Kashmir is a year-round destination with each season showcasing a different facet of the valley. Gustasp and Jeroo Irani, who are uabashed Kashmir lovers visit the valley in winter, when snow-cuddled mountains and valleys and half frozen lakes and rivers take centre stage. For many decades, the Vale of Kashmir has played hard to get; a fickle lover that sometimes beckons and at other times, petulantly turns away from the beloved. We are unabashed Kashmir lovers. We yearn periodically for a sight of its flower-spangled green meadows and the snowwhipped Himalayas and are overcome by the desire to hoist its…
Author: oiop
Baba Amte was a messiah for the people struck with leprosy. He served them till his last breath.One India One People Foundation salutes the spirit and achievements of six ordinary people who have changed the lives of aam aadmi. Baba Amte’s was a one man crusade. At a time when leprosy was considered God’s wrath and the affected people thrown on the roads and shunned, Murlidhar Devidas Amte picked them up, cared for them and cured them. Slowly and steadily he had followers, helpers and worshippers. His social work extended beyond the leprosy affected to the poor and downtrodden, the…
With the change in the political scenario, C V Aravind says that to remain in power, money and muscle power will have to take a backseat, and candidates for elections will have to be selected carefully, and winnability might no longer be the sole criterion. The stunning debut of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the latest entrant in the country’s political firmament in the elections to the Delhi assembly where it has since assumed power with the tacit support of the Congress, has come as a bolt from the blue for both the national parties, the BJP and the Congress,…
In the first in our series on Indian classical dance, noted dancer and academic, Dr. Kanak Rele classifies the various dance styles and explains the meaning of the many techniques used to convey a theme, mood or idea in this time-space art. Dancing in its widest sense is the personalised human reaction to the appeal of a general rhythm which marks not only human life but the universe. Dancing is an arrangement or pattern in space, as architecture and painting and sculpture are, and employs spacial rhythm. And like music, it is an arrangement in time employing rhythm. Thus dance…
Prof. P.M. Kamath uncovers the Aam Aadmi Party by looking at its strengths and weakness and puts forward a valid argument of whether or not the party will be a national player. As long as it was Anna Hazare, campaigning against rampant corruption involved at all levels of government administration in states and at the Federal level in addition to corruption within political class, I had actively supported the anti-corruption movement. But once Arvind Kejriwal broke away with Anna, and turned his supporters into an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), I am a little skeptical about the fate of AAP! This…
While pointing out that India-US bilateral relationship is too vital for both sides to allow incidents such as the recent Devyani Khobragade episode to vitiate the atmosphere, Dr. B. Ramesh Babu, contends that the archaic legacy of diplomatic immunities between the nations need a critical re-evaluation and re-tooling in tune with the transformational changes sweeping the world in the era of globalisation. Devyani of the Indian Consulate in New York, unlike the daughter of Shukracharya, and the wife of the great sage Yayati, has become widely known in our country overnight for all the wrong reasons. Understandably, the unedifying episode…
Torchbearer of gender justice (1927-2013) Dr. Lotika Sarkar who played a central role in several path-breaking and crucial legislations for gender justice and empowerment of women during 1975-2005, passed away at the age of 86 on 23 February 2013. In the women’s rights movement, she was known as Lotikadee. When other stalwarts of women’s studies touched our hearts with inspirational speeches at women’s movement gathering, Lotikadee floored us with her legal acumen. She was the first Indian woman to graduate from Cambridge. Lotikadee was at the peak of her career, when she was asked to join the Committee on Status…
With adventure sport tourism on a steep incline, Akul Tripathi embarks on a quest to understand the ones emerging in India and the best places to experience them. He finds options galore and a bright future for all adrenaline junkies. It was not so long ago, that that one of our desperate ancestors risked his life and limb and the future of the small troop which called him their leader when he attempted to climb over a sheer rock face to scale the heights of what was considered an insurmountable peak. His goal – to breach the mountain range and…
Pushpa Achanta meets Malleswari and Lakshmidevamma, two enterprising farmers from Cuddapah in Andhra Pradesh, who are not only practicing organic farming but are also educating others about natural ways of farming. In the process, what they have gained is a new found empowerment through financial independence. Do you consider agriculture in India a male occupation? Think again. The fact is that 79 per cent of working women are agricultural workers. Yet, because women are still seen as labourers rather than farmers – only nine per cent own land – they are not considered as farmers. But change is taking place.…
MAHATMA Gandhi used to get not only fan mail but a lot of hate mail too. One day he received a long abusive letter from a man he hardly knew. The letter ran into five pages and they had been put together with a pin. When Gandhiji had finished reading the letter, he took out the pin, carefully kept it on his table and threw the pages into the waste-paper basket. A visitor who was sitting there asked him why he had taken out the pin. “It was the only useful thing in the letter”, replied Gandhiji, quietly.