Can The Real Syama Prasad Mookerjee Ever Stand Up?
It has been more than two years that A.G. Noorani's important book Article 370 : A Constitutional History of J and K' (OUP, 2011, pages 480) has hit the stands and been able to clear many a confusion...
View ArticleMiscalculations of the Coronation
The applauses and celebrations at the BJP National Executive meeting at Goa indeed sent vibrations throughout the nation as the polity gears up for the 2014 elections. Right from the conspicuous...
View ArticleInsanity Enthroned
From N.C.'s WritingsAfter forty years of the foundation of our independent republic, the Frankenstein has appeared again—the monster that is out to destroy democracy and plunge this nation into civil...
View ArticleFarmers' Crisis in India and Urgency of Remedial Action
I. IntroductionNearly two-thirds of the people in India are involved with agriculture and related liveli-hoods to a lesser or greater extent—either as cultivators of self-owned land, landowners,...
View ArticleEdward Snowden's Case and UN's Shame
by Suhas ChakmaAs the United States continues its relentless campaign to block whistleblower Edward Snowden's attempts to seek asylum that went to the extent of disgraceful denial of air-space to...
View ArticleThe Importance of Being Ishrat
Who was Ishrat Jahan? In 2009, S.P. Tamang, Metropolitan Magistrate, Ahmedabad, described her in the report of his judicial enquiry as a “loving daughter and caring sister” who worked hard to support...
View ArticleTalking to the Taliban
The proposed talks with the Taliban on the future dispensation in Afghanistan appeared to be teetering close to the brink on June 22 when Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai announced in Kabul that his...
View ArticleA Bid to Dilute Kashmir's Status
It is once again Article 370 on the special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Again the BJP has thrown the first stone. The party's top leader, L.K. Advani, has said that the Article should be scrapped....
View ArticleCollapse of the Rupee and the Neoliberal Response
by Krishnakumar S.In the background of the falling rupee, there has been a series of articles in the financial press by economists and policy-advisers of the neoliberal persuasion, making a strong case...
View ArticleBodhgaya, Sleaze, Judicial Pronouncements
Even though as many as 769 villages still remain cut off with restoration of road connectivity that had been severely affected by the landslides during the disaster and telecommunication cables snapped...
View ArticleOn the Severe Enviromental Disaster at Badrinath Shrine in Uttarakhand
COMMUNICATIONRecently there has been a very severe disaster in the State of UttaraKhand in the northern part of India. This region had been in controversy for over a decade due to the construction of...
View ArticleMistrust, thy Name is Politics
In the penultimate year of nearly one-decade rule by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, I find the biggest casualty is the people's confidence in political parties, particularly the ruling...
View ArticleUttarakhand Disaster: Development at What Cost?
The devastating fury unleashed in the form of heavy rains, cloudburst, landslides and flash floods in Uttarakhand have taken a heavy toll on human lives and property. Thousands have been devastated and...
View ArticleWhistleblower for a Public Cause: Edward Snowden
One must admire and appreciate Edward Joseph Snowden, the 30-year-old former American technical contractor and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee who worked as a contractor for the National...
View ArticleSitting in Awe of the West
MUSINGSDevelopment! Are we a developed lot? What development are we talking about, when there's destruction spreading around. Not just along the hills and mountains, but in our very psyches. Suicides...
View ArticleBodhgaya Bomb Blasts: Moving beyond the ‘Usual Suspects'
IEncore! Mr Praveen Swamy has ‘discovered' the ‘usual suspects' once again. Narrating “[t]he same old, depressing story of incompetence and apathy” behind the Bodh-gaya bombings, he has shared with the...
View ArticleAn Apology
We sincerely apologise for a highly serious mistake which has occurred in the July 6, 2013 issue of Mainstream. The article, “Don't belittle the Army, Mr Rambo-Nambo” (which also figures in the select...
View ArticleJudicial Activism, Right or Wrong
From N.C.'s WritingsWhen politicians as a community are in a state of siege in the eyes of the public, it is extremely short-sighted on the part of any government to make any move that may appear to...
View ArticleEmergency of 1975 and the Judiciary
Nations which do not remember their immediate past are in danger of repeating the same tragedy. This thought came to me on June 26, 2013 (the Emergency day of 1975) when on random questioning of young...
View ArticleA Recipe for Insurgency or Revolt?
EDITORIALHowsoever much Gujarat CM Narendra Modi is able to inspire rank-and-file BJP cadres, steeped in the Hindutva mindset, the fact is that the person who was recently appointed the chief of the...
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