Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Preeti Banerjee: The Melodious Voice that first sang ‘Sare Jahanse Achchha’

  20 October 2014, by Sankar Ray

  TRIBUTE
  Preeti Banerjee (nee Sarkar) bade adieu to the mundane world on August 25 at 91. She was perhaps the last living member of the central squad of the Indian People’s Theatre Assocation (IPTA), the mass front of culture of the Communist Party of India. Her golden voice and the famous song Sare Jahanse Achchha, a household song in the late 1940s, were one as Pandit Ravi Shankar set the lyric of the famous poem of Mohammad Iqbal (written in 1904) into a song at the instance of the (…)

• Need to Review and Reverse the Decision on Planning Commission

  20 October 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  “The very first thing that our future National Government will have to do would be to set up a commission for drawing up a comprehensive plan of reconstruction.”
  —Subhash Bose’s Presidential Address at Haripura Congress (February 19, 1938)
  One of the most important strengths of any democracy is the ability to recognise serious mistakes at the right time and to take corrective action before it is too late. It is of crucial importance that India’s democracy should be able to pass this test (…)

• We will Not Allow our Respective Faiths to be Used as Instruments of Violence

  20 October 2014

  by B.P. Singh
  The following is the text of an address by the author at the World Summit 2014 organised by the Universal Peace Foundation (Seoul, South Korea, August 10-12, 2014).
  Thank you, Mr President Walsh, for inviting me to speak before this august World Summit so imaginatively organised by the World Peace Federation. I am particularly impressed by the theme of the Summit: Peace, Security and Human Development. This is a subject dear to my professional experience as well as to the (…)

• Tagore and Sikhism

  20 October 2014, by Amiya Dev

  Rabindranath Tagore wrote six poems on Sikh heroism and martyrdom, two in 1888, three in 1898, and one in 1935. Of them three are on Guru Gobind Singh, one on Banda Bahadur, one on Bhai Torusingh, and one on the boy, Nehal Singh.
  The Guru Gobind Singh poems are spaced between his twenty year-long sâdhanâ to be worthy of his leadership, and his death, the height of the sâdhanâ being his refusal to a rich gift brought by a disciple (the theme so enthralled Tagore that he wrote the same poem (…)

• Suspicion against Sikhs

  20 October 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  The Sikhs are a small, sturdy community in India. Since it is limited in size it is very protective about its identity. It often over-reacts but that is the sign of its assertion that it does not want to be taken cursorily.
  Punjab, the community’s, home State, has witnessed many morchas (movements) of the Sikhs. But if one were to probe every movement of theirs one would infer that its search for identity had propelled the community to defy the authorities.
  Punjab Chief Minister Prakash (…)

• Remembering Bhupesh Gupta on his Birth Centenary

  20 October 2014

  October 20 this year will mark the birth centenary of the legendary Communist parliamentarian Bhupesh Gupta, the longest serving Member in the Rajya Sabha —he was in the Upper House of Parliament for more than 29 years at a stretch since its inception till he breathed his last in Moscow on August 6, 1981. Indeed there is no gainsaying that he was the tallest Communist MP overshadowing such stalwarts like S.A. Dange, A.K. Gopalan, Hiren Mukerjee, Indrajit Gupta. He was looked upon as an (…)

• Let us March in Step with the Life Outside

  20 October 2014, by Bhupesh Gupta

  It has been my privilege and honour to have belonged to this House for a quarter of a century. But it is not for me to say what role I have played from the standpoint of which I have worked in this House. However, I have tried, to the best of my ability, to serve my country, our great people, to uphold its cherished culture, our noble inheritance from an undying, ancient civilisation.
  It is not an individual who shines in this House. We have shone in this House collectively. Each of us has (…)

• Bhupesh : Some Reminiscences

  20 October 2014, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  To write about somebody whom one has known for more than four decades—sometimes very closely—is not easy after his or her passing away. For me, Bhupesh Gupta was one whom I have known from the early beginnings of my active political involvement in the late thirties.
  In the small group of young militant Indians in Britain more than forty years ago, groping for a revolutionary patch to the country’s freedom, Bhupesh was perhaps the only one who could really claim to (…)

• No Need for Certificate of Patriotism from PM Modi

  20 October 2014

  Communication
  Prime Minister Modi’s recent statement of praising Muslims and calling them patriots is nothing but double-speak as he has not a word of condemnation against the highly inflammatory, biased and vitriolic anti-Muslim speeches of his party leaders and VHP leaders.
  Epoch-making and unforgettable sacrifices of Indian Muslims in the freedom struggle, in which Modi’s party had no role, is the established and lasting proof of patriotism of Muslims. In fact Modi has borrowed the (…)

• Such a Shame!

  20 October 2014

  Communication
  Jeetan Ram Manjhi, the CM of Bihar, has taken the right decision in instituting a probe about the alleged ugly act of ‘washing’ of the deity and the temple at Madhubani by the priest and his ilk after Manjhi visited it. This incident has recently been reported byThe Indian Express. The abhorrent act, if true, is nothing but propagation of untouchability violating Article 17 of the Constitution. This needs sound punishment.
  Manjhi is candid when he said that the same (…)