Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Lest We Forget

  28 June 2014

  Thirtynine years ago on June 26, 1975, Emergency was proclaimed throughout the country as the ruling leadership bared its fangs nakedly displaying its dictatorial proclivities. We present here write-ups and poems that bring back the nightmare of those dark days when our freedom was sought to be snatched away and our voice throttled. —Editor

• The Editor’s Notebook in Mainstream, June 28, 1975

  28 June 2014

  The Editor’s Notebook in Mainstream (June 28, 1975) after the promulgation of Emergency and the imposition of press censorship appeared as follows:
  Tagore for Today
  Somewhere in the excitement of National Emergency, the editor has lost his notebook. However, Rabindranath Tagore has, in the abundance of his generosity, lent him his own notebook:
  Freedom from fear is the freedom I claim for you, my Motherland!—fear, the phantom demon, shaped by your own distorted dreams;
  Freedom from (…)

• Does it Matter?

  28 June 2014, by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

  My tablet and my pen, My two cherished treasures Are snatched from me, But does it matter? For I have dipped my fingers In the blood of my heart; My tongue they sealed Bu does it mater? For, I have placed a tongue In every link of chain That fetters me.
  Faiz Ahmed Faiz

• Congress and Pandava Legacy but Pandavas had no private High Command

  28 June 2014, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Meanwhile, what’s happening in the Congress-ruled States? In the gush of the Narendra Modi cultural revolution, we tend to forget that some States are still under govern-ments with the High Command mindset. Mallikarjun Kharge scored a debating point with his valiant reminder that the Pandavas got the better of the numerically formidable Kauravas. In defence, Narendra Modi could only quote Duryodhana which further empha-sised Kharge’s point. However, Dharmakshetre Kurukshetre (…)

• Dangers to Democracy in the Democratic System Itself

  28 June 2014, by Barun Das Gupta

  BOOK REVIEW
  A Grammar of Democracy by Justice P. B. Sawant; Bhashya Prakashan, Mumbai; price: Rs 299.
  The author is a retired judge of the Supreme Court and a former Chairman of the Press Council of India. Written in a simple, lucid style for the lay reader, it seeks “to elucidate as briefly as can be, the significance of the factors which play [an] important role in democracy”. Divided into twentytwo chapters, the book touches upon a wide variety of subjects from Democracy, (…)

• REMEMBERING N.C.

  28 June 2014

  On June 27 this year falls Nikhil Chakravartty’s sixteenth death anniversary. On this occasion we reproduce the ‘Political Notebook’ by S. Viswam in the first issue of Mainstream to appear (on July 4, 1998) following N.C.’s demise; the then President K.R. Narayanan’s message on N.C.’s death; and four pieces by distinguished journalists Inder Malhotra, Chanchal Sarkar, Prabhash Joshi and Malini Parthasarthy on N.C. (published in several issues of Mainstream in 1998).
  Nikhil Chakravartty (…)

• Message from the President

  28 June 2014

• Memories of a Many-splendoured Man

  28 June 2014, by Inder Malhotra

  It was with some trepidation that I first met Nikhil. I was then just past 21 and working for the tottering United Press of India (UPI) on whose ashes is built today’s UNI. But within a few minutes in his company I realised that I needn’t have worried. Unlike other very senior members of the profession, some of whom had dismissed me summarily, in one case without even looking at me, he was all attention and surprisingly generous with his time. He listened to me patiently and gave me the (…)

• Nikhilda

  28 June 2014, by Chanchal Sarkar

  When I first came to work in Delhi the most respected journalistic figure here was Sir Usha Nath Sen, one of the founders of the Associated Press of India which eventually became the PTI (Press Trust of India). Sir U.N. once told me of his guru K.C. Roy, the real founder of the API, that in any matter concerning the Government of India, in Delhi or Simla, K.C. Roy could figure out exactly with whom the matter rested and who would take the decision.
  Delhi has grown exponentially since K.C. (…)

• A Saint Editor

  28 June 2014

  prabhash joshi
  Nikhilda had turned eightyfour. Some people live for hundred years and stay perfectly agile, alert and healthy. Though he had an ageing physique, Nikhilda was not a person who would live by obeying the regulations of keeping fit.
  Four years ago, he took a taxi and went out in the hills. Alone. He was to meet me at the institutes in Mussoorie/Nainital. He reached there on time, attended the workshops, but again went out in the hills. I returned to Delhi and then left for (…)