Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• No Manna will Fall from Heaven

  14 July 2014

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  During his poll campaign Narendra Modi wanted the people to vote for a Congress-mukt Bharat and make him the Prime Minister. In return he promised to bring them manna from heaven. On becoming the Prime Minister, he warned the people to be ready for ‘tough decisions’ which will end the ‘populism’ of the UPA regime. But the Union Budget presented by his Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, in Parliament yesterday came as an anti-climax. There was no manna falling from heaven. (…)

• Union Budget 2014-15: A Quick Overview and Some Questions

  14 July 2014, by Kamal Nayan Kabra

  The Government in India seems to be on the cusp of a watershed in many different dimensions. This seems to be so not simply on account of a new government assuming office but on account of the attempts, fairly loud ones at that, to project a big change and a good degree of shared assumption of something different from what we have become used to in the course of many changes of government we have witnessed so far. Whether the same holds good for the process of governance in its many aspects, (…)

• Analysing Economic Survey 2013-14

  14 July 2014, by Girish Mishra

  Normally, the Economic Survey is presented during February, a few days before the General Budget, but this time it has been brought in the second week of July. Not only this, but there has been a regime change at the Centre that has led to different perceptions of the problems and tasks facing the country. A cursory glance at the Economic Survey2013-14 convinces one that the Modi Government’s perception and the line adopted by it does not differ from what Dr Manmohan Singh’s neo-liberal (…)

• Rape and the Politics of Hate

  14 July 2014, by Krishna Majumdar

  WOMEN‘S WORLD
  Nirbhaya in December 2012 and Badaun in May 2014 are nothing less than landmarks for women in India,—landmarks in their conscious-ness of what men do, and can do, to them. But the statement made by the TMC MP, Tapas Paul (also a popular actor), caught on camera and released last week, go even beyond the violence, sometimes fatal, that individual women face throughout their lives. He is seen addressing a meeting, reportedly of his party members, and is heard saying that he (…)

• Promise and Pitfalls of BRICS’ $ 100 billion CRA

  14 July 2014, by Kavaljit Singh

  Brazil will host the leaders of Russia, India, China, and South Africa for the 2014 BRICS Summit on July 15-17, 2014. This BRICS Summit is expected to launch the $ 100 billion Contin-gency Reserve Arrangement (CRA) and further details on the soon-to-be-established BRICS Development Bank will be unveiled.
  In June 2012, Brazil had proposed the establishment of a BRICS contingent reserve pool and bilateral swap arrangement which could ease short-term liquidity pressures and strengthen (…)

• Central Asia Changes

  14 July 2014, by Harish Chandola

  Major changes are going to take place in India’s northwest. Most American and NATO troops will withdraw from Afghanistan by the year-end, leaving behind 8000 to 12,000, to “train, assist and advice” the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to fight the Taliban insurgents, under a security pact. The pact will be signed by the new Afghan President whose election has been postponed since June. It will take some months to negotiate the pact to retain Western forces in Afghanistan. The (…)

• Pakistan: Civil Society versus the State

  14 July 2014

  by I.A. Rehman
  Civil society is once again facing the awkward question as to whether it must always support an elected civilian government, regardless of its performance, to avoid the collapse of the democratic system.
  The exertions of ambitious pretenders to the throne apart, the people are getting quite uneasy about the way the state is being managed. The large-scale lawlessness and threats to the life and liberty of citizens, poverty, and discrimination against the underprivileged are (…)

• Harder Options for Pakistan

  14 July 2014, by Apratim Mukarji

  As Islamic jihadists in the arc comprising West Asia, northern Africa, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan grow more resourceful and aggressive, the inherent threat to the stability of the Pakistan state has eventually forced the military and political establishment in the country to acknowledge the harsh reality.
  Operation Zarb-e-Azb (the strike of the Prophet’s sword), launched on June 15 by the armed forces in North Waziristan, that is born of this belated acknowledgement, draws its (…)

• Why Haste for Policies that can Wait? Like Hindi. Who is pushing Agendas that divide the People?

  14 July 2014, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  The Prime Minister complains that he did not get a honeymoon period of even a hundred hours. True. But why? For so careful and calculating a political leader, he allowed too many crisis points to develop in his very first days in office. Like the unconscionable railway rates hike before a finger was lifted to improve safety standards or food hygiene on board. The intensity of public protests rattled the mighty government; it put off plans to increase gas and kerosene prices. (…)

• Switching over to Hindi?

  14 July 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  I am convinced that the Narendra Modi Government is guided, if not goaded, by the Hindi chauvinists. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has several liberal leaders who realise that the pace of switch-over to Hindi would have to be slow, keeping in mind unity in diversity. Apparently, they do not have much say.
  Within the very first fortnight of Modi’s regime, the Central Government offices have received a circular that Hindi should be used on social media. This is an entrance through the (…)