Mainstream Weekly

Major Work on Violent Conflict

Rakesh Gupta — 2011-12-12T17:25:38Z

BOOK REVIEW
Ethnic Mobilisation and Violence in Northeast India. by Pahi Saikia; Routledge, London, New York, New Delhi; pages 231; Price: Rs 695.
This book can be read in multiple ways. It is a work of an Indian trained for her doctorate in a foreign university (McGill) where questions are asked and answered in a thesis and new ground is prepared to provide an epistemo-logical turn to the existing literature. Pahi has consciously attempted to do this. The blurb promises to fill (…)

- 2011

Soap Bubbles in our Security Perspectives

Rakesh Gupta — 2010-12-31T03:06:13Z

Any security—individual, societal and state stands on values, structures and processes within a state in a given external environment of hostility. Constitutionalism, democracy, group rights, secularism and justice are the foundational values, as laid out in the Constitution, that would and do form our core values informing the structures of India's ‘democratic political community'. Every person, group, official, political party, tribe, community and caste are supposed to abide by these (…)

- 2010

Terror Cauldron in Response to Policy Failures

Rakesh Gupta — 2010-10-30T01:19:00Z

The drone attacks on the Afghan-Pak border killing civilians and terror alert in Europe fairly strongly link up with terror attacks by Mend in Nigeria, raising of the terror threat alert from red to scarlet in France and the stone-pelting youths and their consequent deaths in the Kashmir Valley inviting the all-party farcical visit to Srinagar. All these may have to deal with foreign policy and domestic policy. The level of violence is much deeper than the unprece-dented violence shown in (…)

- 2010

Who wants a War?

Rakesh Gupta — 2010-10-14T02:27:52Z

In the times of recession Obama claims to fulfill his promise to withdraw troops from Iraq. His military man in Afghanistan, Petraeus, is formulating a programme to withdraw from Afghanistan next year. Obama himself has announced steps to deal with the economy at home. He has unveiled an infrastructure programme of $ 50 billion to get more jobs for the American labour by investing in railways, roadways and airways and help middle class business with tax cuts.
If seen in the context of the (…)

- 2010

Russian Fire

Rakesh Gupta — 2010-09-17T08:32:24Z

If Californian fires rage, Russian fires destroy crops. If Californian floods destroy the crops of vine fields in NAPPA, if oil spill destroys marine lives near Mexico, floods overtake Pakistan and China. In all these natural disasters human life is a casualty. Is it man-made? No, not natural disasters, except indirectly, as a result of playing with Nature, if one believes in entropy. It is man-mismanaged. Ask Obama and BPO, they will agree. Ask the Russians. The smog has reached Moscow and (…)

- 2010

Is Politics being Redefined between States and Peoples?

Rakesh Gupta — 2010-08-09T09:30:02Z

The US-Russian spy swap in Vienna a few days ago, the Chinese news agency, Xinhua, observed, represents pragmatism and some long- term interests in Russian foreign policy towards the US. This nearly coincided with the Indian arrest of a Russian diplomat who overstayed in the country. The Chinese prevailed upon the world to not condemn North Korea over its sinking of the South Korean ship and are pursuing their longstanding policy of developing nuclear relations with Pakistan. This happened (…)

- 2010

Wave of Crime and Labour Strikes in China

Rakesh Gupta — 2010-07-22T13:45:47Z

It is time and again that scribes write of the international crime syndicate as during the Cold War people wrote of the international terror network. Now they talk about regional centres. The bursting of the Russian spy ring in the US involving Ms Chapman accompanied by Clinton visiting Georgia, Abkhazia and Kiev is catching headlines. The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) is being blamed for criminal activities in the Middle East involving bank robberies, corruption and illicit business for these (…)

- 2010

Uneasy Sits the Global Balance

Rakesh Gupta — 2010-06-20T11:53:17Z

Whoever said that unipolarity assures peace and eternity? The global economy went into a huddle for real estate failure allowing the millions to turn violent on social issues in Western capital. Daniel Harvey, the reputed economist, suggested a revolution in economic policies away from the current unproductive real estate investments. The current policies do not contribute to happiness of the millions. It is only adding to the feel good factor of the middle and upper classes from Beijing and (…)

- 2010

Snapshots of Global and Internal Politics on May 23 and May 24, 2010

Rakesh Gupta — 2010-06-10T00:19:38Z

Germans sign the Eurozone package in the context of the Greece bail-out and the German leader visits German soldiers in Afghanistan. Hillary Clinton is in China to talk to China about the US' relations with it. The US renews its agreement with Japan over its military base and fumes against North Korea's hostile act against South Korea, while Indian and Pakistani soldiers exchange fire at the border near the Poonch area. The Afghans are in conclave with the not-very-insignificant Afghan (…)

- 2010

Maoist Upsurge and the Development Strategy

Rakesh Gupta — 2010-03-01T15:22:10Z

BOOK REVIEW
Maoism In India: Reincarnation of Ultra-Leftwing Extremism in the Twentyfirst Century by Bidyut Chakravarty and Rajat Kujur; Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series, Routledge, Taylor and Francis, London and New York; 2010; pages 250.
The book under review has seven chapters, six appendices, a bibliography and an index. The first three chapters are of historical and organisational import. The last one is on the future of the movement. The intervening two chapters are on the (…)

- 2010