US' Indian Ocean base to Remain
by Harish ChandelaThe major American naval and air base in the Indian Ocean at Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago is unlikely to shut down, in spite of the International Court of Justice cancelling...
View ArticleBeware of the Ides of March
COMMUNICATIONThe editorial comments on the Christchurch carnage [Mainstream, March 23, 2019] were indeed very apt and appreciable. The promptness and fortitude displayed by the New Zealand Prime...
View ArticleLetter from Prof C.H. Hanumantha Rao
The following is a letter from Prof C.H. Hanumantha Rao as a response to a request from the Mainstream editor to throw some light on the economic content of Indira Gandhi's Garibi Hatao slogan in 1971...
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Polling Process Starts, SC Ruling on Rafale}
EDITORIALThe first phase of polling in the seven-phase 17th Lok Sabha elections today across 20 States and Union Territories has witnessed sporadic violence with police firing in Nawada (Bihar) while...
View ArticleHas ‘Development' Ever Been Benign?: From the Perspective of the Last Person
BOOK REVIEWClose Encounters of Another Kind: Women and Development Economics by Devki Jain; New Delhi: Sage/Yoda Press; pp. xxv+398; Rs 1095.The book under review is by an influential economist who has...
View ArticleTowards Lenin's 150th Birth Anniversary
The world is to celebrate Lenin's 150th birth anniversary next year. It is an occasion to learn from the epoch-making contributions of this giant of an intellectual and practitioner of revolution....
View ArticleRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Mahatma
by Irfan EngineerManmohan Vaidya, the Joint General Secretary of the RSS, puts in a herculean effort through his article —“The Mahatma and the Sangh” (The Indian Express— April 12, 2019) to seek wider...
View ArticleWhatsApp Democracy comes to India !
by L.K. SharmaThe expanding virtual universe of the 21st century began by featuring intimate personal relations among human beings, replacing face-to-face contact with Facebook messages. In this world,...
View ArticleA Primer on the Business of Corrupt Governance
by R. KhoslaOn independence we gave ourselves a Constitution. The Constitution was to provide us the framework of governance. It created the judiciary and everything else that is required for the...
View ArticleCandidates with Cases of Crime against Women
MUSINGSDon't know your reactions when you saw Dharmendra going about in Uttar Pradesh, campaigning for his wife, Hema Malini. A rather hopeless sight, to see this ageing actor fly down from Mumbai for...
View ArticleRemembering Justice Rajindar Sachar on his First Death Anniversary
by Prem SinghToday (April 20, 2019) is the first death anniversary of Justice Rajindar Sachar—a socialist visionary, a judge par excellence, a true secular democrat, an unrelenting human rights and...
View ArticleWhy BJP Seeks to Discredit Nehru and Family
by Mahendra VedNehru is the BJP's principal target because he not only ‘discovered' India but also piloted what free India became for 16 long yearsA cartoon doing media rounds amidst the Election 2019...
View ArticleTrust Level Down, Cash Is King
IMPRESSIONSThe wonder that is Indian elections is losing some of its wonderness. Statistically of course it remains a marvel—880 million voters (total US population is 328 million), 11 million election...
View ArticleWhat was at Stake in the 2006/2008 Malegaon Terror Attacks?
by Mustafa KhanIt was a colossal risk when the two Malegaon terror attacks took place. Israel had asked the Abhinav Bharat of Lt Col Purohit of the Indian Army to provide two such attacks to prove the...
View ArticleBJP's Dangerous Politics
From N.C.'s WritingsOne of my earliest reporting experiences was the great Calcutta killing of 1946. Fierce communal passions were unleashed and thousands were done to death on both sides in the course...
View ArticleBJP's ‘Nationalism' Sounds Hollow Slogan-shouting
by Samit KarThe Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and several of its frontal organisations like the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), RSS, Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have always tried to play the...
View ArticleSigns of Desperation
The BJP leaders, from the Prime Minister downward, are showing signs of desperation. Their campaign speeches are not only becoming more raucous but also ribald. Truth to say, facing such attacks...
View ArticleMilitant Nationalism rears its head in Lanka
A senior Sri Lankan Minister suggested to The Guardian that the coordinated bomb attacks on Easter Sunday on churches and five-star resorts on the main drag of Colombo and targets outside the capital...
View ArticleSri Lanka: The Mayhem and After
On Easter Sunday (April 21, 2019) coordinated terror attacks in Sri Lanka, as many as eight in number over a few hours, have managed to leave behind more confusion than such incidents usually cause in...
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Beyond Poll Rhetoric
EDITORIALAs we go to press, Varanasi is witnessing a mega road-show of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the temple town before the Ganga arati in the evening; the PM will file his nomination for the Lok...
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