Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Census of India 2021: History, Religion, caste and Deception

  15 March 2020, by A K Biswas

  Though census across the globe is a tool for data collection to facilitate demographic study and application of the economic and social development aimed at overall national growth and prosperity, instances of exceptional abuses may not be unknown. India has had the opportunity and prolonged experience of census operations, beginning with 1872, about a century-and-half ago. With every decade thereafter during the colonial rule till 1941 and since Indian independence, the headcount of our (…)

• Growing Concerns over Adequacy of Funds for Welfare Schemes

  15 March 2020, by Bharat Dogra

  There is increasing concern regarding the actual availability of adequate funds for several important welfare schemes which impact the lives of tens of millions of people in the country. There are several reasons for this.
  Firstly, in recent times the Revised Estimates for several important schemes have been diverging too much from the Budget Estimates, more than in normal times. To give just one example, the Budget Estimate for the government’s top priority programme—the urban component (…)

• When the King comes Visiting

  15 March 2020, by Badri Raina

  When the King comes visiting, ten million Shall line the spruced highways; They will be gathered from the slums Shut off to the royal gaze.
  Not many boons may accrue From the Kingly visit; Never wise to know what a King may do, Or choose not to do, is it?
  Enough that two kindred souls shall meet To a thunderous audience— A monarch and a resident satrap, In colonial remembrance.
  The fanfare shall be recorded By minions and by clerks Whose glory is in a servitude Refused by mavericks (…)

• Two Letters | Amba Charan Vashishth

  15 March 2020

  I read with interest veteran journalist Barun Das Gupta’s article “BJP Is Not India” in your esteemed weekly Mainstream (December 7, 2019). I agree with the writer that “BJP is not India” in the same manner as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were not.
  But I wonder how Gupta’s sweeping statement “As the BJP has nothing positive to show in its five year rule” escaped your discerning editorial eye. I don’t think it necessary to comment on it. You yourself (…)

• NPR-NRC-CAA—The Troubling Triad

  15 March 2020, by Sudhir Vombatkere

  The Union Government’s inflexible and resolute NPR-NRC initiative is causing country-wide unrest, testing the credibility of statements made by top politicians. With the date for starting the NPR registration being April 1, 2020, some issues need to be addressed and understood.
  NPR and NRC are Connected
  The Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA-2019), passed on 10.12.2019, caused a public uproar because of fears that it could be used for religious discrimination, and that the NPR was the (…)

• Tackling the Multi-dimensional Crisis

  9 March 2020, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  As we go to press, news has come of a major crisis having hit another bank, the Yes Bank. The RBI Governor has disclosed that those having accounts in the bank would be able to withdraw a maximum of Rs 50,000 at present. He has also assured the public that prompt steps were being taken to tackle the crisis which would be overcome within thirty days. However, after the experience with the PMC Bank these promises carry virtually no weight whatsoever. In the midst of this (…)

• Is Peace in Afghanistan a Chimera?

  9 March 2020, by Apratim Mukarji

  The “historic” agreement between the Taliban and United States was signed, as scheduled, on February 29 in Doha, in the presence of Pakistan, Qatar (the host and a major facilitator), India (anxious to avoid any association in the beginning but, following the talks between US President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India, was present at a higher level than originally planned), Indonesia (the largest Muslim nation), Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (both regional players and intimately (…)

• The Doha Agreement

  9 March 2020

  by Mahendra Ved
  History may or may not repeat in Afghanistan. But past and present damages to its people are unlikely to be repaired anytime soon. They may even persist and multiply, after the ‘historic’ peace deal signed by the USA and the Taliban at Doha, Qatar, on February 29, envisaging phased withdrawal of American troops over the next 14 months.
  The deal does not envisage any presence of American boots on the Afghan soil, which is different from what the US had mooted earlier. The (…)

• Threat to Constitutional Structure

  9 March 2020, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  A situation of unprecedented confusion synchronising with the onset of serious crisis for the entire constitutional structure of the Indian state presents before the nation today.
  On the one side is the outright challenge of the BJP, the most aggressive of political parties, threatening to defy the entire administration in a manner never seen before; and on the other, the ruling party at the Centre presents a picture of utter disunity with factions not only (…)

• NSA managing Delhi on behalf of Narendra Modi

  9 March 2020

  by Arun Srivastava
  This article was sent sometime ago but could not be used earlier due to space constraints.
  Some people are trying to provide a cover to the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, by putting the blame for the mayhem that rocked Delhi for four days and claimed the lives of nearly 45 innocent people on some unknown persons and forces. It is nothing but a deft strategic move to protect the powerful persons who have master-minded the genocide.
  Some people are attributing the (…)