Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Broken Promises on Sachar Report, ‘Rape’ as Everyday Affair

  14 July 2014, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  Seven years back, Justice Rajindar Sachar and his team had brought out the Sachar Committee Report, focusing on the rather dismal situation of the largest minority community of the country—the Musalmaans of Hindustan. I have this report with me but space constraints come in the way in detailing the bleak scenario the Indian Muslims face. I recall the words of the well-known economist and one of the prominent members of this fact-finding team, Dr Abu Saleh Sharief, who had commented (…)

• Why Article 370 Should Not Be Abrogated

  14 July 2014

  by Simple Mohanty
  Despite its overtly moderate positioning over development in these elections, the BJP manifesto still panders to its Hindutva constituency by promising to build the Ram temple in Ayodhya and abrogate Article 370. However in the past, when in power, the NDA Government steered clear of actually diluting Article 370, despite the BJP’s well-established stand on the issue. With a Modi- led government in place, there are strong reasons to make a plea for the continuation of (…)

• Has Government a Kashmir Policy?

  14 July 2014, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  There is no dearth of serious thinking in this country over the festering crisis in Kashmir. Perhaps no other issue in our polity since independence has stimulated so much thinking—both in-depth and widespread—as the question, what to do in Kashmir. Across the entire spectrum of our political parties, Kashmir gets high priority.
  What is more significant is that a degree of introspection is visible over the Kashmir question which is missing on many other important (…)

• Emergence of Mini Actors and Decline of the Left in Kerala

  14 July 2014

  by K. Haridas
  Kerala might have been among those States of the country where Modi and his brand of politics were discussed least favourably. As a State that has until this point of time denied even an Assembly seat, leave alone any luck with the Lok Sabha, to the BJP, it was quite natural to be so.
  A Left camp, with unprecedented dissensions among the ranks and sympathisers, was fighting it out in the most prominent of the traditional bastions of the communist movement in the country.1 (…)

• Seven Key Economic Challenges before the New Government

  14 July 2014

  by Vinay K. Srivastava
  The results of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections have come out and the BJP-led NDA has come to power under the leadership of Narendra Modi. I take this opportunity to congratulate him for this tremendous win and wish for continued success in all his future endeavours.
  The new Prime Minister inherits an economy in crisis. India’s GDP growth is the lowest in a decade, inflation is high, industrial growth has frozen and job growth has dried up. Meanwhile, infrastructure (…)

• Budget and Vulnerable Sections of Society

  14 July 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  The annual Budget of the Central Government should always reflect high levels of concerns for weaker sections and rural areas, but this year there are additional reasons why the newly elected government should be even more concerned about this. Just a few days before the Budget, new estimates of poverty have appeared confirming the well-known fact of actual poverty levels being significantly higher. In fact even the new upscale estimates are likely to be an underestimate of the existing (…)

• New Sojourn

  14 July 2014, by Amna Mirza

  India is heralded for a new sojourn. The new Railway Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda recently tabled the Railway Budget which is said to herald a new era in the realm of transport in India. It is being pegged as shunning populism and moving forward towards consolidation and modernisation. What justifies this notion is the move to moot Foreign Direct Investment in suburban rail corridors, stations, revamping the reservation system, public-private partner-ship for rail projects, work stations in (…)

• Core Values can Hold the Centre Together

  14 July 2014, by Uttam Sen

  The quality of our expectations is being perpetually set off by contrasting categories. The definitions are relative but even in their breach (or incompleteness) contain tangible difference. Thus, for instance, industrial society, classically underpinned by the division of labour in the use of technology for mass production, is defined by one unified purpose of material betterment while the post-industrial community demonstrates greater heterogeneity in occupation and values. Agrarian (…)

• Facing Manifold Mounting Problems

  5 July 2014, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  So the Narendra Modi-led BJP Government at the Centre has at last been forced to act against hoarding of onions and potatoes. Yesterday it brought these two vegeables under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. This move, whose purpose is to empower State governments to undertake dehoarding operations and control the prices of these commodities which are definitely shooting up, was taken by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) Now the States will be free to impose (…)

• Budget Justice for Dalits and Adivasis

  5 July 2014

  by Bharat Dogra, Roopam Singh
  At a time when the need for inclusive development is being emphasised time and again, it is shocking to know that year after year development funds meant for the weakest sections have been diverted to entirely different areas on a massive scale.
  Difficult to believe this may be, but it is a well-documented fact that funds meant for development of Dalits and tribals have been usurped time and again for such unlikely expenses as those relating to the (…)