Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Elections Free and Fair

  4 November 2019, by Badri Raina

  Now that all party leaders are
  Safely locked up,
  We will yet show the carping world
  How to hold free and fair elections.
  Note that the electors are tucked away
  Too in hotels where no one may
  Approach them for anti-people
  Discussions.
  We will blow the myth that elections
  Require candidates or electors,
  Or, god forbid, electioneering.
  We will prove that free and fair elections
  Need only security forces
  And dutiful election commissions.
  Let the trouble-shooters beat (…)

• Left Politics in Post-2019 India: Task of Creating a New United Front

  4 November 2019

  by Pratip Chattopadhyay
  Introduction
  The verdict of the 17th Lok Sabha elections in 2019 came as a political shock for the Left political parties as in a 545-seat-based Lok Sabha, the Left parties have secured only five seats and that too only one from Kerala, none from West Bengal and Tripura and four from Tamil Nadu. In the backlash in terms of percentage of votes and seats secured in three federal units known as the

• Unmaking of Constitutional Rights in Kashmir

  4 November 2019, by Arup Kumar Sen

  In his discourse on promises of the Indian Constitution, Rohit De argued that

• 

  No Compromise with Hindu Majoritarianism

  20 October 2019, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Is it the final nail in the coffin of secular India? In the campaign for the State Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana (which are to take place on October 21) PM Narendra Modi has vigorously advocated that Veer Savarkar should get the country’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna.
  Who was Veer Savarkar, after all? No doubt he was incarcerated in the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands in the 1900s by the British. One recalls that in one’s childhood one was (…)

• RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat identifies India as a Hindu Rashtra

  20 October 2019

  by Arun Srivastava
  Now it is no more a hidden secret. So far they have been evading a direct confession. But on October 2, the birthday of Gandhi, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat publically confessed that India is a Hindu Rashtra, that it is a fact of life and it cannot be altered even if everything else changes.
  So far India is identified as a secular country and even the Constitution of the country mentions this fact in its Preamble. Ever since India was declared an independent country, no (…)

• Malegaon (September 29, 2008) attack: Now the Hindu Rashtra in the Making

  20 October 2019

  by Mustafa Khan
  It is time to own our own terror rather than hide it from the world. That is more important as we in India quote “truth lives”. We boast about bidding farewell to open defecating after five years of effort. The day after the Houston jamboree, two Dalit children were lynched for attending nature’s call in the open field. What better way to assessing what the PM claimed in UNGA than by looking back. “We believe this is one of the biggest challenges not for any single country (…)

• How the US Economy is thriving in a war-war Situation in the World

  20 October 2019

  by Monaem Sarker
  This summer’s fears about escalating trade tensions and war, slowing global growth and an inverted yield curve in the United States have been let up somewhat as the year has progressed. The economic mood swings have become commonplace, however, with the trade standoff with China intensifying or de-escalating with the speed of a tweet or offhand comment.
  Despite this turbulence, the US economy has shown great resilience. Growth has slowed but remained strong enough to (…)

• National Security Paradigm: Social Media Ban in Jammu & Kashmir

  20 October 2019

  by Nishtha Chadha
  Abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A has led to the emergence of new fault-lines in Jammu and Kashmir. The August 5, 2019 decision of the incumbent BJP Government at the Centre has set the new normal in the politics of J&K in particular and in India in general. The dilution of the special status of the State has led to simmering tensions that question the established ecosystem of the status quo politics and the overground and underground political and separatist (…)

• Sheikh Abdullah, What Next?

  20 October 2019, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  In 1967, that is, fiftytwo years ago, N.C. visited the Kashmir Valley for a few days and held detailed discussions with a wide cross-section of opinion-makers and political personalities of all shades there. On his return he wrote a series of pieces on Kashmir in Mainstream. The following is the second instalment of the series ‘Special Report on Kashmir’ and was published in this journal’s October 21, 1967 issue. It is being reproducecd now that Kashmir is in the news (…)

• Are Indian Women More Creative Than Indian Men?

  20 October 2019

  by Ashok Celly
  It seems Indian men have lost the capacity to be creative, that is, to do original thinking, to throw fresh ideas, to think out of the box. During the last few decades no fresh or original idea seems to have come from Indian men. One cannot think of any original or creative mind after JP. By comparison women like Medha Patkar, Aruna Roy, Sunita Narain, Mahashweta Devi etc. have broken fresh ground in their respective fields.
  Maybe since men have been the top dog, the (…)