Mainstream Weekly

Meeting the Challenge

SC — 2010-12-31T04:56:19Z

Mainstream's entry into its fortyninth year with this Annual Number has coincided with a crisis afflicting the Indian polity the dimensions of which are unprecedented even by the standards set by the unforeseen developments in our chequered post-independence history.
The proceedings of both Houses of Parliament were disrupted throughout the winter session by a unified Opposition spearheading the demand for setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the 2G spectrum scam, something (…)

- 2010

Tribute To Surendra Mohan

2010-12-31T04:53:49Z

Socialist leader Surendra Mohan is no more. He passed away in the morning of September 17 at his residence in Sah Vikas in the Trans-Jamuna area of Delhi. He had health problems no doubt but was not ailing. He literally died in harness. He is survived by his wife, son and daughter.
Only a few months ago one had met him at a meeting in the Capital and requested him for an article for Mainstream as it was necessary for someone like him to write from a Gandhian perspective. He smilingly (…)

- 2010

Remembering Surendra Mohan

Devaki Jain — 2010-12-31T04:37:07Z

In the passing away of Surendra Mohan, India has lost one more—soon after L.C. Jain—stalwart of the Indian political landscape. Surendra Mohan and L.C. Jain worked—I used to often tease them—like tweedledum-tweedledee during the space between the results of the elections of 1977 and the formation and definition of the Janata Party of their dreams. I use the term “dreams” as they had envisioned what perhaps most Indian citizens have always aspired for—a highly democratic political party (…)

- 2010

Indian People Should Extend More Support To Burma's Democratic Movement: Suu Kyi

2010-12-31T04:35:09Z

“After seven years of house arrest the indomitable leader of Burma's democratic movement, Aung San Suu Kyi, was released in Rangoon on November 13, 2010. Remembering her as an icon of the Burmese struggle for democracy that the ruling military junta has failed to suppress till date, we are publishing, with due acknowledgement, the following interview she gave on phone to the Managing Editor of Mizzima News, Sein Win, on November 16, 2010; here she comments on a wide range of issues including (…)

- 2010

In the Face of Ruthless Power

2010-12-31T04:31:39Z

by Aung San Suu Kyi
Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and to uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society. Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are (…)

- 2010

Villain In Life, Hero In Death! Hindutva's New-found Love for Hemant Karkare

Subhash Gatade — 2010-12-31T04:30:00Z

...sources who were close to Karkare have said there was indeed a threat perception at that time and the former ATS chief was disturbed over allegations against his family after the Malegaon probe was made public.
However, they said “Karkare was not scared” and that “he was very practical and took adequate measures to ensure his family was safe”. According to sources, Karkare had raised the wall around his house just a week before his death and also brought home a dog. “The wall was raised (…)

- 2010

Judicial Corruption in Profusion Must be Wiped Out without Mercy

V R Krishna Iyer — 2010-12-31T04:29:04Z

The judiciary enjoys vast powers as they are final and infallible, so powerful that when an executive violates the law the judges can quash their action and issue directions in exercise of the writ power. When Parliament makes law and transgresses the Constitution or issues orders beyond the bounds of fundamental rights, the court can demolish that order and action but when the higher courts are guilty of unrestrained violation there is no instrument to correct them nor is there a code to (…)

- 2010

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Nikhil Chakravartty — 2010-12-31T04:27:01Z

A great country caught in the web of sordid politics—that is how one is tempted to describe the state of the nation today.
In contrast to the political set-up in India's neighbourhood—right and left, north and south—it can of course be claimed that in our country there is a modicum of stability with democratic rights assured to and asserted by a large section of the populace. And yet there is disillusion, frustration and at places cynicism writ large all over this vast country. After (…)

- 2010

Militant Left Radicalism, State and Civil Society with Special Focus on Land Rights

B K Roy Burman — 2010-12-31T04:22:11Z

First phase of militant Left radicalism and state response
The first manifestation of militant Left radicalism was in the Naxalbari area of West Bengal. Though ideological issues were also involved, the then United Front Government considered the discontent of the peasantry as providing political space for the militant radicals to operate. The government adopted a massive programme of vesting one million acres of ceiling surplus land of the big zamindars, Jotedars and land owners for (…)

- 2010

West Bengal: Simmering Embers of Rajarhat

D. Bandyopadhyay — 2010-12-31T04:20:00Z

The simmering embers of discontent of the evicted population of Rajarhat is now taking the shape of a bush fire. Dr B.C. Roy conceived of the Salt Lake town to provide space for the middle classes who were being squeezed out of Calcutta proper because of the sky-rocketing property prices. His idea of a satellite town at Kalyani did not succeed as it was a satellite to Calcutta. After long years of gestation it is now taking the shape of an independent town with a culture and character of its (…)

- 2010