Witness / Kashmir 1986-2016 / 9 photographers – can never be confused with the old ‘touristy’ coffee table relics of photography I remember, not even by accident.
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We, the undersigned Adivasis strongly condemn these literary activists and self-styled guardians of Adivasi culture and morality, their hypocrisy, acts of provoking the community and their smear campaign against author Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar.
I met Eunice first in very best way – in poems, just as she recommended. Women in Dutch Painting was the first book of poetry I remember reading, as opposed to poems in anthologies or single poems encountered and half-remembered.
On 30 June 2017, almost two hundred protesters who had gathered together to draw attention of the Assam government towards the concerns of the citizens of the state in relation to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Doubtful voters (D-voters) issue at Kharbazaar in Assam’s Goalpara district were dispersed by the district police administration during which an youth named Yakub Ali was shot dead by the police.
Having been in the Tourism Sector in North East India since 1997, I feel I do have a little to say regarding the topic and the direction it is going. This piece of writing may offend some, may wake up some, or may even turn some against me; some may even think I write out of jealousy: let it all be – I point out things because they are in the context of the topic. When I write or speak I do not try to say I know best, I believe in debate, strong views and discussion, therefore I often say what I feel, in the belief that it will not only make my own mind think in the broader perspective but also hope that others will think. It is not a put down to others who are doing things differently, it is a question, as I believe others can question me.
The college authorities decided one day that they needed to ask women students not to wear skirts above the knee, and to ban students from smoking on the college grounds. The Vice Principal came to our classroom to make this announcement: its effect was marred considerably by the sight of Eunice at the back of the room, pointedly lighting up a cigarette with a trademark look of ironic amusement on her face.
Since the Supreme Court order to play the national anthem before every movie screening was passed on 30th November 2016, I have been to three movies but have never once stood up. It is not that I am protesting something. Unlike say Colin Kaepernick’s protest in the US I do not want to draw attention to anything. But while twice before I had not stood up and nobody in the cinema hall with me seemed to mind or at least outright complain, this time the man sitting next to me minded very much.
A. Have you read the new Arundhati Roy?
B. No. I’m not a fan.
A. Oh, OK. Didn’t you like ‘The God of Small Things’?
B. Um, it was OK. I felt like she was trying very hard to be different and clever.
A. Is it? In what way?
B. Her use of language for one thing. I found it too self-consciously inventive. And I also feel she tends to fetishize the tragic.
Where do I belong?
In this city that is too old
In those hills that are too cold
Or America
But I am no burly Polish dissident
Nor of cultivated Bengali intellect
Or a Punjabi with a partitioned wallet
Only a rough diamond with festers and sores
Shall I then go to Surat?
There are nationalist, there are racists, there are right wingers and there are these so called ” KHASI SONS OF THE SOIL” whom we term as INTERNET KHLAWAIT. They are found in their natural habitats; Facebook, Whatsapp, twitter and sometimes, in you tube. They are always criticising everything that is not Khasi or written in Khasi along with other languages. Here are some of the traits of these INTERNET KHLAWAIT…
“Every year, during the Hindu month of Ashaada, the Pochamma Panduga is celebrated in the Pochamma Devi Temple situated in Kamathipura, Mumbai
On this day, members of a Telugu speaking community from Telengana, settled in Mumbai for over a century, congregate here.
They offer sacrifices and prayers to Pochamma Devi.”
Men’s sperm levels have declined by half in the past 40 years, and no one knows why. If the current rate of decline continues, says Chris Barratt, most men will be sterile by 2060. An urgent race is now on to discover the cause of the falling sperm counts.
The recent episodes of lynching makes one worried about the rickety path an innocuous Hindu is following that is turning him and the larger community into an ossified and dare I say, a senile group.
Again, some days ago, the controversial Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Pravin Togadia came to Assam and created yet another hullabaloo in the state. He visited an arms training camp organized by the outfit in Hojai in central Assam
Ka politiks masi kan ktah ym tang ia ki Dalit, Ki muslim Hynrei ia ki Kristan, Ki riewlum, ki adivasi bad kiwei. Kane ka jait politiks ka lah ban pynkulmar lut ia ka rukom Synshar ha ka ri India bad don kiba ong ba ka lah pynpoi ruh sha ka thma ing (civil war) hapoh ka ri.
Britain is celebrating 50 years since the 1967 Sexual Offences Act partially decriminalised homosexuality.
‘All politics is identity politics.’ And ‘Without identity politics there can be no defence of women’s rights or the rights of minority groups.’ So run the two most common contemporary defences of identity politics. As criticism of the politics of identity has become more developed and fierce, so has the defence. So, I want here to begin a critique the critique, as it were, and in so doing reassert the necessity for challenging identity politics.
General your tank is a powerful vehicle.
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.
She said, “She loves dogs”
What she meant was she doesn’t eat dog meat.
I said, “Me too, I love beef Biryani”
She asked if she is safe in my town
I told her it is her people who are guarding the town.
Trolls tend to downplay the impact of their abusive online behaviour on their victims and seem to relish the mayhem they cause. Let’s use this to help them lift their game.
How many lions does it take to kill a lamb? The answer isn’t as straightforward as you might think. Not, at least, according to game theory.
On July 19, 2017, a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court has assembled for the first time in 10 years to answer one long-debated question:
*Do Indians have a Fundamental Right to privacy?*
The village of Dawki in Meghalaya is one of the many border crossing between India and Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi village of Tamabil lies on the other side of the border. It was my first ever visit to an Indian border town.
The black comedy of Demonetisation continues and the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India is now the latest clown in the show! In an astounding statement before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance on July 6th 2017, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that he could not give them an official number as to how much money was deposited in old demonetised notes because counting was still in progress! This beats all logic.
There was a charge made recently by BJP’s Swapan Dasgupta that the protest by people determinedly raising their voices under the banner of ‘Not in My Name’, against targeted lynching of Muslims was an extravagant display of rootless cosmopolitanism. The responses have been “we are not rootless cosmopolitans”. We are often quick to jump into defensive mode in this fashion, and then try to prove how we are more rooted than Baba Ramdev or Sri Sri Ravi Shankar or Yogi Adityanath. In other words, we try to show how we are superior to these in being rooted. But we might need to ask whether rootless cosmopolitanism is necessarily the bad thing it is suggested to be.
On the evening of 7th July 2017, Yakub Khan Nongkynrih, an alleged sexual offender, was killed by a mob at Nongkseh, Shillong. He was accused of having sexually assaulted an eleven year old girl who is the daughter of his landlord.
You asked me
the nationality of my vagina
You fear
In its chasm lies
The key to the community’s downfall
The Greatest Festival of the Pnars is here and here’s a chance for the Khynriam, Bhoi, War etc to know their Pnar brethren a little better. Do forgive us, if you knew them rather well already.
Ka Beh Dieiñ Khlam Jwai, Ialong, Chyrmang, Tuber wa ha kiwi ki thaw jar i por jar I taiaw da poi,shi sien shi snem ialang kawi ha i thaw shad thaw noh rot wa ioh u duwai phirat ha u Tre Kirot, waroh waroh shirup ia lai sha aitnar wow nguh Blai, ka khlam ka kjut ioh u mait tyrut, ym toh du i kjut man bru, i kjut mariang, i kjut pyrthai- i duk i kyrduh ki wa katni bam duh ki ia ka pyrthai. Ah bei ah pa, phi ki Blai ah phi ki ryngkew ki basa ia i to da. Ka Ka Beh Deiή khlam ka wa em jingmut..
It has been whispered for sometime. Mr. H. M. Shangpliang, promoted IAS officer of Meghalaya, serving as Director and secretary of key departments of IPR, Social Welfare, National Health Mission (and many others) has been nursing a political ambition.
It is fate of marginal groups everywhere to bear the burden of this ‘double-consciousness’ – one’s self-worth, one’s sense of self is never one’s own, but always refracted through the eyes of the powerful, who gazes at him with ‘contempt and pity’. As time goes by, one starts believing in the narrative of the dominant group, one internalizes others’ judgements about him.
We have every right to protest against categories that limit our political spectrum, but we only do a disservice to our politics by choosing to remain under the guise of neutral universalisms, negative self-references and the sedimented banalities of protest.
On a hot 2017 June Thursday evening, me and my friend suddenly realised that very soon our mobile phones connections might be shut down. TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) had issued new guidelines for all mobile phone users to connect their Aadhaar ID with the respective telecom service providers.
Kaba sngewsih ka long ba ha ki hospital shane, YM da don counsellors bat bit ban iarap ia ki briew. Namar ba ka don ka jingsngewthuh bakla shaphang ka kam counselling, bun hi kiba trei ia ka kam counselling kim shim lah long kiba lah pyntbit ia lade ha ka jingpule counselling bad psychology.
Is the Hindu-Muslim divide an unbridgeable faultline? Or is it a mere scratch in the sand that can be easily erased?
Since the celebrationist account of GST can be found everywhere (TV shows, newspaper, social media, chit chat with public), here is a Non-Bhakt economic analysis of GST…
We have to aware of our status as an indigenous tribe but we must also not forget the implications of the class system in our own state/society. By the way what are the rules of our own Shillong Golf Club? Are all the classes allowed to enter it? And if not what are we going to do about it?
Let us lynch, rape, kill them in peace;
build a temple of purebred-filth
on razed mosques and dargahs,
Rather than getting swayed by the media hype and official propaganda, let us keep these economic concerns in mind and assess the claims that have been made in favour of the GST, on the basis of objective facts and experience.
Coming out is seldom a cup of tea for anyone but I finally did to my mother when I turned eighteen this year. She was supportive but also terribly afraid of my future and my existence in the world altogether. I felt guilty and responsible when mother told me not to be vocal and admitted that her friends may laugh at us. I wondered why my actions as an adult have any bearing on my family; that is a part of societal ethos that I will never understand.
I personally had many problems with the #NotInMyName Campaign for reasons that have been pointed out by many – its Brahmanical and Left elitism amongst others – and I resent that truth. But I shall also not dismiss it completely, not because I want to be complacent but because, reactionary as it is, it is a movement across sixteen locations in the country and beyond that is expressing a collective rejection of the growing fatalistic violence and brutalities unleashed on minorities, a violence that is an extension of the silent and malignant power of the BJP and its allies.
GOVERNMENT WANTS WAR AND OPPOSITION DOESN’T DEMAND PEACE
Whether the India- China stand-off escalates or not, Modi has too much to gain from it. Whether India humiliates China or the other way, it would allow them their ongoing project of making India a Hindu Rashtra easier. Even in 1962, during the war, Delhi was able to force the Dravida Movement into submission and the Tamils had to surrender fully. In 2017, with Hindu Rashtra is no longer any distant possibility, an Indo-China war would be the final seal on our coffins of a Secular Democratic Republic.
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