This historic expedition, the first of its kind, marks a significant milestone in India’s maritime history.
I claim Tagore and Iqbal. I claim the music of Lata Mangeshkar and Mehdi Hassan.I claim the shared cultural inheritance of South Asia in all its richness and contradictions. History divided states. It could not divide memory. The food we eat, the stories we tell, the languages we speak, and the melodies that move us still carry echoes of a shared past.
It does not ask anyone to abandon their religion. A Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jew, or secular humanist can walk the path of Dharma without contradiction. Dharma is not a replacement for religion. It is a shared ethical foundation beneath all religions — the ground on which they all, at their best, already stand.
Inspired by the Jaipur Lit Fest, Pakistan’s first literary festival took place in the country’s largest city Karachi in 2010. Subsequently replicated in Lahore and Islamabad, such festivals now take place around the country, from the agricultural and industrial hub of Faisalabad, formerly Lyallpur, to the port city of Gwadar on the Balochistan coast.
While the overall picture is depressing, Ramaswami also describes hopeful strands within the social fabric of workers’ lives such as the mutual support and 'bhaichara' (fellowship) between men across ethnic, religious and caste boundaries that become more fluid within the city. The inter-religious and inter-caste ties forged between workers can be seen as small glimmers of hope in the context of the rising tide of Hindutva politics over the past decades.
This historic expedition, the first of its kind, marks a significant milestone in India’s maritime history.
Quite a few years ago I had given a lecture at my alma mater IIT Kanpur. I asked the students if I had the power to grant them a US green card how many would like to migrate. In the auditorium of around 200 students most raised their hands. This pursuit of excellence can be helped by the constant exposure of students to lectures by achievers. Students at an impressionable age once inspired can do wonders in later life.
We must also insulate enterprises from pressure and extortion by local power elites, which adversely distorts factory pricing and ultimately adds a burden to the consumer price. This will also enable enterprises to maintain healthy returns within the fixed MRP system, especially for FMCG
Despite all my patriotic feelings, I do not recommend a visit to Kashmir. It is ill-organized and ill-prepared to receive the rush of tourists. It lacks elementary infrastructure, basic amenities, and essential facilities at present. Worse, the tourists are always at the mercy of the local mafia.
This production of matter, life forms and galaxies will keep on happening till the space is “exhausted”, and then the cycle reverses which will finally lead to time and space coming into equilibrium. This is the eternal Brahmakala cycle where all life is destroyed at its end.
As someone from Karachi, where heritage and culture find little importance and are often forgotten, where the metropolis pushes the seashore backward, the Sri Lankan experience felt surreal. The land of Ridi Vihare held impeccable beauty and gave us much to learn and take back.
The ‘peacemongers’ vowed to not only continue talking to each other, but to continue talking until they achieve their dream, their Sapan, of a South Asia with soft borders, or at least, ease of visas.
The common theme is a tilting of truth and in most cases glorification of Hindu nationalist icons. The clever undermining of truth and building up of ‘fiction as fact’ is the underlying theme of most of these films.
Attention must also be paid to the changing structural dynamics within South Asia where countries (including Bangladesh) are increasingly working with each other, moving away from a primarily India-driven engagement within the neighbourhood.
"Gandi Baat" serves as a microcosm of a larger issue within popular culture, normalizing the silencing of female voices and perpetuating harmful behaviors.
The postcards from Jamnagar frame some other stories that have emerged as a theme in the 'New India'. These are stories of unrivalled pomp and power, of material riches beyond compare, of an elite space where forces work differently from the way they work elsewhere on the planet.
Everywhere I went I was greeted with great warmth and hospitality. It is a symbol of the decades-long ‘Enduring Friendship’ between the peoples of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
My passion was to strengthen SAARC, and I strongly felt that Rao’s decision was not appropriate.
For diaspora Indians around the world, Udhas became an emblem of their pining for their home back in India with his 1986 raging hit “Chitthi Aayi Hai” from the movie ‘Naam’, written by Anand Bakshi and composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal.
The mainstream Indian media, a section of which has mostly been a subject of the nationalist government’s monopolistic control, has often served the ends of the dominant elite