Mainstream Weekly

The Great Land Rush: Fake Consensus at All-party Meet

Sandhya Jain — 2013-04-28T18:04:38Z

Farmers bodies are gearing up to oppose the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011, which was supposedly amended to improve compensation to farmers under directions from Congress party President Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, as the new draft perverts the meaning of “public purpose” to benefit multinationals and facilitate creation of special economic zones for private industry.
The Bill, reportedly cleared by an all-party meeting on April 18, as a (…)

- 2013

Obama: New Twist to the ‘Melting Pot'

Sandhya Jain — 2012-11-21T19:51:23Z

At the end of America's costliest and nastiest electoral battles, widely predicted by analysts to be ‘hung' like the George Bush-Al Gore encounter in 2000, President Barack Obama made history as the second Democrat President to win a second term in office since the Second World War. By the time his Republican rival Mitt Romney conceded defeat, Barack Obama had beaten a vicious negative campaign funded by the super-rich One Per Cent, who possibly turned the tide in his favour with their (…)

- 2012

FDI in Retail and the 21st Century Drain of Wealth

Sandhya Jain — 2011-12-27T17:46:00Z

In an address to the Congress Parliamentary Party on December 8, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee lamented that the UPA coalition was forced to suspend the Cabinet decision to allow 51 per cent foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail (like Wal-Mart, Tesco, Carrefour and others) in order to avert a mid-term poll. Mukherjee mourned that this 'progressive' measure—which would please Western govern-ments pushing for FDI in the Indian retail sector—had to be sacrificed because (…)

- 2011

Expropriating the Indian Farmer

Sandhya Jain — 2011-06-09T08:09:41Z

Indian agriculture lost one of its most cogent voices at a time when the farming community nationwide is facing the growing menace of state-driven expropriation of land for crony capitalists. This trend, which we may designate as the corporatisation of private property, parallels the other disturbing tendency towards the privatisation of public resources; both may jointly be said to comprise the Indian face of globalisation.
Mahendra Singh Tikait emerged in the public arena in October (…)

- 2011

On Varun Gandhi, BJP and Advani

Sandhya Jain — 2009-05-23T17:58:32Z

COMMUNICATION
I received some hate mail when I wrote the article “Varun Gandhi: Albatross Round BJP's Neck” on March 30 (it appeared in Mainstream, April 11, 2009), but events have now unfolded as foretold, and Elections 2009 could well be designated as the Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
The BJP has slipped in UP, far from making a comeback, and everyone who thought that the cheap ‘udhaar ka sindoor' trick would yield easy dividends should quit the arena of politics and political (…)

- May 2009

Varun Gandhi: Albatross Round BJP's Neck

Sandhya Jain — 2009-04-12T17:42:29Z

If politics is the art of winning power by convincing people that you have the ability to wield it wisely, then the BJP may as well pack its bags. Having closed its ears to common sense and reason, the party has permitted an absolute non-entity to hijack its agenda and eclipse the persona of its prime ministerial candidate.
Unless prompt remedial action is taken, L.K. Advani, who ruthlessly hacked all opposition within the party to emerge as the declared prime ministerial candidate (…)

- April 2009

Brave New Words

Sandhya Jain — 2008-09-23T12:06:58Z

In the heat and dust raised by the manner in which India secured a questionable waiver at the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna on September 6, 2008, many opponents predicted that the nuclear deal would mean only what the Americans said it would mean. A former Indian ambassador to Turkey revealed that a Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, a NATO ally of Washington, used to say: “Mr Ambassador, you cannot trust Americans on even what they have given in writing.”
That pretty much sums up the (…)

- September 20, 2008

Manmohan Outsources Political Sovereignty

Sandhya Jain — 2008-09-18T13:27:19Z

Some things are scandalously evident in the current nuclear tamasha in the Capital, even to a non-specialist like this writer.
One, the drama over India getting the so-called waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group was totally engineered by the West. The purpose was to heighten tensions in New Delhi and make it agree to script changes which would not be taken to the Union Cabinet, the Parliament where votes had to be purchased for the government to survive July 22 in order to clinch the (…)

- September 13, 2008