Prepared New
I’ve been asking myself if one can ever ‘be prepared’ for the death of someone close. Rationally, it only needs some effort to get used to the idea that everyone is always dying, that the process is as inevitable as it is undesired. More... |
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Letter from Dhaka: Year of the rats New
The bamboo has flowered, rats have invaded the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The indigenous people here are suffering severe food shortages. Around 600,000 have left their homes in search of food More... |
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Technology that people can appropriate is truly appropriate technology New
Deccan Development Society’s community media project has put the video camera in the hands of 20 poor, dalit women. The camera has empowered them in unimaginable ways More... |
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Letter from Dhaka: a fishing tale
Khademul Islam begins a series of occasional “Letter from Dhaka” by talking about the battle over water rights in the Sylhet region and mourning the loss of tales of valour and resistance. More... |
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On the tiger trail
As the number of existing tigers continue to be in dispute, Tarsh Thekaekara takes part in a tiger census to see how it’s done More... |
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| Young minds: Culture, history and fundamentalism More... |
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| Literature: The Urdu scene More... |
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| On reading Kolhatkar in Dhaka More... |
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In Search of Water: Interview with filmmaker Shekhar Kapur More...
“The interview was published on India Water Portal, www.indiawaterportal.org, a website dedicated to water issues” |
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| The Flavour of a New Year More... |
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| Why was the Scarlett Keeling murder interesting? More |
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| Vithabai’s daughters keep tamasha alive More |
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| Taare Zameen Par for adults, and for children More |
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| Crossing The Line More |
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| The Presence of a Uterus More |
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| In defence of political documentary More |
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| Granta scores a century, but what lies ahead? More |
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| Travelling with Graham Robb by Chandrahas Choudhury More |
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| The Voice of Revolution : Vijay Sai interviews balladeer-comrade, Gaddar More |
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Translation as Recognition
Indira Chowdhury on her complex engagement with a well-known Bengali text More |
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| Sharmistha Mohanty fiction writer and editor of the newly-launched literature web journal www.almostisland.com defends the need for a serious resistance to populism More |
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| National Film Award-winners protest to the President of India More |
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| Truth and Lies : Amar Jesani on the ethics of 'truth detection' techniques in police investigations More |
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Media and Terror
On how the print media defines and covers acts of terrorism More |
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“As if for the first time”
Sampurna Chattarji author of The Greatest Stories Ever Told (Penguin/Puffin 2004) on how received mythologies can become the stuff of vivid contemporary writing More |
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| Adil Jussawalla's verse narrative, 'War' More |
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| Poetry: Protest, Dissent and Subversion - Keki Daruwalla More |
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Leaving Babel At The Gates: Writers, Personas And Cyberspace - Sridala Swami
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What choice do trafficked women have?
Every woman in prostitution is forced into it, and therefore has to be forcibly rescued, says Dr Sunitha Krishnan, co-founder of the anti-trafficking organisation Prajwala, explaining her organisation’s strategies and the motivation for her work with abused and exploited women More |
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No poetry, no justice, no ideology
Renowned playwright, novelist and activist Vijay Tendulkar discusses the frightening dichotomies of our times More |
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No war but no peace, no violence but no harmony
Five years after the Gujarat riots, many victims are still struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives. Ignored by the Gujarat government and ostracised by the majority community, Muslims find themselves deprived of jobs, civic, medical and educational facilities, and even a future More |
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The Indian documentary has arrived
Till the early-1990s, the documentary film in India had a serious image problem. It was considered a big bore More |
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The Yamuna gently weeps - Film Review
Ruzbeh Bharucha's book and documentary film, Yamuna Gently Weeps, on Delhi's Yamuna Pushta slum demolition, is the story of faulty urban planning More |
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Playing God: The arbitrary nature of capital punishment
The Supreme Court has stated that the death penalty is to be awarded only in the rarest case of exceptional depravity and brutality. But human judgement, as several recent court cases have revealed, is totally subjective More |
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The Nobel for an idea
The Nobel Peace Prize for Mohammed Yunus of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh affirms the transformative potential of people's entrepreneurship and voluntary initiatives -- beyond the State and market – to alleviate poverty and advance human rights and social development More |
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No Direction Home
Martin Scorsese is uniquely placed to tackle the riddle of Bob Dylan More |
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| Blog blockade More |
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Sitting still is not an option!
A brief history of youth movements for social change More |
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Rang De Basanti - Film Review
(Dir: Rakyesh Mehra), Produced by Rakyesh Mehra, Ronnie Screwvala More |
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Free Speech & Fearless Listening
The encounter with censorship in South Asia More |
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Fundamentalisms and sexuality
Confronted with chaos, the fundamentalist believes that his role is to protect and defend his tradition, fighting back with absolutism and violence. The uncontrolled woman, the woman with rampant sexuality, the outsider, the migrant, is the most tangible symbol of chaos, and the easiest to control More |
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The 21st century politics of college clothing
The move to impose a dress code is a response to the anxieties that today, women will wear spaghetti straps to college, tomorrow they will have careers, the day after refuse to be chaste Indian women, the next week make love to the wrong kind of men, the next month declare they prefer women to men, and from there who knows what else More |
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Tricontinental Film Festival
The Portuguese word 'saudade' is a difficult one to translate exactly. It is a 'feeling of longing for something once loved, now gone, but to return in a distant future.' More |
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City of Photos
English, Bengali and Hindi with subtitles, 60 min, 2005,
Directed by Nishtha Jain
Produced by Raintree Films with support from India Foundation for the Arts and Jan Vrijman Fund More |
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Many People Many Desires
VCD, various languages and with English subtitles, 45 mins
Directed by T.Jayashree
Produced by Sangama, Bangalore
Benaqaab (Unmasked)
VCD, various languages and with English subtitles, 36 mins, 2002
Directed by Chalam Benakur
Produced by Touring Talkies and Sangram More |
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Shikhar - Film review
(Dir: John Mathew Matthan), Produced by Sanjoy Bhattcharjii
Once the shock of its maniacal velocity has passed, the visitor to Bombay might take a moment to note the city's profound ugliness More |
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The violence against women campaign: Where have we failed?
For 25 years women's rights advocates have been campaigning against violence against women. They have succeeded in changing the law, changing the stand of the judiciary. But have they succeeded in changing social attitudes, asks Flavia Agnes, lawyer and noted activist More |
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ON MY OWN
Directed by Anupama Srinivasan, (English, 29 mins, 2002)
Produced by PSBT More |
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Quaid-e-Azam Jinxed: Ban on Artistic Freedom
Asmita Art Group in Delhi was recently prevented from performing a play called “Jinnah” written by Dr. Narendra Mohan. Read more about the incident and register your protest More |
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Yes Sir, CENSOR!
So, tell me, why isn't everyone laughing?
The mess the Delhi Police created last week when it denied Asmita, a local theatre group, permission to stage its latest play Jinnah is just the kind of stupidity we'd find funny had it not been a long time coming More |
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Work in Progress
The delightful pun in the title of this film about the World Social Forum meet in Mumbai, India, in January 2004 is but the first of many good things, one of which is the way it was made. More |
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Black: Review
So, the big one has come and gone. In retrospect, is Black really going to change the face of Indian cinema as prominent public-relations-spokespersons-parading-as-journalists have claimed? More |
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The Rock Star and The Mullahs
As the religious right all over the world impinges upon cultural freedom, a BBC documentary follows rock star Salman Ahmed of the Pakistani band Junoon into northwest Pakistan, where the mullahs have banned and silenced all music as un-Islamic More |
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Supersize Me!
Morgan Spurlock’s Academy Award-nominated Supersize Me! demonstrates that junk food of the MacDonalds kind will cost us our health and sanity. But the film would have done well to go further and question consumerist economies, the manufacture of consent and the power of advertising More |
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Another interpreter of Indian maladies
Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found picks up, historically, where V S Naipaul left off -- with the post-Babri Masjid riots and bomb blasts of 1993. Mehta follows the same trajectory of trying to understand the lumpenisation of a great and throbbing metropolis
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E F Schumacher: The scale of wisdom
E F Schumacher's Buddhist approach to economics distinguishes between misery, sufficiency and surfeit. Economic growth is good only to the point of sufficiency. Limitless growth and limitless consumption are disastrous
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Living and dead monuments
Mumbai’s Victoria Terminus has been declared a World Heritage Site, joining the ranks of the Taj Mahal and Ajanta/Ellora. But VT as a monument has over 3 million commuters passing through it every day. That is a great danger, for unless people are aware of the heritage in their midst, it is hard to preserve it
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| Google-opoly: The wonder search engine's days of innocence are over
On the World Wide Web, Google is God. But increasingly, there are whispers of Google's arbitrariness, its inherent bias towards big players and its monopoly over Internet information dissemination More |
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An Attempt at Manufacturing Discontent
I came across something Noam Chomsky mentioned about the media that shifted my notions about my TV addiction. It became important for me personally; for as a 39 year-old, I was a member of the television generation More |
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Ajmer and Me
I undertook my first and only religious pilgrimage in a spirit of incomprehension and awe More |
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Modern ‘emperors' imperil monuments
The recent ruling by the Supreme Court that even an illegitimate child must take the caste of its father has led women's activists to protest the continuing inequalities in property, custody and guardianship law in India, all of which continue to be determined through male descent More |
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The first and last learners
If anybody knows about education for a sustainable future it's young Kelechütsü and Megozokho in Khonoma, Nagaland. They are free to learn as and what they will, without fear of examinations and admissions, with the freedom to experiment with a curriculum that reshapes itself every day More |
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Mathematics of Reservations More
Eyes, Ears And Minds Closed
Why is India's middle class so hostile to the empowerment of the poor? More
Say yes to affirmative action More
Pride and prejudice
The undemocratic spirit of the anti-reservation protests, the erroneous "merit" argument and the partisan media coverage capture a broader social malaise More
Supporting Reservation: ‘People for Social Justice'; IIT, Bombay More
Open letter to striking medicos More
Upper castes dominate national media, says survey in Delhi More
The 'merit' fallacy
India's 'merit'-obsessed discourse about affirmative action is an apology for hierarchy and privilege; it devalues competence, diversity and fairness More |
