Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Democratic Norms and Formation of New Government

  12 May 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  The great Indian elections are in the last phase. Soon the election results will be announced and a new government will be formed on this basis in the world’s largest democracy. People have voted with high hopes and it is now for the elected representatives to live up to their high hopes. Whether they are on the side of the new government or in the Opposition, they should strive to strengthen democracy.
  These elections have taken place in difficult conditions and it must be stated frankly (…)

• Far Beyond the Media Hype

  5 May 2014, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  with yesterday’s polling, when voters in 89 constituencies spread over nine States and Union Territories exercised their franchise, the seventh phase of the 16th Lok Sabha elections is over. Two more rounds of polling remain—on May 7 and 12—before the counting of votes begins and ends on May 16 to record the final outcome of these polls. As many as 44.28 crore voters out of the country’s 81.45 crore electorate have already voted in 438 Lok Sabha seats. In the remaining two phases (…)

• Remembering Sunil (1960-2014), Socialist Leader and Writer

  5 May 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  COMMUNICATION
  Sunil, the National General Secretary of the Samajvadi Jan Parishad and editor of Samayik Varta, breathed his last at New Delhi’s AIIMS hospital on April 21. Sunil will be remembered for long as one of the most inspiring socialist activists, ideologues and writers whose high ideals were fully in harmony with his actual living experiences. His life can be seen as an ever-continuing story of struggles as well as cons-tructive activities, all aimed at the realisation of (…)

• A Brief History of Workers’ / TU Movement, Red Flag and May Day

  5 May 2014, by Anil Rajimwale

  The following article is being published on the occasion of May Day.
  The modern working class is the product of the industrial revolution beginning with mid-18th century. But we can find workers’ activities and organisations even in the pre-industrial phases, when this class was still in the formative period.
  Records of workers’ associations, guilds and unions are to be found in the 14th to 18th centuries. In 1345 a wool comber tried to organise a union of wage labourers in Florence (…)

• Political Overreach by Election Commission / Reserve Bank Governor

  5 May 2014, by Rajindar Sachar

  All parties have broadly agreed on various aspects of the model code worked out by the Election Commission for a certain period before the elections. It has worked quite satisfactorily. Fortunately the Election Commission still remains in command. Recently when it denied the Central Government to make certain changes in some economic and subsidy policies (though the latter would adversely affect the poorer sections of society), its neutrality was not challenged. It has therefore come as a (…)

• Why Women Should Not Vote for Modi

  5 May 2014

  by Pallavi Borgohain
  The essay discusses the reasons behind why women would vote for Modi as an alternative in this election and then also seeks to give reasons as to why it is not advisable for them to lend their solidarity to Modi.
  The need for this piece was realised quite some time back, since the beginning of the crusade led by the forces of Modi, for cleansing the system and leading the nation and not letting it bend before any potent or impotent forces.
  My usage of the name of (…)

• Civil Society

  5 May 2014, by Sunanda Sanyal

  I have lately realised that we should be no political party’s vote-bank. This is as bad as ballot-rigging. In order to come to power all
  existing parties take recourse to ballot-rigging. Ballot-rigging assumes different forms. To begin with, hordes of goondas, astride motorbikes, frighten genuine voters. Goondas jam up booths so that the queues of men and women can’t move. They spend millions of rupees to bribe voters.
  The CPI-M, for example, had tried out bribes, in the last (…)

• No Paradigm Shift in Sixteenth Lok Sabha Elections

  5 May 2014

  by Abhijit Ghosh
  I intend to argue here that whichever political party or alliance comes to power in the sixteenth
  Lok Sabha elections, there is no possibility of a paradigm shift in Indian politics. But the sixteenth Lok Sabha could be, as the present strength of small and regional political parties taken together indicates, the high time to shake the basic foundations of the political structure of India. As far as the understanding of the ongoing political process is concerned or the (…)

• Towards Lok Sabha Elections 2014: Politics, Parties in West Bengal

  5 May 2014

  by Pratip Chattopadhyay
  In Indian politics one of the most happening States at present is West Bengal for its own logic of politics, change and populism. While practical politics of different genres manifested in the evolution of Bengal politics from the extreme Right to extreme Left variations, the contem-porary political milieu is that of the rising aspi-rations of the people led by a positive and entre-preneurial government and a leader (Mamata Banerjee) with sufficient mass appeal (…)

• Crucial Questions for Left Forces

  5 May 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  The Left forces and activists need to engage constantly with what kind of alternatives they want to create in place of the existing system of capitalism based on exploitation, injustice and alienation and also with what kind of mobilisation they need for this. It is only by devoting their hearts and minds to exploring, studying, analysing, discussing these crucial issues that the Left forces can provide path-breaking guidance to society in difficult times. It is only with such continuing (…)