setalavad and Anand were “not cooperating with the investigations” and that prima facie “funds were used for private purpose”. It is a matter of record that they have submitted their original bank statements, balance-sheets and audited accounts that completely disprove the (…)

• What a Victory!

  23 February 2015, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  The AAP is here. Wah, what a victory! What a win! What a splendid show of strength! The AAP has managed to crush the BJP and with that trampled upon the Right-wing’s politics of spreading hate, of communal divides, of killings and rioting... In fact, in these elections it was more than writ large that the BJP will be defeated as never before. Minorities were angry and all out to defeat the BJP. This anger had been building up right from the summer of 2014. A whole long list of (…)

• Introspecting on the Aam Aadmi Party and its Historic Triumph

  23 February 2015

  by Suresh Jnaneswaran
  The triumph of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi elections augers well for a besieged country where minorities are running for cover and the Dalits visibly agitated. There was nothing new in the BJP programme and agenda—internal policy or foreign policy—that could be considered promising or something more than mere rhetoric and stage-management. Since the eight-month-plus of the BJP rule, practically nothing has been implemented in terms of promises or glamorous (…)

• Crony Capitalism and its Implications

  23 February 2015, by Girish Mishra

  The AAP says it is only against ‘crony capitalism’ and not against capitalism as such. The following article attempts to clarify the term ‘crony capitalism’.
  In Western Uttar Pradesh, the then SP-led State Government had allotted agricultural land, acquired from peasants on very low rates, to industrialist Anil Ambani for building power plants and setting up a special economic zone some time ago. This led to great discontent among local peasantry. Till then, the State Government never (…)

• The Giant is Awake / Allround Decadence and Ray of Hope

  23 February 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The following pieces, written by N.C. in December 1970 and September 1994, are being reproduced here against the backdrop of the Aam Aadmi Party’s resounding victory in the Delhi Assembly elections.

• AAP Politics: Paradigm Change in Indian Politics

  23 February 2015

  by Saumitra Mohan
  With the mainstream national political parties losing to a greenhorn Aam Admi Party (AAP), a political coup d’état has been witnessed in the just-concluded Delhi Assembly elections. The AAP has actually overshot its own expectations by bagging as many as 67 seats in a 70-member Legislative Assembly. Many established, mainstream political parties were decimated in the process. It was a fictional David versus Goliath battle where the former always wins the day owing to the (…)

• AAP and the New Language of Politics

  23 February 2015, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The landslide victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi Assembly elections, winning 67 out of 70 seats, signifies a unique event in the political history of India. The most significant implication of this victory is the challenge it poses to the Modi-Amit Shah brand of politics. In a sense, the AAP victory symbolizes rebirth of the “Congress System” in India (conceptualised by late Rajni Kothari), with the party as a grand umbrella coalition of multiple interests. In fact, the AAP (…)

• Is India Finally Changing? The Powerless won Power in Delhi. That’s a New Game

  23 February 2015, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  The Indian voter is an astonishing creature. He looks everything that he is not. The men and women in those long, winding queues before polling booths appear docile and innocent, a submissive type who wouldn’t harm an ant. Get closer and examine their faces; they still look like a gentle, easily handled and undemanding lot, a flock of sheep, really. When they come out of the booths, their fingers stained with democracy, their faces are as expressionless as Manmohan Singh’s. (…)

• Rebirth of Aam Aadmi

  23 February 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  It is, indeed, instructive to analyse why the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was decimated at the polls in Delhi. But the more important point to know is how the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has emerged with a bang: 67 seats in a house of 70! The BJP is down to just three from the 32 it had won in the December 2013 Assembly election.
  Who’s the AAP? It is a secular, Left-of-the-Centre party which may become an alternative in the country, replacing the Congress which is languishing. Some time (…)

• Educational Leadership of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

  23 February 2015

  February 22 this year marks the fiftyseventh death anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the country’s first Minister of Education. On this occasion we are publishing the following article which was sent to us quite sometime ago.
  by Mohammad Anzar Alam
  Maulana Abul Kalam Azad is an icon of Indian Politics as well as Urdu literature. He is popularly called Azad. He was born in Mecca on November 11, 1888 in a wealthy Islamic family and passed away on February 22, 1958 in Delhi. He was a (…)