Kumar Gandharva was an innovator, a rebel like T.M. Krishna
The Tata theatre of NCPA in Mumbai was packed to capacity on April 4 by music lovers providing a fitting finale to the birth centenary celebrations of Kumar Ganharva, the…
Vidyadhar Date
RSS chief absolves government of bad governance
A curious part of the speech of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in Mumbai on 27 March was that he sought to transfer responsibility for governance to common people. . We…
Coleridge’s poem and our water crisis
Mr R Chidambaram, a major figure in India’s nuclear weapons programme, quoted from poet Coleridge’s line Water Water everywhere and not a drop to drink, at a conference on water…
The great stink of capitalism
Had a lovely sensory experience outside Trident five star hotel at Bandra Kurla complex last evening. Visual treat as well .The front portion of the hotel has white Champak…
Thrusting a Knife into the Heart of Mumbai City – Unplanned Development
Allowing indiscriminate redevelopment of buildings in Mumbai is like thrusting a knife ino one’s chest. The price is heavy, said Amita Bhide, professor in the Centre of Urban Policy and…
Architects laud heritage buildings but fail to criticise bad Architecture
An exhibition on the architects and architecture firms which built some of the best buildings in Mumbai ended at the Asiatic society on March 10. A laudable venture . Sadly, …
The rich are protecting their spaces, the working class should fight for its own
The arrogance and extreme incompetence of the Metro railway and municipal authorities is increasingly becoming obvious. In Bangalore a farmer was denied entry into the Metro station last week on…
Poet Gieve Patel had sympathy for farmers
Perhaps a little more nuanced look was needed into the life and work of Gieve Patel than was offered at the NCPA recently when poets, theatre practitioners, painters converged to…
Anand Patwardhan’s film on his family which fought for freedom but did not seek power
A key part in Anand Patwardhan’s recent acclaimed film is his apt observation that his two uncles Achyutrao Patwardhan and Raosaheb Patwardhan chose to go into political oblivion after independence.…
Senior citizen wins fight against private bus company
Shekhar Hattangadi is a senior journalist with experience in the U.S. and India, is also a film maker and he is proficient in law.. He has won a significant judgement…
The sea bridge Modi opened denies access to common people
Front page photographs in newspapers today of Prime Minister Modi standing alone in the middle of the sea bridge in Mumbai are quite ironic.The irony is that ordinary people will…
Writers bemoan a lost way of life in cities, in rural areas
The current urban crisis is best reflected in two books in Hindi published in Mumbai recently. One is by Jitendra Bhatia, an IIT trained chemical engineer and prominent Hindi writer,…
Economist journal Says India’s Metro Rail Network is poorly planned and is in a mess
A recent issue of the well-known international journal Economist exposes the Indian government’s misleading claims about the Metro rail network in the country. Not one of the Metro lines in…
A Theatre Event- When Karl Marx Appears in India of Today
Thoroughly enjoyed the play Karl Marx in Kalbadevi at a new theatre Veda Kunba in Andheri last evening. A rare combination of an intelligent look at history and the present…
Are there enough Dalit Muslims in the media?
How many of you watch news on TV ? The audience was asked from the dais in an auditorium on December 16. Not a single hand went up. This shows…
Government pampers motorists, humiliates bus, train riders
Everyone should feel deeply concerned over this report in the Times of India by Somit Sen today about the serious crisis in the BEST bus undertaking in Mumbai, its fleet…
Sudha Bharadwaj’s book and the drama on a revolutionary on death row
The reading by Ratna Pathak Shah last evening from Sudha Bharadwaj’s book about days in the death row in jail, reminded me of a thrilling Marathi play Thank You Mr…
Infrastructure projects for the rich, dust and suffocation for the poor
After listening carefully to a presentation made by MMRDA commissioner Sanjay Mukherjee last evening one would say that life will be getting much worse for common people in the coming…
Huge increase in restaurants for the rich, a serious decline in eating places for common people
Writing about exotic food, fancy restaurants is now the in thing. Even Abhijit Banerjee, the Nobel economics prize winning economist, wrote about his own cooking and eating out in the…
Sad that some intellectuals are supporting dubious sports nationalism
More sad than the cheap jingoism and unsporting behaviour we witnessed in the world cup cricket final in the Narendra Modi stadium on November 19 is the collaborative approach from…
When Farmers Stood Up: Book on the farmers’ protests of 2020
Much before the rise of the nefarious agribusiness, harvesting was a community happening in the U.S. `Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important…
What Mumbai can learn from Delhi
Mumbai, the pioneer in the country in public transport, is now in a crisis mode, lagging behind Delhi in some respects. Our administrators should learn from this. During a visit…
You reach this conference in Delhi at the risk of your life
Crossing the road on foot to reach the venue of the international conference on public transport in Delhi was a near death experience last week. Every one knows this is…
Gujarati poet who inspired the civil rights movement in the U.S.
Shridharani is a prominent art gallery in Delhi which I visited last week but few know that Krishanlal Shridharani was an outstanding Gujarati poet and author who lived for many…
Jeremy Corbyn gets a taste of pollution caused by builders in Mumbai
Jeremy Corbyn, the British Labour party leader, did well to focus on some environment issues apart from talking on Israel and Palestine in his interaction with cultural activists in Mumbai…
Civic elections not being held in Mumbai, democracy suffers
I heard Mumbai municipal commissioner’s Iqbal Singh Chahal’s presentation at an auditorium in Prabhadevi on October 10 and went out for a while. When I came back , I noticed…
The inspiring life of Safdar Hashmi and a play on inequality in Mumbai
This robust play depicts the dizzy growth of luxury towers displacing slums in Mumbai and much more. It does this with so much energy, satire, and imagination and theatricality. It…
Luxury shops growing in Mumbai while vegetable vendors face police danda
While on way to the Asiatic society library two days ago, I walked into Sabyasachi, a fancy shop of art, at Horniman Circle out of curiosity since I had heard…
N.D.Mahanor, The Poet Who Taught Us to See Culture in Agriculture
Celebrated Marathi poet N.D. Mahanor, who passed away last month, lived all his life as a farmer in a small village Palaskheda, five km from the famous Ajanta caves in…
Mumbai lost intellectual vitality of old days
Dr Ganesh Devy, linguist and scholar, is perhaps too optimistic about Mumbai playing a big role in making an intellectual contribution to the idea of civilisation. He made the plea…
When Marlon Brando Refused Oscar award
Fifty years ago Marlon Brando refused to accept the Oscar protesting against the portrayal of native Americans in Hollywood. He sent a native American female actor Sacheen Littlefeather to make…
Hari Narke, Phule Ambedkar scholar, died in his prime
He was such a good scholar and more than that such a good fighter for social justice. Politicians in Maharashtra constantly invoke social reformers Mahatma Phule and Dr Ambedkar in…
Oppenheimer film reviews did not notice its injustice to victims of the bombing and the test
Shamefully much of the writing on the film Oppenheimer fails to grasp the film’s blatant failure to show the suffering of the people in Japan or of those living on…
Mumbai’s excellent public transport system being messed by the government
The Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar was nearly knocked down on the road by motor cyclists while he was on a morning walk in Patna recently. Fortunately, he sensed the…
Politicians wrecked Maharashtra’s great tradition of education
The great tradition of education in Maharashtra has been destroyed by politicians, shikshan samrats running institutions like overlords. They were exposed in a highly forthright manner by Sharad Jawadekar, a…
Sharad Pawar will share the dais with writers this week after being with Modi yesterday
Mr Sharad Pawar will share the dais with Bhalchndra Nemade, Jnanpith award winner novelist and Ashok Vajpayee one of our few bureaucrats who has an understanding of culture and he…
Theatre performance reminding us of Manipur situation
The current events in the troubled state of Manipur remind me of a very powerful Manipuri play Draupadi I saw at Prithvi theatre in Mumbai more thana twenty years ago.…
The legacy of pioneer film maker V Shantaram
Ashok Rane, film critic and a jury member at several prominent international film festivals, was felicitated last evening by Prabhat Chitra Mandal, the film society now in its 54th year.…
Film on the ST bus,the lifeline of people
Maharashtra’s politicians have betrayed the masses on a massive scale . But one good decisions taken by the government before the recent filthy politics is that it introduced 50 per…
Placing the Ambani Cultural Centre In context
Rohini Hattangady, Mukta Barve , the entire all woman cast of the acclaimed feminist Marathi play Char Choughi recently vociferously praised the municipal drama theatre in Vashi in Navi Mumbai…
26 passengers charred on highway of death in Maharashtra
Twenty six passengers were charred to death beyond recognition when a private bus going from Nagpur to Pune crashed on the so called Samruddhi highway early hours this morning. This…
Hemant Gokhale: Judge who saw the transition from East Pakistan to Bangladesh
Mr Hemant Gokhale, who retired as a judge of the Supreme court in 2014, is among the more unusual members of the Indian judiciary. He has been an activist since…
This philosophy professor shows what is wrong with our language, education policy
There are outstanding autobiographies by dalit or Buddhist writers in Marathi. Sharad Baviskar’s acclaimed autobiography Bhoora is very different, it gives you so many insights into issues of language and…
Government looking at beauty and heritage the wrong way
Walking on the road between the Mahalaxmi race course and the railway station on the other side I suddenly noticed a nice change. The enclosures that blocked the view of…
Akram Khan, modern dancer, draws in a big way from traditional dances
Akram Khan is an internationally renowned dancer who performed at the opening ceremony of London Olympics. Listening to him at G5 A theatre last evening one realised he is such…
Motorists must pay for parking , can’t have free lunch
There is increasing protest in the U.S. against the craze for car parking. More space is being allotted for parking of cars than for houses because of wrong policies. The…
Electricity wasted in Mumbai as energy supply is cut off for hours in towns
The mass scale ugly, blinding illumination of trees all over Mumbai is a terrible waste of energy when many parts of the state are suffering from load shedding. And the…
Black Panther and the need to dream for a better world
Dr Bharat Patankar, social activist, was right yesterday when he said we need to dream again for a better world as in the days of the 1960s and 1970s when…
Metro authorities humiliating ordinary commuters
A seemingly good decision to provide free insurance to commuters of two lines on the Mumbai Metro is also highly discriminatory and almost insulting to suburban train and bus commuters.…
Government destroying public spaces rather than protecting them
Stop the kidnap policy of public space by the Mumbai municipal corporation and the government. That was the theme of a public meeting held at St Michael’s church auditorium in…
Nita Ambani Cultural centre is opulent but not professional
The website of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre claims that the Grand Theatre is technologically most advanced in India, is magical and meticulously designed. But what is the reality?…
Meeting a scholar on Pakistan, Jinnah and pre partition film music from Punjab
Such a pleasure it was to hear and meet last evening Stockholm-based political scientist and history scholar Ishtiaq Ahmed. And such a versatile man, so academically sound, so articulate, he…
Nita Ambani Cultural Centre is more about money than culture
The new Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai as of now is all about money, money, money, opulence, display of wealth and the personality cult. Last evening I was…
State causes 13 deaths as lakhs are scorched by heat at a government rally
The deaths due to poor arrangemens at the Maharashtra government organised big gathering in Navi Mumbai on April 16 are also a pointer to the new class of alleged spiritual…
The rich are creating water scarcity
In the current summer one would like to have a good swim or like to teach children how to…
Swapna Liddle’s book on the Fall of the Mughal Empire
Swapna Liddle is not only a very good scholar of the history of Delhi, she is a very good communicator both in her writing and in speaking, one can understand…
Planned city Jaipur being ruined by ideas imposed from Delhi
Pune Metro railway has become a laughing stock. Few people are travelling and there are any number of jokes on the social media that it should be let out for…
History archives in Bikaner and Mumbai
A visit to the Maharashtra government archives in the historic Elphinstone college building Mumbai on March 29 was depressing. The archives are fine with their valuable records dating back to…
Modi needs to improve his understanding of public transport
We can expect little improvement in our urban transport system considering what could be termed as inadequate understanding of the issue shown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his post…
Eduardo Galeano, revolutionary writer, continues to inspire us
Eduardo Galeano was best known for his 1971 book Open Veins of Latin America, which rocketed to the top of US bestseller lists after the Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez presented…
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