Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• An Activist Judge with Aristotle’s Mental Range, Fearless Krishna Iyer was a Game-changer

  15 December 2014, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  If style maketh the man, opinion maketh the judge. A wise opinion memorably expressed goes directly into the conscience of society and the annals of time. Such was the opinion: “Law without politics is blind. Politics without law is deaf.” It was an aphorism that marked the personality, the commitment and the intellectualism of Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer. Some 700 judgments he pronounced from the Bench of the Supreme Court and all of them were studded with bold ideas boldly (…)

• End of an Epoch

  15 December 2014, by Vijay Kumar

  When Prof Julius Stone, one of the most distinguished legal scholars of last century, passed away, his disciple, himself a great contemporary jurist, Prof Upendra Baxi, in a moving tribute, wrote: “Writing is a career of death in a sense it signifies the absence of the author”. In this sense, the great writing is a gateway to immortality. From this perspective, the profoundly erudite judgments penned down by great judges are more perdurable than great advocacy of eminent counsels. The (…)

• Russia Confronts US’ Containment Strategy

  15 December 2014, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The annual address to the Federal Assembly by the Russian President is an occasion to dilate on the state policies, but this year’s speech by Vladimir Putin on December 4 at the Kremlin’s St George Hall before a 1000-strong audience of the country’s elites was invested with special importance.
  To be sure, there is an extraordinary setting today where Russia’s national policies and strategies are at a crossroads and the country has important choices to make. The West is forcing upon Russia (…)

• Stray Thoughts of a Human Rights Lawyer on Human Rights Day

  15 December 2014, by Nandita Haksar

  The following article has been written on the occasion of the Human Rights Day (December 10).
  For those behind bars
  The best moments in my life are those when I stood outside a jail waiting for my client to step out—a free man again. Yes they were all men, I had no women clients who were in jail in all my thirty years practice.
  There were the Burmese students who had crossed the border to take refuge in India and found themselves in an Indian jail; there were Naga villagers arrested by (…)

• A force like INA needed

  15 December 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  The Indian National Army (INA) was the force which Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had raised when he was living in Singapore after escaping British rule in India. The force was meant to be an armed hand of the people participating in the national struggle and drew people from all communities.
  Netaji differed from Mahatma Gandhi’s approach of non-violent movement to oust the British. Netaji believed that non-violence could be an ideology but not a creed. The national movement should be free (…)

• Kashmir: Long Haul / Ayodhya and Hindu-Muslim Unity

  15 December 2014, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Kashmir: Long Haul
  Can the light be at last seen at the end of the tunnel in Kashmir? This question has now come up with the statement by the Union Home Minister that the time to resume the political process in Kashmir has arrived and with the report that Farooq Abdullah has been called by the government to return home from abroad and he has agreed to respond.
  It was obvious when Jagmohan was summarily removed from the post of the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir that (…)

• JAMMU AND KASHMIR POLL 2014: Wonders Will Never Cease

  15 December 2014, by Badri Raina

  Here is what seems to be the historic irony of the coming election season in Jammu & Kashmir: that the “nationalists” should be pinning their prospect of success on a silent collaboration of the “separatists”. A veritable Benzene ring with a double valency bond, what?
  But, maybe not quite. Word is that Geelani sahib, always first to sense the shape of things, has already withdrawn his earlier call for poll boycott, realising that this time around the interests of Kashmiris can only be (…)

• Communal Harmony

  15 December 2014

  by Sadhan Mukherjee
  The majoritarian approach to our body politic today presages a great danger to our communal harmony. These two words—communal harmony—represent our national ethos which is inextricably linked to our democracy. They constitute the corner-stone of our Republic and its federal structure.
  The Constitution of India declares our country as “secular”, “socialist” and “democratic” and all its citizens, irrespective of their communities, castes, creeds or religious beliefs (…)

• The Uses of the Past

  15 December 2014, by Mukul Dube

  Almost all people seek to justify their beliefs and actions by invoking the past. They look to the past also to find ways to claim that they are better than others. They speak of past glories, whether real or imaginary, to make the barrenness of the present easier to live with. We think, foolishly, that we are better people because our ancestors did something great or were exceptional. We forget that no past greatness can wipe out the fact that today we are at the bottom of the heap.
  If we (…)

• Safe Nuclear Power — Fact And Myth

  15 December 2014, by S G Vombatkere

  The nuclear energy programmes of many countries are either at a standstill or are actually declining. Prominent among these are the USA, Sweden and Denmark, and most recently Germany. The reasons for this are to be found solely in public awareness of the dangers of catastrophic accidents and of long-term risks of continued low-level radiation from normal operation of nuclear installations.
  The Departments of Atomic Energy (DAE) of all countries are duty-bound to encourage the use of (…)