December 22, 2007 - Annual Number 2007

ANNUAL 2007

MAINSTREAM
 VOL XLVI No 1 New Delhi December 22, 2007

This leprous daybreak, dawn night’s fangs have mangled,
 This is not that long-looked-for break of day,
 Not that clear dawn in quest of which our comrades
 Set out, believing that in heaven’s wide void
 Somewhere must be the stars’ last halting-place,
 Somewhere the verge of night’s slow-washing tide,
 Somewhere the anchorage of the ship of sorrow.

When they set out, those friends, taking youth’s secret
 Pathways, how many hands plucked at their sleeves!
 From panting casements of the land of beauty
 Soft arms invoked them, flesh cried out to them;
 But dearer was the lure of dawn’s bright cheek,
 More precious shone her robe of shimmering rays;
 Light-winged their longing, feather-light their toil.
 But now, word goes, the birth of day from darkness
 Is finished, wandering feet stand at their goal;
 Our leaders’ ways are altering, festive looks
 Are all the fashion, discontent reproved.
 Yet still no physic works on unslaked eye
 Or heart fevered by absence, any cure:
 Where did that fine breeze, that the wayside lamp
 Has not once felt, blow from—where has it fled?
 Night’s heaviness is unlessened still, the hour
 Of mind and spirit’s ransom has not struck;
 Let us go on, our goal is not reached yet.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

MAINSTREAM COMPLETES 45 YEARS

Mainstream Annual 2007

Contents

8 EDITORIAL : Ray of hope
-S.C.
 10 Urgent Need to Mend Fences with Iran
-Mansoor Ali
 11 Swaraj—Unto the Last : A Patriotic Thought
-V.R. Krishna Iyer
-From N.C.’s Writings
 13 The Road Ahead
 15 Nuclear Deal : USA’s Game Plan and GOI’s Abject Surrender
-Sailendra Nath Ghosh
-From Mainstream Files
 19 Remembering S.V. Ghate
-P.C. Joshi
 21 Violence and Our Youth
-Hiren Mukerjee
 24 WOMEN’S WORLD : Re-imagining Women in Islam
-Syeda Hameed
 29 Taslima Nasreen’s Agony Must Come to an End
-Muchkund Dubey
 33 Abduction Simpliciter!
-D. Bandyopadhyay
 36 Taslima Issue in Perspective
-Amitava Mukherjee
 37 P.C. Joshi : A Political Journey
-Bipan Chandra
 49 Pakistan : Re-emergence of Nawaz Sharif
-M.K. Bhadrakumar
 53 MUSINGS : Please, No Ecstasy for Pakistan’s Agony
-Som Benegal
 54 Nandigram : Another Symbol of Challenge to Democracy in India
-Arun Kumar
 59 Questions that beg Answers from the CPI-M
-Surendra Mohan
 61 In the Wake of Nandigram
-Sunanda Sanyal
 63 Nandigram : The Gujarat of Sonar Bangla
-Suvrokamal Dutta
 65 Bihar’s Manmade Woes
-Shree Shankar Sharan
 67 Is the Cult of Non-Violence opposed to the Fight against the Culture of Tyranny, Injustice, Oppression and Exploitation?
-Lakshmidhar Mishra
 77 BOOK REVIEW : On Socialism and its Version as Practised in China Today
-Priyadarshi Mukherji
 79 US Exaggeration of Iran’s Ballistic Missile Threat
-Neha Kumar
 81 DISCUSSION : Need to Redefine Socialism after the Collapse of the Soviet Union
-Chaturanan Mishra
 84 The Centenarian Alvas
-G.S. Bhargava
 85 National AIDS Control Programme-Phase III : A Socio-Political Disaster in the Making
-Rami Chhabra
 99 Implications of Plutonomy
-Girish Mishra
 101 Bundelkhand: Is the Journey from Despair to Hope Possible?
-Bharat Dogra
 105 On 150th Anniversary of 1857 Revolt : Sepoy Mutiny and Indian Patriotism
-A.K. Biswas
 109 Did India let down Aung San Suu Kyi?
-Urvashi Dhamija
 110 IMPRESSIONS: We are Politically Correct—for What?
-T.J.S.George
 111 Barriers to Historical Research—Restrictive Accessibility to Public Records
-A.K. Dasgupta
 114 COMMUNICATION: On Rabindranath’s Prasna and Nandigram Events

Readers, Please Note...
 This Annual Number being more than three times the size of an ordinary number, the next issue of Mainstream will appear on January 26, 2008 as the Republic Day Special. —Editor