Oscar Wilde Quotes

Rabindra Sangeet-Eso Eso Amar Ghore Eso(Chhaya Surjo)

>esho amar ghåre aamar ghare
  Come to my home dear, to my home 

>bahir hoe esho tumi je acho åntåre
  from the deepest recess of my heart 

>såpån duar khule esho arun aloke 
  opening the doors of my dream like a sunshine in the morning 

Should I criticize my son for supporting communism?

My 16 year old son is a supporter of communism, but mainly because he's studied up on it through books and online research, and talking to his grandfather who is from the former Soviet Union. Somehow or other, we got into an argument about politics and I more or less told him he wasn't right to support communism (he persists he supports the "real" kind). Well, long story short, I feel somewhat bad for criticizing him. Was I right, or should I allow him to continue his support of it?

From what I can observe, he isn't a full blown radical but a moderate supporter. An old Soviet flag which his grandfather gave him hangs on his wall along with a poster of Lenin.

Caste plays dominant role in Pak elections

Sameer Arshad:The Times of India

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a four-time Pakistan Muslim League (N) parliamentarian, downplays the importance of biradari (caste) factor in the May 11 elections and counts on his party's popularity to see him through. Yet as a hardnosed politician, he has the biradari breakup of his Murree-Kahuta constituency near Islamabad at his fingertips - Rajputs 30% and the rest Jats, Arians, Gujjars etc

The arithmetic is crucial as the factor has a strong impact on elections particularly in rural Pakistan and more so in Punjab that accounts for 55% national assembly seats. Rajputs are dominant in northern Punjab, where Abbasi's constituency is located, followed by Jats in central and Balochs in the province's south. The Peoples Party (PPP)-led government had a Rajput prime minister and a Jat as his deputy before it demitted office in March. The Bhuttos, who founded and have led the party, are of Rajput ancestry.

Review of Nivedita Menon's "Seeing like a Feminist"

Sunita Pathania,The Sunday Tribune

Feminism is an understanding of the ways in which men and women are produced and inserted into patriarchies. It recognizes that hierarchical organising of the world around gender is the key to maintaining social order. Feminism also acknowledges that in addition to gender based injustice, multiple structural inequalities define the present social order. Hence destabilisation of established social order is not only desirable but possible as well. Thus, in its questioning of the status quo, the feminist perspective is a “gesture of subversion towards power’.

Nivedita Menon’s Seeing Like a Feminist has as its core focus the analysis of several issues that concern feminist politics and activities in contemporary India at the conceptual level.

Rapes 'caused by lack of toilets'

Amarnath Tewary:BBC


Most of the cases of rape of women and girls in India's Bihar state occur when they go out to defecate in the open, police and social activists say.

Some 85% of the rural households in the state, one of India's poorest, have no access to a toilet, a study says.

The police reported more than 870 cases of rape in Bihar last year.

Women empowerment in Pakistan

Daily Times

KARACHI: Sindh government on Thursday launched comprehensive policy document focused on institutionalising women empowerment and creation of enabling environment for women to realise their potential in all spheres of life.

Caretaker Sindh Minister for Women Development, Anis Haroon on the occasion said there was a need to end the cynicism prevalent in certain sections of the society about implementation of women friendly laws and policies in the country.

"I agree that the process of implementation is slow yet these laws have largely benefited the women," she said.

The minister, also a senior women activist, particularly referred to the amendment in Hudood Ordinance, in 2006, that led to much needed procedural change providing massive relief to women wrongly implicated in Hudood cases.

Haroon said the interim government, despite its limitations that also include paucity of time will also ensure that procedural hindrances in enforcement of public friendly laws are addressed and that the concerned sections are also provided needed relief.

In this context, she said protection committees, an essential requirement under the law for elimination of child labour would also be constituted, without any unnecessary delay. APP 

Dalit Representation in Bollywood

Harish S. Wankhede

The celebration of 100 years of Bollywood needs to be reviewed from a subaltern perspective. The general assumption that cinema is a normal mode to produce anecdotes to satisfy the entertainment quotient of the people should go through a critical scrutiny. Films as artistic expression cannot be devoid of their politico-ideological objectives. Hence, from a Dalit perspective when one enquires about their space during the past one century of the film world, only a handful of non-decrepit, obscure examples are presented. Caste as a peculiar Indian reality is an acceptable fact but it is often cast away by the Bollywood filmmakers.

Bollywood’s first decade after Independence responded quite significantly to the modernist-socialist outlook. The rich and social elites were presented as insensitive towards the poor, selfish in their endeavours, greedy at their core and also violent with animalist instinct. The poor, city dwellers and village commoners were lovable, honest and stood in defence of ideals. Raj Kapoor as the humble city dweller of Awara (1951), Dev Anand as the unemployed charming youth in Kala Bazaar (1960) and Dilip Kumar as the rustic and raw struggler of the village in Naya Daur (1957) became the mascot of the common people’s aspirations.