Mainstream Weekly

The Baba Ramdev Fiasco in Delhi and Anna's March of Glory

Shree Shankar Sharan — 2011-06-20T06:49:12Z

The people of India were treated to a strange spectacle on the night of June 4, when all seemed normal with the anti-corruption movement of Baba Ramdev, the dias swarming with sadhus and the Baba raising slogans that he wanted karwai and not committees and that the government had accepted his demand regarding the seizure and repatriation of illegal Indian money parked in foreign banks but he awaited those commitments in writing. A press conference of Kapil Sibal displayed the written (…)

- 2011

Anna's One-Shot War On Corruption

Shree Shankar Sharan — 2011-05-03T18:54:06Z

There is no doubt that Anna Hazare had the highest interest of the country on his mind in undertaking his fast as a war on corruption. There is no doubt either that he brought an upsurge of emotion in the country against corruption and showed a way in which it can be fought courageously and effectively following the Gandhian model of satyagraha and JP's model of the Bihar movement in 1974. He has once again laid the ghost, as JP did, that people's movements against popularly elected (…)

- 2011

The Grave Risks of Nuclear Energy

Shree Shankar Sharan — 2011-03-19T18:53:00Z

The sudden danger of nuclear radiation or explosion in Japan due to the damages caused by the tsunami to several, at least three, of its reactors in a nuclear power plant should ring the alarm bells in India, the northern half of which is in the seismic zone and the southern half in the tsunami-prone zone, specially the part of the south which is in the industrially advanced area and equipped with required infrastructure. Nor is the south free from the risk of earthquakes, going by the the (…)

- 2011

People's Power

Shree Shankar Sharan — 2011-02-21T09:24:34Z

The world has been charmed by the exercise and display of people's power in Egypt. It all started in Tunisia over a common man setting himself aflame because of the callousness of authorities setting off huge demonstrations ending with the resignation of the President. But it reached its apogee in Egypt by what the Egyptians fondly called the march of a million in the Tahrir Square from day to day, unafraid and undeterred by the presence of the Egyptian Army, whose mind none could foretell, (…)

- 2011

The Anguish of the Republic

Shree Shankar Sharan — 2011-01-31T01:39:00Z

The Republic is in deep anguish. What has been happening around us is too serious to be dismissed with anger. The Commonwealth Games has brought more shame than medals. Then came the 2G scam and the losses caused by faulty and ill-considered or reckless orders of the then Minister was estimated to be Rs 1 lakh 76 thousand crores, a mind-boggling figure by the CAG, a constitutional office. Then while the matter was sub judice and before Parliament another Minister rose to claim that no losses (…)

- 2011

The Bihar Election

Shree Shankar Sharan — 2010-12-31T04:11:14Z

To many of us from Bihar, the election verdict has come as no great surprise. That is the way Bihar is. It carries its baggage of poverty and deprivation patiently or in petty squabbles but once it has discovered the signs of leadership that can change their lives by the evidence of past performance, it pours its heart to them. This time it was Nitish Kumar in whom they found a leader both with vision and guts and the people of Bihar broke all barriers of caste, of high and low, that has (…)

- 2010

A Non-Communist's Salutations to Jagannath Sarkar

Shree Shankar Sharan — 2010-12-12T01:42:12Z

[Many Streams: Selected Essays by Jagannath Sarkar and Reminiscing Sketches was brought out last April in Patna to honour the veteran Communist leader of Bihar, Jagannath Sarkar. The author, who knew Jagannath Sarkar quite well, went through the publication and sent the following article for Mainstream. —Editor[
This is not a review of the charming collection of essays by Jagannath Sarkar and his admirers but a tribute to Jagannathda, a gentle colossus, made brief by a severe constraint of (…)

- 2010

Open Letter to Our Dear Brothers in Pakistan

Shree Shankar Sharan — 2010-12-12T00:44:01Z

REMEMBERING MUMBAI 26/11
On the second anniversary of the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai we remember the martyrs of those refarious assaults and reproduce the following piece that appeared in Mainstream (December 6, 2008) since it embodied one of the rare voices of sanity raised in this country following the 60-hour trauma India's
commercial capital had to experience from November 26 to 29, 2008.
Our dear brothers in Pakistan,
In the intense grief that I am in due to the mindless (…)

- 2010

An Open Letter to Sonia Gandhi

Shree Shankar Sharan — 2010-11-16T06:20:05Z

Dear Madam Gandhi,
It did not behove you to rubbish the Bihar Government in your election campaign there by flying in the face of facts. While to play up your party and play down others is both permissible and the done thing in election campaigns, a responsible leader of a responsible national party should not engage in Orwellian untruths and bad-mouth the government it wishes to replace.
The last five years out of the 20 that you have branded as the time of misgovernance in Bihar (…)

- 2010

Partyless Democracy: Remembering Mahatma Gandhi and JP

Shree Shankar Sharan — 2010-10-06T15:07:16Z

A seminar on partyless democracy at Allahabad has put me wise to the growing disenchantment with party governments, party elections and party regimentation of MPs and MLAs that deals a blow at genuine people-led and controlled democracy.
The alienation and disenchantment with the parliamentary or presidential forms of governments, both party based, is not confined to young democracies like ours. Its most vociferous expression has appeared in the oldest democracies of the UK and USA. What (…)

- 2010