Mainstream Weekly

Braving the Heaviest of Odds

SC — 2016-12-26T13:52:01Z

EDITORIAL
With this issue of the Annual Number 2016, Mainstream steps into the fiftyfifth year of its modest existence.
In its inaugural issue on September 1, 1962 the Mainstream editorial clearly stated: “it shall be our endeavour to try relentlessly to demolish the wall of misunderstanding, mutual suspicion and even personal pique that divides progressively sections in the country from one another”. And we have kept that policy-perspective in view in all our activities since that time. (…)

- 2016

Nehru for Today / India-Pakistan: Imperative of Amity / We Must All Resist BJP's Two-Nation Theory / Relevance of Gandhiji's Message Today

Nikhil Chakravartty — 2016-12-26T13:49:01Z

From N.C.'s Writings
Nehru for Today
More than twentyone years after his passing away, Jawaharlal Nehru remains a colossus in the eyes of his countrymen and of the world abroad. Age has not withered his memory nor customs stale it. If Nehru has not become outdated, it is not becuse of any sentimental attachment in which the nation holds him. For, he really belongs to the generation that has literally disappeared from the stage of History. By the very law of life and living, others have (…)

- 2016

Bangladesh deserves More Attention and Appreciation from India

Bharat Dogra — 2016-12-26T13:44:39Z

Suppose you have two neighbours—one hostile neighbour and one friendly neighbour. For different reasons you need to give a lot of attention to both. The hostile neighbour requires attention for some reasons while the friendly nation requires attention for some other reasons, but they both require equal attention.
Now suppose that you give a lot of attention to the hostile neighbour but relatively much less attention to the friendly neighbour, then what will be the impact on the friendly (…)

- 2016

The Year of Unravelling

Badri Raina — 2016-12-26T13:40:23Z

The best of times were promised, but the worst of times are here. Not in any war fought since the independence of India were so many millions seen waiting their turn in interminable lines, not before ration shops, but banks and ATMs to be granted a pittance of their own legitimate earnings. If over the year some eighty-seven soldiers have died manning the borders, a hundred and eleven at last count have lost their lives asking for their very own—a consti-tutional collapse of unprecedented (…)

- 2016

Populism Finds the Way: Trump, Pollsters and the People's Choice

2016-12-26T13:38:17Z

by Pradeep Nair and Sandeep Sharma
In the aftermath of the American presidential elections, streets in several cities of America rocked with the slogan “Not My President”. This sloganeering rose against a person who went into election (and won the same) with a campaign catchphrase ‘Make America Great Again'. The protestors termed his win ‘unusual', ‘unexpected' and ‘unconventional' and feared the ways he would realise his dream of making America great again! Mr Donald John Trump, a real (…)

- 2016

The Trump Call: Pakistan gets a jumpstart in dealing with the coming US presidency

M K Bhadrakumar — 2016-12-26T13:34:18Z

If India was hoping to corner Pakistan on the issue of cross-border terrorism at the Heart of Asia conference on December 3-4 in Amritsar, that has been overtaken by the telephone conversation between US President-elect Donald Trump and Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif on Friday, (December 2), which dramatically shifts the kaleidoscope reflecting the sequence of elements in the Hindu Kush.
During the US presidential election campaign, Trump hardly spoke on Afghanistan. But he amply made up for it (…)

- 2016

Letter to PM by CPI-M General Secretary

2016-12-26T13:31:17Z

The following is the text of a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by CPI-M General Secretary and MP Sitaram Yechury on December 12, 2016 regarding the finalisation of the ‘Major Defense Partner' designation to India by the USA.
Dear Pradhan Mantri-ji,
I am writing to you in connection with the finalisation of the ‘Major Defense Partner' designation to India by the United States of America, as announced through a joint statement issued by your Ministry on December 8, 2016. (…)

- 2016

Rome was Not Built in a Day. Nor the Hindu Rashtra . . .

Ajayakumar Kodoth — 2016-12-26T13:29:17Z

by Ajayakumar Kodoth
Even while judging the BJP government as a pro-Fascist one, the CPI believes that it cannot be called Fascist yet. We resort to this label not merely because of hostility towards BJP but because we believe it is true. Even while judging the BJP as completely right-wing, we cannot brand it as completely Fascist. That is why we say it is pro-Fascist. Whether it is completely so or on the way to becoming Fascist is an issue that should be left to further discussion. As I (…)

- 2016

Curbing the Black Economy: Demonetisation Not the Way

Arun Kumar — 2016-12-26T13:25:17Z

Tackling the black economy is laudable. The PM has announced demonetisation of the high denomination currency notes to do that. But most analysts are of the opinion this is not the way to even dent (much less eliminating) the black economy in India. The faulty notion is a result of the incorrect understanding that black economy is all cash. The logic of the step taken is, once ‘black money' (cash) is sucked out of the economy, the black economy would get eliminated. It is as if, once oxygen (…)

- 2016

Demonetisation: A Silent but Monster Killer - Modi Must Own Up Killing Over A Hundred in Bank Queues

2016-12-26T13:16:42Z

by K. Narayana
Over a month has gone by after the fateful decision to demonetise the high-value currencies by the Modi Government. The initial stated purposes in a bang focused on sucking out 86 per cent of the money in circulation in order to arrest black money and decapitate fake currency. As official statistics show, fake currency is just 0.0025 per cent of the total valid notes in circulation—400 crores out of a total of 16 or so lakh crores.
In fact, the bean-counters in the Union (…)

- 2016