Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Kabir Kala Manch, Bangalore Police and Free Speech

  15 December 2014, by Ambrose Pinto

  The Kabir Kala Manch, a cultural organisation that was formed in Pune, Maharashtra in 2002 in the wake of the Gujarat riots, was in Bangalore on November 21, 2014 for a performance in St. Joseph’s College. The venue was booked days in advance. Yet on the day of the performance, the police of the nearby police station came over to the college and the institution was asked to cancel the show. According to media reports, the request to cancel the show was from the Police Commissioner of (…)

• Understanding Ram Pal Phenomenon

  15 December 2014, by Ranbir Singh

  Haryana has once again been in the news for the wrong reasons. The challenge to the authority of the State and judiciary by the self-styled Sant Ram Pal of Satlok Ashram of Barwala (Hisar) had created an explosive situation. It took more than a week of pressure by the huge force of the Haryana Police and Central Reserve Police and persuasion by some local leaders of the ruling party that made him surrender and help in averting an ugly situation. The administration undoubtedly demonstrated (…)

• Divisive Politics and Attack on Secular Polity

  7 December 2014

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  Recently BJP President Amit Shah told a party rally at Kolkata that the leadership of the Trinamul Congress was involved in the Khagragarh (Burdwan) blast and that the Saradha chit fund scam money had been sent to Bangladesh to finance terror activities in West Bengal. On Wednesday (December 3, 2014) the Union Minister of State for Personnel, Jitendra Singh, told the Lok Sabha in a written reply that the investigations being carried on by the Central probe agencies had (…)

• Bhopal Tragedy: Thirty Years After

  7 December 2014

  COMMENTARY
  Thirty years ago on the night of December 2-3, 1984 the deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the Union Carbide’s fertiliser plant in Bhopal causing a disaster beyond one’s imagination. According to current estimates, some 20,000 people died while the injured numbered over five lakhs.
  The enormity of the Bhopal tragedy has been highlighted by noted environmentalists. One of them, Sunita Narain, brings into focus why Bhopal became India’s ‘living shame’. In an article (…)

• Self-inflicted Wounds Seldom Heal

  7 December 2014, by Rajindar Sachar

  I am reminded of this whenever I think of the transfer policy of High Court judges being followed by the Supreme Court. No doubt the power of transfer from one High Court to another is to be found in the Constitution. But when in 1963 some amendments were to be made, the then Law Minister in order to remove the apprehension of misuse of power assured Parliament that the transfer of the High Court judge will only be done with the judge’s prior consent.
  But in 1975 the High Court judges were (…)

• A Pretender to the Throne

  7 December 2014, by P.B. Sawant

  Ever since the day Devendra Fadnavis, at present holding the office of the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, failed to establish his majority in the State Assembly according to law, he has been running the government illegally and unconstitutionally. Admittedly, his party, the BJP, is in minority in the Assembly with only 123 members (including the Speaker) in a House of 288 members.
  The Governor called him as the head of his party to form the government, because he claimed that his party can (…)

• Stocktaking before the Fifteenth Indo-Russian Summit

  7 December 2014, by Arun Mohanty

  Russian President Vladimir Putin would pay an official visit to India from December 10 to 12, 2014 to participate in the fifteenth Indo-Russian annual summit. Russia is the first country and was the only state till a few years back with which we have developed this annual summit mechanism to find out ways and means for strengthening ties and exchange opinions on a host of international and regional issues of mutual concern. Though the understanding for holding annual summits was reached with (…)

• The Curse of Caste

  7 December 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  By any yardstick, the participation of US President Barrack Obama at the Republic Day parade in January is the recognition of India’s growing stature. His phone call to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was, no doubt, an effort to make amends of sorts. But it does not hide the fact that Washington has chosen New Delhi as its partner to advance the policies and programmes it has in view in this part of the world.
  Washington is for free enterprise and leads the capitalist world. Its (…)

• Would Kashmir’s ‘overwhelming desire for change’ bring about a Change for the Better?

  7 December 2014, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  The good news is that the first round of polling in Jammu and Kashmir saw the highest turnout in the State’s electoral history. The overall percentage was 71 but in some constituencies it went up to 77 and 80. Leh in Ladakh saw a drop, but even this was extraordinary. The temperature there had dropped to 10 degrees below zero, yet the number of voters dropped only from 68.9 percent to 65.2 per cent. This election is the people’s most decisive reply to the secessionists, the (…)

• Arbitrary Budget Cuts in Social Sectors

  7 December 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  Recently several reports in leading news-papers have drawn attention to the possibility of significant but arbitrary cuts in budgetary allocations for social sectors. On November 27, The Hindu reported: “To meet the fiscal deficit target for this year, the Central Government is brutally slashing social sector allocations... The Finance Ministry is currently in the process of revising the Budget estimates for allocations for 2014-15 across heads of expenditures and Ministries. In the revised (…)