Mainstream Weekly

Thoughts on the eve of I-Day 2021

SC — 2021-08-13T20:26:40Z

We are again on the eve of another Independence Day, this time our 75th. On this auspicious occasion, our thoughts go back to our valiant fighters countless of whom had been martyrs while fighting the alien British rule that bound this nation and its people in colonial bondage for 250 years till its freedom, as an independent and sovereign country.
On that day, i.e. August 15, 1947, our first Independence Day Jawaharlal Nehru had as the first Prime Minister of this free nation declared: (…)

- 2021

Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Jan 2, 2021

SC — 2021-01-02T12:37:41Z

Letter to the Readers – Mainstream, Jan 2, 2021
Once again we have crossed the doorstep of a new year. The year that we leave behind was one with a difference. Since the time I was born in the mid-1940s, I have never experienced a year of such a grave pandemic as this year, 2020, that took a toll of so many lives. What will the new year, 2021, bring to us? Hope or catastrophe? That is the moot question today. The present does not hold any positive reply although we still hope for the best (…)

- 2021

PM on Corona Crisis, Gogoi in Rajya Sabha

SC — 2020-03-24T09:00:17Z

EDITORIAL
Shorn of any partisan approach the PM's address to the nation yesterday on the corona crisis across the country highlighting the need to comprehend in full measure the enormity of the danger before us was indeed welcome as he spoke, for once, as the PM of the entire nation, a task he has seldom performed with the desired effect. On March 19 he spoke like a national leader underscoring the words “sankalp” (resolve) and “sayyam” (restraint), most necessary in the prevailing (…)

- 2020

Tackling the Multi-dimensional Crisis

SC — 2020-03-09T15:23:11Z

EDITORIAL
As we go to press, news has come of a major crisis having hit another bank, the Yes Bank. The RBI Governor has disclosed that those having accounts in the bank would be able to withdraw a maximum of Rs 50,000 at present. He has also assured the public that prompt steps were being taken to tackle the crisis which would be overcome within thirty days. However, after the experience with the PMC Bank these promises carry virtually no weight whatsoever. In the midst of this (…)

- 2020

Perspective from Shaheen Bagh

SC — 2020-02-28T08:42:13Z

EDITORIAL
As we go to press today, the situation at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh remains extremely fluid. The country's Apex Court had sent interlocutors to Shaheen Bagh to discuss with the protesters there and get their consent to allow traffic movement to distant places that had been blocked for 69 days, that is, since the Shaheen Bagh protest against the Citizens Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) had begun. In fact this morning itself one of the roads supposed to have (…)

- 2020

Mass Resistance to Majoritarian Onslaught

SC — 2020-01-27T10:24:00Z

As we approach the seventieth anniversary of the declaration of the Indian Republic on January 26, our thoughts go back to the words of our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in his message to the nation on our first Republic Day on January 26, 1950.
On that day, Nehru had observed:
“There is a peculiar appropriateness about this January 26, for this day links up the past with the present and this present is seen to grow out of that past. Twenty years ago we took the first pledge of (…)

- 2020

Facing the Challenge

SC — 2019-12-21T20:14:11Z

EDITORIAL
With this Annual Number Mainstream enters the fiftyeighth year of its modest existence having completed fiftyseven eventful years. At this juncture alongside the country as a whole it too is experiencing a massive attack on the values that had inspired us since the days of our freedom struggle and which continue to do so as they are highlighted in the most precious document we gave ourselves in less than three years following our emancipation from alien rule, that is, the (…)

- 2019

Dividing the Nation on Communal Lines

SC — 2019-12-08T21:52:24Z

EDITORIAL
Today is December 5, 2019. Four months ago, on August 5, 2019 the Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution were revoked and severe restrictions were imposed on Kashmir and Kashmiris residing in the Valley which was subjugated with the massive deployment of security forces while the J&K State was turned into two Union Territories—those of J&K and Ladakh which were both brought under Centre Rule. For the last several weeks the Centre has been claiming that normalcy has (…)

- 2019

Weakening the Bonds

SC — 2019-11-05T22:57:13Z

EDITORIAL
Today is October 31, 2019. It is being observed as the

- 2019

No Compromise with Hindu Majoritarianism

SC — 2019-10-20T09:15:50Z

EDITORIAL
Is it the final nail in the coffin of secular India? In the campaign for the State Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana (which are to take place on October 21) PM Narendra Modi has vigorously advocated that Veer Savarkar should get the country's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna.
Who was Veer Savarkar, after all? No doubt he was incarcerated in the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands in the 1900s by the British. One recalls that in one's childhood one was (…)

- 2019