Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Poroshenko Declares Ceasefire: Ray of Hope to End Ukrainian Crisis

  5 July 2014

  by R.G. Gidadhubli
  The declaration of unilateral ceasefire by Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko, on June 20, 2014 could turn out to be a wise policy decision to de-escalate the crisis condition in the eastern regions of the country. Poroshenko has been candid in stating that this short ceasefire will be the first step to ease the conflict. The Presidents of the Western countries—Barack Obama, Hollande and Merkel—have welcomed Poroshenko’s ceasefire. There is also positive response from (…)

• Lest We Forget

  5 July 2014

  Several noted personalities have passed away in the last few months. We are remembering a few of them and offering our sincere homage to their abiding memory.
  Before 2013 came to a close one of the pioneering women leaders in the communist movement in Kerala, Rosamma Punnoose, breathed her last in distant Oman on December 28, 2013. Born on May 13, 1913, she would have completed 101 years in May this year. She died at Salalah, Oman where she was staying with her son, Dr Thomas.
  A freedom (…)

• ISIL Challenges Modi Government

  5 July 2014, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The Narendra Modi Government has come face to face with its first foreign policy crisis — in Iraq. What seemed a tricky operational challenge up until today has turned critical politically with the calculated move by the extremist elements behind the mayhem in northern Iraq to forcibly take away nearly 4 dozen Indian female nurses from India who were working in Tikrit to their stronghold of Mosul. There have been casualties, too. (here).
  How this is going to pan out can only be known in (…)

• Illusion and Reality

  28 June 2014, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Today marks one month in office of the Nareindra Modi-led NDA Government at the Centre.
  One of the major reasons for the BJP’s success at the hustings was the effect of the backbreaking economic problems, particularly runaway prices, on the aam aadmi or the common man, the same person who had solidly stood by the UPA not only in 2004 but in 2009 as well. And the Modi Goverment, instead of alleviating the conditions of this person (as the persent PM had promised to do during his (…)

• “A Blow to Progressive Forces Everywhere”

  28 June 2014

  The following is an interview with Qamar Agha, a specialist on West Asian affairs, who spoke to the
  Mainstream editor.
  Ques: What is the genesis of the latest crisis in Iraq?
  I must tell you that the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) or the ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), whose thrust into Iraq from Syria has caused the latest crisis, is a powerful organisation. It was part of the Al-Qaeda but the ISIS activists refused to accept Al-Zawahiri as their leader and that (…)

• Democratic Rights in India

  28 June 2014, by Mukul Dube

  “ ‘The next government may adopt a muscular and hawkish approach to internal security...,’ said a senior official [of the Ministry of Home Affairs].” (The Hindu, May 20, 2014, page 10) As bureaucrats tend to be overly cautious, the fact that this statement was made should tell us something.
  The catch-phrase “internal security” is a catch-all. It can include anything and everything. It cannot be defined, neither precisely nor even vaguely. The Intelligence Bureau’s report on NGOs and (…)

• Robbing Peter to pay Paul

  28 June 2014, by Badri Raina

  A good number of commentaries have been appearing, some askance at the rapidity with which the new Modi Sarkar is unleashing its corporate agenda.
  It is as though something other than this was expected to happen.
  After all, electoral campaigns are often in the nature of con jobs: robbing votes from Peter to pay hefty sums to Paul.
  In an earlier article (“The Modi Whirlwind”, Mainstream, May 17, 2014) this writer had stipulated four categories of Modi-watchers: those looking to see (…)

• Modi Back to his Agenda

  28 June 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  When Narendra Modi broke down in Parliament at his party MPs’ meeting while hailing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a pro-Hindu outfit, as his mother, I thought it was an emotional outburst. And I felt assured when he said after becoming India’s Prime Minister that he would take along with him all the 125 crore Indians on the path to development.
  But as the party unfolds its programme, I find that it is only a cover-up of the divisive strategy that the RSS has formulated. Modi projects (…)

• End of Misrule by Coterie: West Bengal in Political Cross-road?

  28 June 2014, by A K Biswas

  Part I
  Caste Matters
  Caste is perhaps comparable only to poison and/or cancer. Both are too dreadful until and unless urgently cured by strong intervention in time. But caste has no antidote. India is the home of caste, ordained by scriptures and preached by venerable sages and saints over ages, poisoning the mind and body of everybody—sufferer or beneficiary—professing Hinduism. A section of Goebblesian publicists and propa-gandists want the lay countrymen to believe that caste is dying (…)

• A Liberal State is a Secular State

  28 June 2014, by Ambrose Pinto

  The way certain forces have expressed their opposition to rational, critical and reflective statements during the elections and thereafter indicate that the spaces for discussion, debate and dissent are on the decline in the State of Karnataka and the country. There are unfort-unately groups affiliated to political parties that use the tactics of terror, intimidation and fear to prevent freedom of thought and expression and thus threaten the evolution of a rational society. Take the example (…)