Mainstream Weekly

Jaipal Reddy — A True Liberal

Neerja Chowdhury — 2019-08-11T09:15:08Z

TRIBUTE
“There is only one portfolio I am certain I have the right person for,” I.K. Gujral had remarked to a friend, hours before he took over as the Prime Minister in mid-1997. “It is the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for Jaipal Reddy.” He made this remark minutes after word came—“ho raha hai”—that Congress leader Sitaram Kesri had firmed up the requisite support for him. This was just after the departure of H.D. Deve Gowda as the Prime Minister.
Jaipal Reddy became India's I (…)

- 2019

Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi: Standard-bearer of Congress' Core Values

Neerja Chowdhury — 2014-03-10T23:10:00Z

tribute
He was the quintessential backroom boy of Indian politics, and he came into his own during P.V. Narasimha Rao's premeirship.
Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi, who died on March 2 in a Kota hospital after an illness, was Narasimha Rao's MOS in the Prime Minister's Office in 1993-96. It was a period of far-reaching changes, even though Rao handled them in his inimitable low-key style.
The period was marked by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a unipolar world, which posed (…)

- 2014

On Nikhil Chakravartty's 15th Death Anniversary

Neerja Chowdhury — 2013-07-01T05:31:15Z

Undoubtedly, the media challenges today are very different from the ones that were faced by the previous generation of journalists. It is a new scene altogether with the competitiveness of 24-hour channels, the compulsion to “break” news—and many channels openly take credit for it, so as to woo more viewers—the “hunger” of the corporate houses to use the media for purposes different than the dissemination of news.
There is the new technology, which facilitates quick access to information, (…)

- 2013

Tribute: Vina Mazumdar

Neerja Chowdhury — 2013-06-09T11:16:09Z

Vina Mazumdar, who passed away at the age of 86 last week, sensitised a whole generation of women about their rights and roles in the 1970s and 1980s—and nudged many like me to question long accepted assumptions about ourselves. She, and her comrade-in-arms, lawyer Lotika Sarkar, as also Jai Chandiram, one of the pioneers of Doordarshan when it was set up—both of them also passed away recently—can truly be called independent India's nation-builders.
I remember how often we, who were (…)

- 2013

Nikhil Chakravartty

Neerja Chowdhury — 2008-06-30T14:45:35Z

For several of us doing political reporting in the eighties and the nineties, one of the things we looked forward to were the political discussions we could have with people like Nikhil Chakravartty and Madhu Limaye. Both kept open houses and we could walk into their home in the evening, often without appointment, and chat about the latest political development. Often we would try and decode the latest political googly by one or another player. Besides giving a new angle or new insights (…)

- June 28, 2008

Nandigram : CPM Exposed

Neerja Chowdhury — 2007-12-03T16:20:55Z

Nandigram is no longer just an area in East Midnapore district of West Bengal. Nor another name for a struggle against the acquisition of land to create an SEZ, which has the potential to trigger off similar protests around the country.
Like Bofors entered the Indian political lexicon as the equivalent of corruption and people would openly ask in 1987, ”Is maen kitna Bofors hai?”, so also Nandigram has become synonymous with the blatant support of the state apparatus for a policy of an (…)

- December 1, 2007