First reviews of Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag coming in.
Buzz18:
DO NOT watch the film! And we aren’t even comparing it to the original here. A well-told story needs no comparison and a badly narrated one should not be compared.
Movietonic:
Ram Gopal Verma is no Ramesh Sippy. This Aag is sure to leave Ramu’s Factory incinerated. [...]
Archive for August, 2007
Movie Mazaa writes about Ore Kadal, the latest from the critically acclaimed director in Malayalam cinema, Shyamaprasad.
On the contrary Shyama Prasad provides the fantasy of total eroticism within ideal virtue, stirring the too familiar daydream to a devout level in which a perfect stranger materializes in the otherwise humdrum life of a housewife and takes [...]
Ananya doesn’t think registration of pregnancies would curb female foeticide:
This is, on the face of it, a ridiculous proposition both in terms of the norms it embodies and the institutional impossibility it entails. What we will effectively have is a black economy which will make back-alley abortions even more rampant and all sorts of new [...]
Vidya asks: does literature have to be depressing?
My son recently asked me –“Mom, what is the difference between fiction and literature?” My instinctive reply was, “In literature everyone suffers!” Certainly it seems that in recent examples of literature, especially from Indian writers, the emphasis is on trying to make the characters in the book go [...]
In a thoroughly readable post, Aviram takes us on a journey through time :from the earliest conservation movements in India to the Appiko Chaluvali movement in Uttara Kannada district in present day Karnataka:
Long before Al Gore began sharing the inconvenient truth about the environment, villagers in India understood it and were performing their own form [...]
Noaman Ali takes an insightful look at other explosions in Hyderabad:
The same middle class Hyderabadis I spoke to seemed to be blissfully unaware of the land struggles of the poor, or, they simply didn’t bring it up in polite company. And, well, it disgusted me. Seeing the affluence in Hyderabad, contrasted with the sheer poverty, [...]
Equality, Equality of Outcome, Equality of Opportunity
Published by August 30th, 2007 in Dalit, India and Theory. 1 CommentRefractor examines certain ideas espoused in a recent Chandra Bhan Prasad article:
The only social logic available to untouchables is that they have to live with inequality and live at the mercy of Mai Baap upper castes. Here in fact CBP is admitting the strength of caste system. The caste system seems to be impenetrable. [...]
‘Why is this such a problem in India?’
Published by August 30th, 2007 in India and Women. 0 Comments This refers to sexual harassment. Preya searches for answers:
Even in modern India, in the highly educated middle and upper classes, it’s more common than not for a woman to feel that it’s natural to have her future completely decided for her. In fact, there is the internalized, never-questioned belief that her life was not [...]
The tragic suicide of Shylaja Praveen makes Apu wonder about the efficacy of laws which are supposed to protect women:
This young woman, had the courage to take up the case and go up to her superiors as well as the state women’s organization. And for having the courage to speak out, in a situation where [...]
Earlier this week a woman in Bhagalpur had her gold chain snatched from her.She gave a cry and two passers-by ran after the thief. They caught him. The mob gathered. He was tied hand and foot and beaten by the crowd.
The police came.
They joined in the beating.
And took the man and tied him by a [...]
Microsoft, Union Carbide of IT World
Published by August 30th, 2007 in Announcement and India. 0 CommentsVenky explains how India stopped Microsoft’s sub standard OOXML proposal
Coming back to India, I am extremely proud of the fact that my country has voted against this proposal. To accept such a poor document would have been to denigrate the very meaning of “standards.” The academia, the government bodies, industry organizations and non-profits like [...]
Finally, we have an Indian feminist colla-blog – Ultra Violet. I have been expecting such a blog for a long time and I am glad that it is here! I hope this site lasts long and carries out meaningful discussions on issues concerning women and feminism. One of the first posts is on how judges [...]
At Chennaist, Jai Shankar is upset over the apparent omission of the word “Dravida” in the rendition of the national anthem in an Airtel Ad.
When it is The National Anthem you are composing to the modern tunes why the word “Dravida” left out of proper pronounciation. Where from the constitution one had the rights to [...]
Delhi-> Manali -> Leh -> Kargli -> Srinagar -> Jammu -> Delhi
1650Km
12 Days
6 guys
5 bikes
That’s when you get photos like this.
Go visit Chandru’s blog for more and don’t miss the panorama photos.
Refusing to Treat a Snakebite Case at IITK
Published by August 29th, 2007 in Education, India, Prejudice and Society. 1 CommentI came to know via Abi at Nanopolitan that the doctors at the health center (HC) refused to treat the son of a laborer for snakebite.
The canteen owner called the doctor, who when she realized that it involved the child of worker, was extremely annoyed and said that this facility was not available to them. [...]
Abhishek writes about the slow growth of Broadband access in India;
Broadband rates in India is among the most expensive in world at Rs 3300 for 2 MBPS it is 4 times as expensive compared to that of Korea or 3.3 times that of USA
Japanese Broadband is 240 times faster than Indian broadband
Nearly 40% of the [...]
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Published by August 29th, 2007 in Books, India, South Asia and Women. 0 CommentsSargentroy reviews Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns:
Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns is a sensitively told if slightly uneven story about the crushing of the strong-willed Mariam’s spirit and the opportunity she gets, decades later, to validate her life by helping another innocent – a young girl named Laila, Rasheed’s second wife.[..] P.S. Based [...]
Kerala is now a ‘middle class society’ says B.R.P.Bhaskar who is surprised that ‘many people discuss contemporary political and economic developments without understanding this’:
If these figures are correct, those engaged in agriculture and industry do not add up to even five million. In other words, less than a quarter of the work force of 20 [...]
‘What might India have looked like?’
Published by August 29th, 2007 in Books, History and India. 0 CommentsReihan Salam reviews India after Gandhi:
No, my friends, the Kerala Communists were preferable to Nehru’s record of unmitigated Fabian failure, believe it or not. The fact that “even” Bombay industrialists backed central planning proves an old Partha Chatterjee point: I mean, it’s not all that shocking that an interventionist state was aligned with the “Big [...]
Bismillah Khan’s legacy
Published by August 29th, 2007 in Culture, India, Music and Secularism. 0 CommentsAndolan Ek Pustak Se throws light on the efforts being made by Neena Jha and Shivnath Jha to preserve late Ustad Bismillah Khan’s ‘Gunga-Jamuni’ tradition and promote his ’secual philosophy’:
Five years ago when the Ustad did not have money and resources to meet the cost of his needs, the then government arranged for his performance [...]
Misha Singh tells us:
The scandal-ridden World Bank, recently in the headlines for a corruption scandal involving then-President Wolfowitz, will face deep scrutiny when the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank in India opens next month in New Delhi. More than 50 groups from around India will assemble before an international jury to present their [...]
Spring Thunder, in a very long post, essentially tries to argue that Hindutva as practised by the Congress, the Parivar and the Communists (okay, this is my interpretation) in India is nothing more than Sanatan Dharma:
The questions of nationalities as well as the languages were never solved democratically in India. The ruling classes repeatedly try [...]
Srinivasan treks through Har Ki Doon and brings back an interesting account and lovely pictures. (Picture from Srinivasan’s blog).
Orkut or Facebook?
Published by August 29th, 2007 in India, Media, Science & Technology and Women. 0 CommentsMahendra Palsule says Facebook is safer than Orkut, especially for women.
Well, we all know how Orkut is being misused, so why do Indians, especially women and girls, stick with it when there are better alternatives available? Facebook for example, offers some of the best privacy features among all the social networking sites.
Siva Vaidhyanathan argues political theology and political liberalism aren’t exclusively Eastern or Western:
Now, I think the enlightenment is a great thing. And I keep waiting for it to show up and triumph here in the United States. I just don’t see how one can claim that what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad derides as “liberalism and [...]
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