Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• BJP’s Dangerous Politics

  29 April 2019, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  One of my earliest reporting experiences was the great Calcutta killing of 1946. Fierce communal passions were unleashed and thousands were done to death on both sides in the course of a couple of days. But behind that gory carnage was the fight for the city of Calcutta: who should get it? Pakistan or India? Religious beliefs are made use of to rouse mass anger among innocent people, but those who whip up such passions do so only for political gains.
  In our immediate (…)

• What was at Stake in the 2006/2008 Malegaon Terror Attacks?

  29 April 2019

  by Mustafa Khan
  It was a colossal risk when the two Malegaon terror attacks took place. Israel had asked the Abhinav Bharat of Lt Col Purohit of the Indian Army to provide two such attacks to prove the bona fide of seeking help from Israel for the Hindu Rashtra. India would have ceased to be a secular democratic government. What is more, Israel would have come to acquire control over the new government that was envisaged by the conspirators. The conspirators would have established the (…)

• Trust Level Down, Cash Is King

  29 April 2019, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  The wonder that is Indian elections is losing some of its wonderness. Statistically of course it remains a marvel—880 million voters (total US population is 328 million), 11 million election workers, two million voting machines, 2300 registered parties. But the pride we had in the honourableness of the process has taken some knocks. The trust level has dipped. A feeling has come up—unthinkable before—that trans-gressions can happen.
  Never before have there been so many (…)

• Why BJP Seeks to Discredit Nehru and Family

  29 April 2019

  by Mahendra Ved
  Nehru is the BJP’s principal target because he not only ‘discovered’ India but also piloted what free India became for 16 long years
  A cartoon doing media rounds amidst the Election 2019 campaign shows India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a mischievous smile on his face, decamping with all ‘achievements’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
  Arguably, this responds to Nehru’s sustained denigration by the Modi Government, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its (…)

• Remembering Justice Rajindar Sachar on his First Death Anniversary

  29 April 2019

  by Prem Singh
  Today (April 20, 2019) is the first death anniversary of Justice Rajindar Sachar—a socialist visionary, a judge par excellence, a true secular democrat, an unrelenting human rights and civil liberties champion and a wonderful person having complete faith in human goodness. While paying her tribute to him on his demise, Seema Mustafa rightly said: ‘Our finest has gone.’ I personally feel a great sense of loss without him, particularly in my political activities. He was so very (…)

• Candidates with Cases of Crime against Women

  29 April 2019, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  Don’t know your reactions when you saw Dharmendra going about in Uttar Pradesh, campaigning for his wife, Hema Malini. A rather hopeless sight, to see this ageing actor fly down from Mumbai for a day or two, just to tell the potential voters that they ought to vote for his wife! And worse it was to see him getting somewhat curt and rude, telling one of the onlookers to move away and not come too close! Perhaps, he forgot that he’s the one pleading for their votes and with that (…)

• A Primer on the Business of Corrupt Governance

  29 April 2019

  by R. Khosla
  On independence we gave ourselves a Constitution. The Constitution was to provide us the framework of governance. It created the judiciary and everything else that is required for the governance of the country in the interests of the “sovereign” people of India. Not that the “judiciary and everything else” did not exist before. It existed to further the interests of an alien race. Seventyone years on the situation has come full circle. The alien race has once again come to (…)

• WhatsApp Democracy comes to India !

  29 April 2019

  by L.K. Sharma
  The expanding virtual universe of the 21st century began by featuring intimate personal relations among human beings, replacing face-to-face contact with Facebook messages. In this world, the women and men could safely say the unsayable things.
  The virtual world now dominates national and international affairs and lets its citizens say the unsayable things. It lets political rivals trade false allegations and distort history. It incites violent groups to commit violence. (…)

• Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Mahatma

  29 April 2019

  by Irfan Engineer
  Manmohan Vaidya, the Joint General Secretary of the RSS, puts in a herculean effort through his article — “The Mahatma and the Sangh” (The Indian Express — April 12, 2019) to seek wider social legitimacy for the RSS misusing Mahatma Gandhi’s name. Vaidya tries to make out a case that though there were differences between the Sangh and the Mahatma, the Sangh has kept Mahatma’s ideals alive “through its work on rural development, organic farming, cow conservation and (…)

• Towards Lenin’s 150th Birth Anniversary

  29 April 2019, by Anil Rajimwale

  The world is to celebrate Lenin’s 150th birth anniversary next year. It is an occasion to learn from the epoch-making contributions of this giant of an intellectual and practitioner of revolution. Unfortunately, many tend to forget Lenin’s discoveries and ignore his epoch-making theoretical contributions. Therefore, it is essential to restore and develop them in their relevance in the present situation.
  An Eventful Life
  Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov (later Lenin in the Siberian exile) was born (…)