Mainstream Weekly

Dealing with China on the Border

Chandra Sen — 2009-09-21T09:22:40Z

Regardless of the statements by the Ministry of External Affairs, including the assertions of External Affairs S.M. Krishna, that the situation on the Sino-Indian border was “peaceful”, the fact is that recent Chinese postures on the border are a matter of concern for the average Indian. This concern springs from the ground reality that perhaps for the first time in many years Chinese incursions have been reported from all sectors around the same time and there is much strength in the (…)

- September 2009

How do We React to Varun's Outbursts?

Chandra Sen — 2009-04-01T22:50:48Z

Before the country gets into the real election mode, we, secular Indians of all persuasions, have been shocked into silence by the fulminations of young Varun Gandhi. Some veterans, in whose minds his father Sanjay's deeds during the infamous Emergency still remain fresh, were quick to draw a parallel between the father and the son. However, for all his arbitrary use of extra-constitutional authority antagonising large segments of the people as also veteran political leaders and (…)

- March 2009

On CPM Leadership and Somnath Chatterjee

Chandra Sen — 2008-07-30T11:45:11Z

By taking summary action against Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, a 10-term party MP who was elected the presiding officer of the Lower House of Parliament in June 2004, the CPM has once again exposed its undemocratic functioning. On the face of it what party General Secretary Prakash Karat has said is unexceptionable. A Speaker cannot be from the Opposition, and the CPM and its three Left partners became part of the Opposition once they communicated to the President, on July 9, their (…)

- July 26, 2008

'Grapes-are-sour' Syndrome

Chandra Sen — 2007-12-03T15:38:45Z

Russia is going to polls this Sunday, December 2: the elections to the State Duma, the powerful Lower House of the Russian parliament, are due on that day. Just before these elections the country's President, Vladimir Putin, has come under severe attack from the West primarily the US, with Washington and its allies launching an anti-Putin tirade based on the time-worn arguments dished out by the fractured pro-West Opposition within Russia. The principal criticism against Putin is that he is (…)

- December 1, 2007