Category: Arts, Culture & Entertainment

** As scholar, critic, translator Gayatri Spivak turns 80, an extract from an exhilarating 1998 speech

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is University Professor, and a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University.

Spivak, well known for her translation of Derrida as also some works of Mahasweta Devi, was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation in 1997

I am deeply honoured that the Sahitya Akademi have decided to acknowledge my efforts to translate the fiction of Mahasweta Devi.

I want to begin by thanking Mahasweta Devi for writing such spectacular prose. I want to thank my parents, Pares Chandra Chakravorty and Sivani Chakravorty for bringing me up in a household that was acutely conscious of the riches of Bangla. My father was a doctor. But we children were always reminded that my father’s Bangla essay for his matriculation examination had been praised by Tagore himself.

** Omani adventurer to release book on India at Muscat International Book Fair

Having visited over 70 countries and authored ten books on his travels, Omani mountaineer and adventurer Khalid Said al Anqudi has yet another literary work detailing picturesque India and its colourful traditions.

Titled Al Mahraja (The King), the book covers majestic mountains, customs and traditions and details of Anqudi’s adventures in India.

Speaking to Muscat Daily, Anqudi said, “I wrote the book in 2021. It will be launched at the 26th Muscat International Book Fair starting on February 24.”

** 1200-year-old sculptures unearthed in Telangana’s Nalgonda district

Sculptures date back to 8th century, bear Pallava influence and have uncommon features

Rare sculptures with unique iconographical features dating back to the 8th century AD were found at Bhattugudem village of Peddavura mandal in Nalgonda district.

According to E. Sivanagireddy, archaeologist and CEO of Pleach India Foundation, sculptures of Brahma and Bhairava in front of the Kameswara temple of the village were found.

** The incredible story of Hicky’s Bengal Gazette and how it took on the establishment

Andrew Otis offers insights into Asia’s first printed newspaper that was published from Calcutta, the then capital of British India, and his research that led to his seminal book, Hicky’s Bengal Gazette: The Untold Story of India’s First Newspaper

** The music and the memory

The story of a man who made a business of recording the music of the past.

The Indian in the United States — nostalgic and out of place — was homesick. It was a sentiment that Atanu Biswas, formerly of Calcutta, then of Newark in the US, understood well. And it was to cater to

his compatriots that the research chemist launched Biswas Records in 1994.

Biswas Records filled this gap. The logo of a Bengal School-influenced line drawing of a traditionally-dressed Indian woman holding a lit lamp with Biswas written at the bottom was always found in abundance at major Durga Pujas across the US, from Boston to San Francisco. A passion project for Atanu, whose day job involves trying to turn soya bean products into biodegradable packaging for FMCG, and his wife Sheena, Biswas Records produced more than 175 albums of Bengali as well as north Indian classical music till 2005.

West Bengal / USA

** Global Skill Park in Bhopal to be named after Sant Ravidas, announces MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan

Along with this, Sant Ravidas Swa-rozgar Yojana, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Aarthik Kalyan Yojana and Mukhyamantri Anusuchit Jati Vishesh Pariyojana Vitta Poshan Yojana will be started to provide employment to the youths. Sant Ravidas community buildings will be constructed in scheduled caste dominated areas of every district of the state.”

Madhya Pradesh

** Nagarjuna adopts 1,080 acres of forest land near Hyderabad

Popular Tollywood actor Akkineni Nagarjuna and his family on Thursday adopted 1,080 acres of forest land on the outskirts of Hyderabad. Nagarjuna along with his family members and Rajya Sabha member J. Santosh Kumar laid foundation stone for Akkineni Nageswara Rao Urban Forest Park.

The Park will come up in Chengicherla forest area on the outskirts of Hyderabad in memory of Nagarjuna’s father and well-known actor Akkineni Nageswara Rao. Nagarjuna’s gesture came on the birthday of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

Telangana