Mainstream Weekly

2014 General Elections marked a Watershed in India's Post-independence Political History

P R Dubhashi — 2014-06-14T13:52:37Z

For the first time a non-Congress political party, the BJP, was able to get an absolute majority on its own in Parliament. The BJP had in the past—first for 13 days, then for 13 months, and later for a full term—formed governments but those were in alliance with a multiplicity of regional parties (some 24). The present victory is unprecedented. It has given the opportunity to the BJP to form a government without depen-dence on its allies some of whom proved unreliable.
Reflecting on the (…)

- 2014

Conferring Rights on Citizens: Laws and their Implementation

P R Dubhashi — 2014-02-17T17:29:28Z

I. Policy Contradictions
The UPA Government at the Centre, dominated by the Congress party, has followed during the last nine years a dual policy. On one side, a policy of marketisation, privatisation, liberali-sation and globalisation which has led to growing inqualities and dispartities between the ‘haves' and ‘have nots', rapid urbanisation marked by a large number of slums and shanties with abominable conditions of living, rising consumerism and its concomitant hedonistic values (…)

- 2014

Independence of the CBI, Police and Administration

P R Dubhashi — 2013-06-01T09:10:00Z

Taking exception to the CBI sharing its progress report on ‘Coalgate scam' with the Law Minister and Joint Secretaries in the Prime Minister's Office and Department of Coal, the Supreme Court characterised the CBI as “a caged parrot speaking its masters' voice”—“one parrot with many masters”. The Court further observed that the CBI should have stood up to the pulls and pressures. The Court did not directly mention who it was that put the agency in the cage. The Court, in course of the (…)

- 2013

Who Will Be India's Next PM?

P R Dubhashi — 2013-04-22T12:04:58Z

Who will be India's PM after the 2014 general elections? This is a question being hotly debated in the print and electronic media. It is taken for granted that the incumbent Prime Minister, who has held the position for two consecutive terms (five years each), will not be the candidate. Two names are being prominently mentioned on behalf of the two major national parties—Rahul Gandhi as the Congress party candidate and Narendra Modi as the BJP candidate. Both the parties have yet to formally (…)

- 2013

Yet Another Mega Scam

P R Dubhashi — 2012-10-16T16:14:34Z

The nation was reeling under the impact of two mega scams—the Commonwealth Games scam and 2G spectrum scam—when it was struck by yet another scam now known as the ‘Coalgate' scam relating to the allocation of coal mines. It burst open when a prominent newspaper carried a headline about a ten lakh crore scam in the allocation of coal mines—several times bigger than the notorious 2G spectrum scam. This was when the relevant CAG report was yet to reach the government. A draft report was about (…)

- 2012

Educational Reforms in Finland and their Relevance to India

P R Dubhashi — 2012-09-13T12:29:34Z

BOOK REVIEW
Finnish Lessons – What can the World learn from Educational Change in Finland? by Pasi Sahlberg; published by Teachers College, Columbia University, New York and London; pp. 165; 2011.
Finland, a tiny country of 5.5 million people in North Europe and belonging to the Nordic group of countries, has become a role model for social cohesion and solidarity and rapid economic and technological development. Nokia, a Finish company, has become the leader of mobile phones all over (…)

- 2012

The Federal Issues in Indian Polity

P R Dubhashi — 2012-06-11T22:23:08Z

Discord on NCTC
The federal issues in the Indian polity have come to the fore in recent times. They came up prominently when the proposal of the Union Home Ministry to set up a National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) was placed before the meeting of Chief Ministers convened by the Union Home Minster. Several Chief Ministers opposed the proposal tooth and nail. The Chief Ministers included not only the Chief Ministers of the States where the BJP, the main Opposition party at the Centre, is (…)

- 2012

China and India — A Comparative Study of Economic Growth

P R Dubhashi — 2012-04-14T08:30:30Z

BOOK REVIEW
Awakening Giants – Feet of Clay: Assessing the Economic Rise of China and India by Pranab Bardhan; Princeton University Press; 2010; cloth: $ 25.95 (£17.95).
The rapid rate of economic growth in the two large countries of Asia – China and India – stands in striking contrast to the Western world's developed countries' feeble growth rate. The dis-appointing growth rate was compounded by recession which struck in the USA in 2008 and spread to the countries of Europe. They are (…)

- 2012

Systemic Defects in Capitalism

P R Dubhashi — 2012-04-13T12:52:35Z

BOOK REVIEW
23 Things they Don't Tell You about Cpitalism by Ha-Joon Chang; Penguin Publisher, London; January 2011; pages: 304; Hardcover Price: $ 25.
Through his two thought provoking books, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002) and Bad Samaritans—Rich Nations, Poor Policies and Threat to the Developing World, Han Joon Chang, the Korean economic historian teaching at Cam-bridge University over the last twenty years, has emerged as an inveterate (…)

- 2012

A Prejudiced View of Mahatma Gandhi Sixty Years after his Death

P R Dubhashi — 2012-02-14T16:30:38Z

BOOK REVIEW
Catching Up with Gandhi by Graham Turner; 2010; pages 344; Rs 350. Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with India by Joseph Lelyveld; Harper Collins Publishers; 2011; pages 452; Rs 699.
More than sixty years after Mahatma Gandhi has left the scene, two of his biographies have appeared—one by Graham Turner, a British journalist, and the other by Joseph Lelyveld, a journalist in America. What purpose do they serve? Do they tell us anything remarkable to enable a (…)

- 2012