Bappa-An emotion!
By: Shalini Sinha In India, festivals are the one thing that unite all castes, genders, races and classes. Festival week is the true mirror to the saying ‘unity in diversity’. One of such festivals is Ganesh Chathurthi. Ganesh Chaturthi is a 10 day long Hindu festival, celebrating the birth of the Hindu god, lord Ganesh. […]
If alive, Manto would have been in trouble: Nandita Das
Director of the film Manto feels the urgent need to infect younger generations with the writer's spirit
By: Bharati K. Dubey Making Manto was tough for Nandita Das. But the actor-director persisted because she was motivated to spread awareness about ‘Mantoyiat’ – the desire to be fearless and speak the truth. Das has thought deeply about what would have happened if Saadat Hasan Manto, who captured the anguish of Partition, was alive […]
DISCOURSE: PORTRAITS FOR POSTERITY
The rise of photography dealt a blow to the painted image. How changes in art, politics and the cultural environment filter into official portraits
By: Salwat Ali The venerable tradition of painting official portraits is well past its glory days but official representations of leaders still tend to be in the most traditional of forms — oil paintings on canvas in gilded frames, though evolving stylisations can spring surprises. For centuries, this category of portrait painting was a flourishing […]
Fascism Book review: You Want It Darker
A well-compiled handbook that provides a warning about the deteriorating state of democracy across the the globe
By: Sushant Singh Fascism is back in fashion, at least the political term is back in public discourse in a big way. It was used by the Pune police recently, rather ironically, to justify to the court the arrest of activists and social workers. As India moves towards election season, that is not the last […]
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk – the entire cosmic catastrophe
An astonishing amalgam of murder mystery, dark feminist comedy and paean to William Blake from the Polish winner of the 2018 International Man Booker prize
By: Sarah Perry Olga Tokarczuk, whose 2007 novel Flights was awarded the International Man Booker in 2018, is a figure of considerable stature and controversy in her native Poland. An outspoken feminist and public intellectual, she has been castigated as a targowiczanin: an ancient term for a traitor. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of […]
Fiction for older children reviews – many happy book returns
With a host of popular characters back this autumn, picking up from where you left off has rarely been more fun
By: Kitty Empire It’s easy to be sniffy about franchises, especially when they absorb all oxygen and shelf space. But there is such pleasure in catching up with characters in which you are invested. Returnees stud this autumn’s books calendar – few bigger than Jacqueline Wilson, whose most famous creation, care-home rebel Tracy Beaker, is […]
The Beauty Of All My Days review: Tales from a life
Ruskin Bond on impulses that shaped his literary endeavours
By: K.C. Vijaya Kumar Ruskin Bond finds joy in the small things. It could be a flowering shrub near a brook; a crow taking a swig from his beer; or just the mist swirling into his cottage at Landour, up in the Himalayas. Bond loves these vignettes and he has a way with words that […]
God Save The Hon’ble Supreme Court review: Put on notice
Why Supreme Court quarrels must be resolved within its walls
By: Krishnadas Rajagopal Senior advocate Fali S. Nariman’s God Save the Hon’ble Supreme Court is a reminder that the institution of the Supreme Court of India is cast in stone, permanent. The judges, men and women, who occupy the institution are but birds of passage. They come and they go. However, their frailties, ego, collegiality […]
ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS IN J & K: AN ISSUE OF GRAVE CONCERN
Road safety knowledge and awareness should be disseminated amongst the population through education, training and publicity campaigns.
By: Dr.Tasaduk Hussain Itoo Road traffic accidents are an outcome of the interplay of various factors, some of which are the length of road network, vehicle population, human population and adherence/enforcement of road safety regulations etc. Road accident causes injuries, fatalities, disabilities and hospitalization with severe socio economic costs across the country. Consequently, road safety […]
Vox popli: Hike in fuel prices and its impact on the masses
Every morning one wakes up to a plethora of news and the talk about the prices of petrol and diesel have become a routine discussion. Without any doubt, the prices have risen to their highest compared to the earlier years even when the price of crude oil, a major ingredient in the production of domestic […]
