Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Meenakashipuram Conversion and National Upheaval

  13 September 2014, by A K Biswas

  Meenakshipuram, a village in Ramanatha-puram (now Theni) district in Tamil Nadu, was the epicentre of an extraordinary social, political and religious upheaval in 1981. A large number of men and women belonging to the Pallan community, who are Scheduled Caste,1 had embraced Islam there. Th is created consternation across India and a strong feeling of anger, abomination as also nervousness marked by accusation and allegation pervaded the atmos-phere. Untouchability, discrimination and (…)

• Preserve Radhakrishnan’s Gift to the Nation

  13 September 2014, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  September 5 this year marked Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan‘s 126th birth anniversary. Every year September 5 is observed as Teacher’s Day in honour of the second President of our Republic since he was a great teacher. This year too Teacher’s Day was observed throughout the country but the focus was on PM Narendra Modi and not a word was written in the media about the genesis of the Day with reference to Dr Radhakrishnan; in fact Narendra Modi himself only cursorily (…)

• A Straw in the Wind

  13 September 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  It appears that the magic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is waning. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has met a reverse in the bypolls. Out of the 18 seats in Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Bihar, the BJP won only seven. The parliamentary election held nearly four months ago saw the BJP sweeping and even getting a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha.
  The disenchantment of the voters in such a small period is indeed a point of deeper analysis. True, the party made too many promises (…)

• Marginalised Groups and Inclusive Growth

  13 September 2014, by C.H. Hanumantha Rao

  The Concept of Inclusive Growth
  The concept of inclusive growth, as stated in the 12th Plan document, focuses on the growth process that is broad-based or in which wider sections of the population, especially those hitherto excluded, participate. This implies, among other things, stepping up the GDP growth rate in the slow growing or less developed regions through the development of infrastructure; greater priority to agriculture which contributes to food security and provides livelihood (…)

• Turning-point in Ukraine Crisis

  13 September 2014, by Arun Mohanty

  It seems the turning-point in the Ukrainian crisis has finally arrived after more than four months of civil war in the country that has claimed thousands of innocent lives. When Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko’s promise to end the war in several hours could not be materialised, he set a new deadline for bringing the rebels to their knees in the east of the country. This time it was August 24—Ukraine’s independence day—which President Poros-henko had planned to celebrate with a lot of (…)

• To Sir, With Love

  13 September 2014

  TRIBUTE
  Remembering Bipan Chandra, the teacher, whose contributions to history were seminal
  by Mukul Mangalik
  Sadness gripped me when I heard of Professor Bipan Chandra’s passing on August 30, 2014. Before it could settle in, however, images took over, memories from the 1970s when I was a student and Bipan saheb a teacher at the Centre for Historical Studies (CHS), JNU.
  I remembered the not-very-large man that he was, armed with big ideas and a mountain of historical data, arguing, (…)

• The Controversial Bard: U.R. Ananthamurthy

  13 September 2014

  TRIBUTE
  by Nandana Reddy
  Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy or Ananthu, as I affectionately called him, was one of the bards of Indian polity. Not unlike William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, he commented on events, ridiculed fundamentalism and mocked authority. From his deeply embedded socialist convictions he examined modern times through the lens of democracy. He questioned all things and analysed all motives in the belief that it would lead to a deepening of democracy. On January (…)

• Marital Rape in India: A Radical Feminist Perspective

  13 September 2014

  WOMEN‘S WORLD
  by Tamanna Khosla
  I
  The marital rape exemption can be traced to statements by Sir Mathew Hale, Chief Justice in England, during the 1600s. He wrote: “The husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract, the wife hath given herself in kind unto the husband, whom she cannot retract.” Not surprisingly, thus, married women were never the subject of rape laws. Laws bestowed an absolute immunity (…)

• Teacher’s Day

  13 September 2014, by Badri Raina

  You who teach in schools and colleges
  And are called ‘teachers’ have
  Come to believe that you are teachers.
  Employees that you are, we call
  You guru to keep in place an idea
  Whose social yield is quiescence—
  Suited to good governance by
  One great man who alone is true guru,
  With certification from Naguru.
  So, on guru utsav day, please know
  That your job is not to teach
  But to obey. And if you are a guru
  On contract, it is just a fact
  Without which no (…)

• The Sociology of Human Rape

  13 September 2014

  by Imtiaz Ahmad Ansari
  The recent brutal gang-rape and subsequent murder of two Dalit girls in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh, has again put the nation in a shameful situation. It has put a question-mark on the very civility about which we, as Indians, have always boasted. Many have started comparing the Badaun gang-rape with the December 2012 Delhi gang-rape. However, these are not the only brutal assaults on women. The phenomenon of rape is going unabated in every part of India, be it rural or (…)