Mainstream Weekly

Implications of the Majoritarian Offensive

SC — 2008-11-25T12:25:33Z

A week ago it was written in these columns:
The constituents of the Sangh Parivar have been overactive in ... stereotyping a specific minority community by going to the extent of even suggesting, sometimes overtly but mostly covertly, that terrorism in this country was basically the handiwork of members of that community. They also want POTA to be used against those whom they brand as terrorists. Today with the probe into the Malegaon blast of September 29 ... having exposed the role of (…)

- November 22, 2008

Sri Lanka: History Revisiting?

Apratim Mukarji — 2008-11-25T12:23:27Z

There was scarcely any surprise when the pro-rebel Tamilnet website of Sri Lanka accorded the pride of place in its news items on November 12 to the unanimous resolution adopted by the Tamil Nadu Assembly earlier, calling for a ceasefire in the island nation. Fighting a last-ditch battle for survival, the Tamil rebels and their supporters clutched at the Assembly resolution as one possible key to an eventual Indian intervention to save them from the relentless Sri Lankan military onslaught. (…)

- November 22, 2008

Free-Market Illusion and Global Financial Crisis

Kalim Siddiqui — 2008-11-25T12:20:03Z

The financial crisis facing the Wall Street is the worst since the Great Depression and will have a major impact on the US and global economy. The ongoing global financial crisis will have a ‘domino' effect and spill over all aspects of the economy. Due to the Western world's messianic faith in the market forces and deregulation, the market friendly governments have no choice but to step in.
The top five investment banks in the US have ceased to exist in their previous forms. Bears (…)

- November 22, 2008

Obama, The World Rejoices, But What Will You Do?

Badri Raina — 2008-11-25T11:59:31Z

Dear, dear Obama, You are a bright man, An upright man, A man above hate and recrimination, A just man whom suffering makes wince, Having suffered much— A man who means well by his people, Black, White and others, And by the world.
Your people did not give you victory Only because you are Black, But because they long for the return Of decency, peace, and prosperity.
Yet, you are to be now The executive head of a conglomerate That has inflicted much suffering Upon all parts of the world, (…)

- November 22, 2008

Understanding Obama's Victory

Arup Kumar Sen — 2008-11-25T11:58:44Z

Barack Hussein Obama made history by becoming the first African-American President to occupy the White House. In his victory speech at Chicago he hinted at a dialogic concept of democracy for resurrection of the dream of the Founders of the United States of America. He argued: “Our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.” In his tough journey he has promised to listen to voice of dissent:
The road ahead will be long. Our climb (…)

- November 22, 2008

America's Defining Moment

Uttam Sen — 2008-11-25T11:58:00Z

Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th and the first African-American President of the USA, is the son of a Kenyan father and White American mother from Kansas. He graduated from Harvard Law School and was a civil rights lawyer. Indian pundits on television were quick to point out that he had received a privileged upbringing and that his rise was not archetypically “Black”, and that he was likely to be a very conventional American President, probably garnering requisite White Anglo Saxon Protestant (…)

- November 22, 2008

From Slavery to the White House

N V K Murthy — 2008-11-25T11:56:51Z

November 4, 2008. This will indeed be a historic day for the United States of America. The citizens have emphatically voted to make Barack Obama the 44th President of the USA. It is as historic as the day when the Rev Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the freedom march in Washington D.C. in November 1964 and made his memorable “I-have-a-dream” speech. It is as historic as the day when the civil war ended which put slavery to rest. However, that was only as symbolic as the Indian Constitution (…)

- November 22, 2008

Watching History in Harlem

Sandipto Dasgupta — 2008-11-25T11:55:25Z

After he saw Napoleon march into Prussia after the Battle of Jena, an elated Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel wrote that he had seen history on horseback. Barack Obama is no Napoleon, and I am certainly no Hegel, but there is no way I can avoid the word “history” when describing what I saw Tuesday night (November 4) in Harlem.
From around 5 in the evening, long before any of the polls closed, people started gathering around the massive television screen set up a stone's throw away from the (…)

- November 22, 2008

Coming to Terms with Barack Obama

M K Bhadrakumar — 2008-11-25T11:54:01Z

A dichotomy is visible in the Indian reaction to the stunning victory of Barack Obama in the United States presidential election. The public opinion ranges from intense curiosity to a sense of participation. Obama's historic pole-vault over the great American racial divide caught public imagination. The government also did the right thing, promptly congratulating the President-elect.
But the death of US neo-conservatism has plunged our strategic community into confusion. Some fear that (…)

- November 22, 2008

Obama And The Euphoria: What India May Expect

A K Biswas — 2008-11-25T11:52:22Z

Years ago, I had read a four-line verse composed by a Black student of the United States of America, giving vent to his feelings and impressions of life around him. A teacher had asked students in a school to do it. That was in the tumultuous days of civil rights movement of the 1960s that heard Martin Luther King, Jr's “I-have-a-dream” speech, which took the world by a whirlwind. In this background, Patrick Tamayo, the teenager wrote: Step into my shoes, wear my skin, See what I see, feel (…)

- November 22, 2008