Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Increasing Pressure on Iran and the threat of War

  26 May 2019

  by Archishman Raju
  Recent moves from the American establishment have a sinister character. They have steadily been putting pressure on Iran in seeming preparation for an attempted “regime change” war. The Trump Administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal between the US and Iran, and put renewed sanctions on Iran in May last year. These renewed sanctions have had a significant effect on Iran’s economy with the Iranian President recently comparing the misery (…)

• Wider Implications of Sanctions

  26 May 2019, by Bharat Dogra

  Sanctions imposed by the USA on oil exports from Iran and Venezuela have implications far beyond the more obvious and immediate ones.
  One short-term and obvious implication is that economic problems of Iran and Venezuela will increase. This can also have political implications within these countries, particularly in Venezuela where people are suffering from very severe economic problems and there is a huge political crisis as well, including the US-backed efforts to overthrow the existing (…)

• Nehru, Golwalkar on RSS

  26 May 2019, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  Filing the column at a rather stressful juncture —declaration of the election results are just a couple of days away but already exit-poll results are causing not just dismay but carrying forewarnings of very eerie build-ups. Doing the rounds the theory that the exit-poll results swinging in favour of the BJP is actually one of those ploys to ready the masses for the well-planned results! So that there’s no real shocker for the masses if the BJP does ‘win’ even in the States where (…)

• Fools in High Places (Dedicated to Polonius)

  26 May 2019, by Badri Raina

  When fools in high places make smart decisions, Shaming those in the know, Then clouds shed their toxic load, And don a nationalist glow.
  Not all fools are one and the same— Some are fools indeed; Others are touched by divine mystique, And do not any sanity need.
  The people must with trust elect The latter kind of fool To lead them through rain and shine From a gut-level knowledge pool.
  Governments are thus bypassed, And experts made redundant; Moneys saved from a fool’s say-so Can go (…)

• "Indian Democracy: Long Dead, Now Buried”

  26 May 2019, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The eminent historian, Ranajit Guha, summed up the precarious state of Indian democracy during the Emergency, beginning since the early hours of June 26, 1975, in his text published with the above title. He wrote: “...it will be fair to conclude that democracy in India has long been dead, if it was ever alive at all...The corpse, however, might revive, rise from its grave and walk our parched plains and dusty streets yet again.”
  In his deliberation on May 13, 2019, in a convention on (…)

• 

  Unforeseen Event at Last Phase of Polls

  19 May 2019, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  As we enter the last phase of the seven-phase polls to elect the 17th Lok Sabha this year, an uncertain future stares us in the face. What happened in the streets of Kolkata in the wake of the roadshow of BJP President Amit Shah on May 14 has forced every conscientious Bengali to hang her/his head in shame. There were pitched battles in College Street when non-Bengali outsiders who accompanied Amit Shah to infiltrate into the city clashed with students owing allegiance to the (…)

• L’affaire Viraat

  19 May 2019, by S G Vombatkere

  Prime Minister Modi’s electoral campaign “expose” of misuse of naval assets by the late ex-PM, Rajiv Gandhi, his wife Sonia Gandhi and a host of others with them in 1987 during a visit to Lakshwadeep Islands aboard INS Viraat, has naval circles buzzing.
  This is not in defence of what the then PM Rajiv Gandhi did or did not do, but to rue the continuing politicisation of our military, with the Indian Navy also now dragged into the on-going electoral political slugfest. It is also to put a (…)

• Love and Care

  19 May 2019

  She had in her hut only one blanket donated by a NGO last year. She wrapped her two children with it to keep them warm in the bone-chilling wintry night. For her she had bare cotton cloth to ward off the cold freezing around her frail body. A mismatch: she was found dead in the wee hours of the morning.
  Late in the day the civic body met in the city municipal hall; agenda: shelter for the homeless living on the streets! Proceedings had hardly begun, pandemonium broke loose; pretext: the (…)

• The Smothering of Justice

  19 May 2019, by Anil Nauriya

  Introduction
  It has been evident for some time that the judicial system in India is in a state of crisis. It is also increasingly obvious that this crisis is interconnected with a crisis in the polity and, in turn, has ramifications for the polity. The starkest illustration of this so far is provided by the chain of events surrounding the complaint by an ex-employee of the Supreme Court of India that became public on April 19-20, 2019. This complaint led to responses from the judicial (…)

• Credibility of Election Commission under Scanner

  19 May 2019

  by Mahendra Ved
  Governing general elections in as vast and diverse a nation as India is never easy; it becomes more difficult when integrity and impartiality of the poll administrator are doubted.
  India’s polity, despite its robustness and seven decades’ working, is in turmoil as never before and appears divided. Causing and deepening the crisis, ironically, is an election that is being fought no-holds-barred.
  Governing this vast and diverse nation is never easy. It is more difficult (…)