South Asia Citizens Web

By and large the film industry everywhere is a dedicated supporter of the political establishment; Bollywood, more than a manifestation of the pan-Indian cultural industry, takes the cake.

It is with great sorrow that I write of the death of Sri Lanka’s greatest film director Lester James Peries! The doyen of Sinhala cinema who celebrated his 99th birthday on April 5th passed away at a private hospital in Colombo on Sunday April 29th 2018.

In the past few weeks, ATMs across India have gone cashless, bringing back nightmares of the cash crunch during demonetisation. Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur and Telangana are some of the states that have experienced severe cash crunch during this period. The worst affected by the cash crunch is the informal sector.

The principle of the secular state is one of the core principles of the Indian Constitution. This means that an individual has the right to choose his/her religion but the government should always keep its distance from religious affairs.

The exchange of banters between the outgoing veteran Congress MP Renuka Chaudhury and India’s Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu in the Rajya Sabha, during the ceremony to bid farewell to her and other retiring MPs , has taken an ugly turn. In her farewell speech Renuka Chaudhury while addressing Naidu (who is also the Rajya Sabha Chairman), in a self-deprecating humorous vein poked fun at her own girth saying: “Sir, many people worry about my weight, but in this job (of politics), you need to throw your weight around.” To this, Naidu replied: “…reduce your weight and make efforts to increase the weight of your party.” Now, if this banter between the two – both of whom having known each other for many years despite their political differences – took place in the private surroundings of a lunch or dinner party in the capital, where such slanging jests are quite common, it would have been laughed off, and ignored by the media.

But once such a badinage is transported to the public arena of Parliament, or political rallies, it assumes a different dimension, particularly from the viewpoint of women, who quite understandably feel insulted by the misogynist comments and anti-women slurs made by ministers, MPs, political leaders (irrespective of their ideological beliefs) on the floors of the Lok Sabha, as well as in mass meetings.