South Asia Citizens Web

what we have is an over-the-top ceremony with troopers reduced to caricatures. They come rushing towards the gates and halt in front of them, adjust their turbans, thump their chests and flex their muscles — pretty much like Popeye. The goose steps — a chilling throwback to the Nazi era — are way more exaggerated than they should be, a seemingly impossible anatomical feat with the leg almost touching the forehead.

If there’s one thing that the 102nd Indian Science Congress, held in Mumbai, will be remembered for, it’s the outrageous claims made at it about the achievements of science in ancient India, including the assertion that Indians between 7000 and 6000 BC knew how to make airplanes that could undertake “interplanetary travel”, and fly backwards and sideways, as well as forwards!

Liberals in India who lost patience with the UPA government and became supporters of Narendra Modi are puzzled by the prime minister’s silence over Sangh Parivar’s growing communal interventions. They should not be. That is his record in Gujarat over 12 years, it worked for him there, and he has come to power nationally on the back of it.

The news that, on January 7, Perin Chandra passed away at the ripe old age of 96 rekindled the memory of a day when 1941 was coming to a close. The All India Students Federation (AISF) was holding its conference in Patna. I had joined the previous year, and had come to attend the conference as a delegate from old Madhya Pradesh. Two women delegates (there were several more of course) from Lahore impressed all of us very much. One was Perin Bharucha and the other was Litto (who was later to marry Ajoy Ghosh).

Renowned theater personality Janab S.M. Mehdi passed away on 2 Jan. 2015
at Aligarh. A memorial meeting for him is being organised on 14th Jan. 2015 at 5.00 p.m. at Ghalib Institute (Aiwan-e-Ghalib), Mata Sundri Road, New Delhi.