Salil Bhatt is an Indian classical musician born in a family that has a 500-year-old legacy in music. He represents the tenth generation of famous Bhatt lineage and is the son of renowned Mohan Veena player, Grammy awardee Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. Like his father who created Mohan Veena, Salil has created the Satvik Veena for which received several accolades. He
A sizeable chunk of Syria’s population has left the country and nearly half of its territory under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL aka ISIS or IS) and other terrorist groups. How does Syria look at the crisis? This is the biggest catastrophe of 21st century for Syrian culture, in terms of human development and natural heritage.
Joachim Ruecker is the current president of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Appointed in January this year, he is the first German diplomat to hold the office. Ruecker has held various positions in the federal foreign office in Bonn and German diplomatic missions. He has been the special representative of the secretary general at the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kos
The picture of cracked and burnt-out feet, with a missing toe, on the cover of Harsh Mander’s new book ‘Looking Away: Inequality, Prejudice in New India’, does one thing convincingly: it mocks the ‘invisible hand’. Radha, a girl probably
Since 2008 he has been instrumental in driving key Targus products and partnerships with major customers worldwide. Currently Mike Sexton leads the global product management and marketing and is primarily responsible for driving the company’s power products and managing B2B and OEM alliance. In an interview with Shubhendu Parth, he elaborates on how w
Undeniably, Gandhi had a moral force unparalleled in recent times. For comparable examples of moral greatness, people often go back by centuries – to Jesus Christ and similar names. The crucial difference, however, is that nearly all great religious figures and spiritual teachers come with some supernatural element; grace from above and so on, which granted them enlightenment. They were n
He has switched sides many a time. From being an ally of the BJP to an adversary in the past, today Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan is a minister in the BJP-led government at the centre. As his home state Bihar goes to the polls, the BJP sees in him a key ally who can change its fortunes. A veteran of many electoral battles, 69-year-old Paswan today swears
The Patel community’s agitation demanding OBC status has brought life to a standstill across Gujarat. To understand the genesis and implications of this agitation, Ashish Mehta talked to Achyut Yagnik, a leading expert on Gujarat society and honorary secretary of the Ahmedabad-based NGO ‘SETU: Centre for Social Knowledge and Action’. Excer
The memories of the day are still intact in my mind when my brother Subhash sacrificed his savings to pay my school fees. Instead of buying shoes, he wore casual slippers in the scorching summer heat. Whenever I saw him in his slippers, it would remind me of his sacrifice he made for my studies. This was when I had decided not to let his sacrifice go in vain. Sometimes I used to ponder over our
The present refugee crisis in Europe is the biggest since World War II. As the conflict in Syria digs deeper in its fifth year with no political solution on the horizon, desperate Syrians are undertaking perilous journeys across the Mediterranean sea to reach Greece and Turkey, through Former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia and Serbia, crossing Hungary and then finally reaching EU&rsqu
Sixty-seven years ago when the drafting committee led by Dr BR Ambedkar suo motu introduced the phrase ‘other backward class’ (OBC) in the constitution, questions were raised as to who would be grouped in these classes. While Dr Ambedkar convinced the constituent assembly members that the decision be best left to the discretion of governments in future, the Patel-like agitations for
Makarand Deshpande is a phenomenal actor who is also involved in writing, direction and production of plays and films in Hindi and Marathi. Known for his quirky and eccentric personality and roles to match, he gave impressive performances in Hindi films like Jungle, Sarfarosh, Swades, Makdee, and Darna Zaroori Hai. He also has 40 original plays to his credit and be
Old computers, mobile phones, refrigerators, television sets, all need to be discarded at some point. The end-of-life of such products needs proper waste management system. This is important since such devices contain over 50 types of hazardous materials. These include heavy metals like lead, cadmium, mercury and toxic chemicals like poly chlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and brominated flame retarda
A veteran of Bihar politics and a central minister, Giriraj Singh, talks to Sweta Ranjan about the role and initiatives of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) ministry. Excerpts from the interview: What is your ministry’s role in boosting the country’s economy? After agricul
Elhadj As Sy is the secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) since August 2014. IFRC is the world’s largest humanitarian network, comprising 189 member National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, a secretariat in Geneva and five zone offices. A Senegalese national, Sy has more than 25 years of experie
In the midst of the 2014 election campaign, a ‘new’ information was being widely circulated on social media: the ancestors of the first Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, were Muslims. According to this ‘revelation’, Nehru was the great-grandson of one Ghiyasuddin Ghazi who apparently took a Hindu name during the 1857 uprising to save his life. It was a clear attem
Tariff and taxes on liquor are extremely high in India. Liquor prices are higher than 95 percent of the countries in the world. At the same time, consumption of imported and domestic liquor has been on the rise over the past five years. An average Indian liquor consumer pays five to six times the manufacturing cost of the drink. Furthermore, farmers and small businesses also suff
With the NDA government’s focus on skill development, job creation and small-scale industry, union minister Kalraj Mishra has a tough task cut out for him. In an interview to Sweta Ranjan, he talks about the challenges and opportunities before his ministry. India is struggling to get rid of unemployment but creating jobs i
With death sentence becoming an exception, there may be an urgent need to revisit the scheme of punishments to keep deterrence intact, as the next most stringent sentence of life imprisonment generally gets reduced after remission to a jail-term of mere 14 years or a little more.
The big cogs in the Digital India juggernaut have started to move. As a great first step, 100 smart cities have been identified. For the number enthusiasts, the five states with the largest number of future smart cities would be Uttar Pradesh at 13, Tamil Nadu (12), Maharashtra (10), Madhya Pradesh (seven) and Karnataka and Gujarat at six each. And yes, as one would already know, each state and
