Torchbearer of Lucknow Gharana Pandit Swaraj Bhattacharaya spoke to Kaushik Chattapadhyay on behalf of BEIn the early part of the 18th century, Siddhar Khan of Delhi was a very talented tabla player. With his imaginative faculty, he developed a systematic solo performance in tabla. Besides Delhi, po...
The Environment Ministry is increasingly seen as a Ministry that understands nothing about the environment, wild life, water preservation, pollution control. Almost every decision that comes out of it is a destructive one, and it works on the basis of politics rather than science. Every vested ...
Pencaksilat is an indigenous martial art form that originated in Indonesia. The term pencaksilat has been popularised after the Indonesian independence. It is a regular medal sport event in the Asian Games, Asian Beach Games, South Asian Games, and Asian Youth Games and is duly recognised by t...
In Indian politics, there are politicians and then there are statesmen. Somnath Chatterjee, who was associated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) till 2008 was a celebrated parliamentarian and statesman who rose above paltry political differences and commanded respect even from his staunche...
So Parmarth seems to be more of a ‘city’ ashram, then, rather than a traditional ‘forest’ ashram, wouldn’t you agree?” the interviewer queries. He is a young man from Bombay doing a story on Rishikesh, gurus and the spiritual path in general. He’s come to Parmarth Niketan to take my in...
It is a well known fact that democracy is for the people and also by the people. In the past in India, it has been observed that because of the temptation of votes, the elected governments are not in a position to take unpopular and hard steps, especially before the elections. Sometimes steps are al...
The Department of Telecom-munications (DoT) of the Government of India has sent a note recently to the service providers like Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodaphone and BSNL to find out ways how to ‘block’ social media apps like Facebook and Whatsapp. The industry, however, has reacted sharply saying t...
The clash of civilisations is a much debated hypothesis propounded by the American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington that states people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. Huntington argued that future wars would be fought n...
“Drink makes a man forget himself. He ceases to be a man, becomes less than a beast for the time being. It never does the slightest good. I hope, therefore, that you will combat the curse with all your strength”, was how Mahatma Gandhi had cautioned the country way back in 1925. Some 35 years la...
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an integral part of Indian public and private corporations following the assimilation of section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013. This means profitable companies are obliged to make a contribution towards the development of Indian society. The main rol...