Culture & Heritage
7 min read
12

Book Review: ‘Toward Eternity’ sees Celebrated Translator Anton Hur Coming into his Own As a Writer

November 21, 2024
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In physics, singularity is the point where known physical laws break down and predictions become impossible. The Big Bang theory suggests our universe emerged from such a singularity. That is an infinitely dense, hot point which expanded and cooled. At this moment, conventional concepts of time and space lose meaning.

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Culture & Heritage
5 min read
42

Booker Prize 2024: British Writer Samantha Harvey Wins For Space Novel ‘Orbital’

November 13, 2024
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Samantha Harvey poses with the trophy and her book Orbital after winning the Booker Prize award 2024, in London, on November 12, 2024.  | Photo Credit: AP British writer Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for fiction on November 12 with Orbital, a short, wonder-filled novel set aboard the International

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Culture & Heritage
5 min read
34

Manoj Mitra (1938-2014), the Doyen of Bengali Stage and Screen, Passes Away

November 13, 2024
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Manoj Mitra was equally at home writing a hundred plays, teaching philosophy at university, performing in folk theatre or acting with his expressive eyes for Satyajit Ray and Tapan Sinha | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement When Banchharamer Bagaan (The Garden of Banchharam), Tapan Sinha’s dark-comic masterpiece, was released in

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Culture & Heritage
4 min read
44

Book Review: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ New Book Reminds America of its Complicity in the Ongoing Massacre in Palestine

November 12, 2024
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Outgoing US President Joe Biden with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, on September 20, 2023. | Photo Credit: Susan Walsh/AP As demonstrated by Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2015 and is a must-read for anyone who wants to

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Culture & Heritage
7 min read
49

Epic Cop-Out: The Flawed Heroism of Rohit Shetty’s Singham Again

November 11, 2024
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The rot at the heart of Rohit Shetty’s Singham Again is not what you think it is. It is not the tired plotting, the exhausted acting, the cameos that stack up like a house of cards that should have toppled tiers ago, the repetitive direction, or even the forceful, joyless retracing of

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Culture & Heritage
13 min read
45

Why Anti-Hindi Protests Shaped Tamil Politics For 60 Years – And Still Matter Today

November 11, 2024
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The 1960s were a time of student uprisings across the world. Militant socialist students in Europe, especially in France and West Germany, staged protests with the aim of bringing about revolutions in their countries. Anti-war students and “hippies” in the US opposed the military intervention in Vietnam. There were student

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Culture & Heritage
10 min read
48

Shibpur Botanical Garden Crisis: Great Banyan Tree, Heritage Under Threat from Climate Change, Urban Sprawl

November 10, 2024
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On October 25, the severe cyclonic storm Dana struck the eastern coast of India, bringing torrential rain and high-velocity winds that uprooted trees and electric poles in Odisha and West Bengal. It brought back memories of Cyclone Amphan, which caused massive damage in 2020. West Bengal’s Shibpur botanical garden, one

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Culture & Heritage
8 min read
64

From People’s Festival to State Spectacle: Delhi’s Phool Walon Ki Sair Loses Its Grassroots Soul

November 2, 2024
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“Phool Walon Ki Sair is not just a festival; it is a testament to Delhi’s Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb,” said Delhi’s Chief Minister Atishi on October 26 speaking at the closing night of the festival at Lodhi-era Jahaz Mahal, Mehrauli. Held on the cusp of winter each year, the Phool Walon Ki

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Culture & Heritage
6 min read
54

Cacophony of Democracy: A Reflection on Safdar Hashmi’s Legacy

October 29, 2024
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Safdar Hashmi in “Aya Chunav”, Janam’s first political play performed in Hissar, Haryana, in 1981.  | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is

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Culture & Heritage
19 min read
44

Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and the Golden Age of Indian English Literature

October 29, 2024
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In the summer of 1997, a gathering of 10 leading Indian novelists was “herded” into a small New York studio for a group photograph. The New Yorker was putting together a special issue to celebrate India’s golden jubilee—its 50 years of Independence from British rule—and this photograph was to be the centrepiece

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