The courts may have effectively circumscribed Sec 153A and 295A of the IPC by limiting the circumstances under which they may be invoked, yet as long as they exist in a form that allows for anyone to file a police complaint, their job is done.
As writers organise for the ban on The Satanic Verses to be lifted, the battle to undo the damage of the past quarter century has begun. It is time for India to wake up.
There is no more callous, matlabi and blindered creature than a modern art-apparatchik, I suspect not just in Navi Delhi but all over this sorry planet...
So why were the waiters so solicitous to our dillittante? "Our third friend, who's looking the most stylishly jhalla of us all offers an explanation: "It's the entertainment value. Look at all the others! They are so boring!"
It's my theory that, just like a piece of land that shouldn't be over-cultivated, no city should be over-watered with Culture, and Delhi certainly is a prime victim of this phenomena.
The cherub is standing next to Amit Chaudhuri and it makes a beautifully complete picture--cute Pravasi Bongs will always rule philistinous cities such as Delhi, no matter what shape they come in
While it is too early to proclaim the divide between the arty-ratti and the aam-public extinct, there is a start in that direction.
Why doesn't going to the multiplex and paying through your nose provide the kind of rush it used to in the early days, oh those eight-nine long years ago? Why is it, in fact, more often than not, such a bum trip?
Dillittante would like to salute the passing of a great fellow Dillittante and Dil-e-Tant, Bhaskar Bhattacharya, aka Duster to some, BB to others, and Bhaskar-da to this writer.
There has developed in Delhi a connoisseurship of the participatory performance form called the `Booklaunch'. Recently, two fairly different ones from the genre, were held on consecutive evenings...
A great natural tragedy bites into a coast equally very far from Batra Hospital and the DU Campus. A a psuedo-cynical 'NGO manager' goes down to see and finds the Calcutta photographer waking up again inside him.
Knowing how keenly I feel this lack in my life, a kind friend took me along to a carded launch for a Single Malt whisky. "How come, me?" I asked my pal. "She wasn't free," he said tersely, "she hates whisky."
Girija Devi accompanied by Kishan Maharaj on the tabla. It was cold and the old lady had a slight sore throat. The old gent, 82 years old to be precise had apparently been told firmly by his doctors to stop playing in concerts. Result: sheer magic.
This is not a review column, and furthermore it's a column specifically prohibited from gushing, so why was our cynic's cynic flood-eyed and on the verge of howling?
'Did you go to the Seth launch in Bombay?' I ask a friend who's moved to Sewer-by-the-Sea recently. 'Yes,' she replies, 'but, you know, it wasn't like a proper Delhi launch.'
When fat know-nothings inject a long snigger into "oh, so you're going to see some installation, huh?" it tends to raise my avant-gardist hackles. "Yes, why? Do you mind?" I reply.
In case you think making an art film is a bit of a jaunt, get rid of the idea. And if you somehow manage to make one, don't be too sure that you'd get to see it
It's inconceivable that someone like Vijai could have emerged from any other place in India. It will not be forgotten that he came from here, Neu-Delhi. Just one reason why we are the Boss Town.
He would take his colour, brushes and canvas outside to paint and talk with his love. He would stand close to the window and paint, keeping an eye on his muse.
They say the violin mimics the human sound. In his case, it was that of love, of longing. He didn’t know any other way of loving.
Younger people do not have much progressive beliefs; a 2017 survey found that one-third of young people opposed inter-caste marriage.
The pandemic has made it clear that virtual learning is here to stay. In the West, the big question is whether it will dilute the quality of the college experience and education. In India, which grapples with digital divide, the question remains whether this will reach most people at all.
Even after two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, many 'informed' individuals in India continue to deny the virus with unscientific claims and unfounded data. The latest? Omicron will end the pandemic.
Across Asia there are deeply entrenched obstacles to a mode of higher education that is liberal in multiple senses – disciplinary and epistemological but also social and political.
The two incidents in the recent past, one in Mon district of Nagaland and the other at Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh, undermined the core principles democracy and federalism.