Islamic scholar Abdul Salam Sullami, 67, died in Sharjah on Wednesday.
His body will be brought to his home at Edavanna, near Manjeri, on Friday. The funeral will take place at the Edavanna Juma Masjid at 4.30 p.m. on Friday.
A leading Mujahid scholar, Sullami wrote several books on Shariat, Koran, and Hadith.
His books on comparative religious study and Madhabs are popular. His commentary on Sahih-ul-Bukhari and translation of Riyad-u-Swaliheen earned him much fame in Kerala .
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Kerala / by Staff Reporter / Malappuram – February 01st, 2018
An enjoyable ride through Lucknow, but is it real?
Mehru Jaffer’s Love and Life in Lucknow takes us through the lives of the city as well as its people. Written in a light vein in the first person, each chapter introduces us to different aspects of Lucknow’s history and culture while also keeping us close to Jaffer’s own experiential world. The narrator is a shadow of Jaffer, who travels back and forth in time to associate events in her life with the city’s larger contextual fabric.
The book is an unsure khichdi of genres. The title suggests an exploratory memoir, the subtitle asks us to think of it as an “imaginary biography”, the publisher, Niyogi Books, categorises it as a work of fiction, and once we start reading, what should have been a creative narration often steers into dry history. It is left to us to decide how best to read the book. According to Jaffer, the characters belong to “different recesses of the region, from its imaginary past to records preserved in archives and in history books.”
Colourful citizens
What roots the city’s dynamism is the narrator’s experiences of living in it. She steers our perception of Lucknow as we are introduced by her to the city’s “colourful citizens”, its monuments, its heritage. The commanding presence of Bano Bua is palpable, at times coming dangerously close to overriding the presence of the city as well as of the narrator. Though Jaffer stops short of expressly identifying the city with her, the old but resolute Bano Bua nonetheless emerges as a key character who holds everything together.
But Bano Bua is not alone in Lucknow. We are introduced to the quick-witted vegetable seller who counters Bano Bua’s sharp rebukes with a honey-laced tongue. Such seduction through words may appear extraordinary in other cities but not so in Lucknow, where the culture of language and lyricism is embedded deeply in the city’s spirit.
We are also introduced to Naresh, a rickshaw-puller who is a successful nautankibaaz but carries in his heart the wish to play Laila in a Laila-Majnun production. Similarly, we learn about the wonderfully named Baba of the Bottles, who lives in a cave at Lakshman Tila, accepts folded currency in a bottle, and who, with one neat trick, converts the currency into a piece of paper on which he gives his expert advice to get rid of problems.
Monotony of facts
The memorable characters are not always alive. The book goes to great lengths to take us through the city’s past, from the time of the Ramayana to the arrival of the British, from the birth of Urdu to the cultivation of English, from Sita gazing at the golden deer to the courageous Uda Bai firing at the British colonialists.
It is through these explorations of Lucknow’s history that Jaffer establishes her credibility as an informed writer. However, it is also in these explorations that Jaffer’s strength as a writer is tested. Some passages are rescued in time from the monotony of facts, but reading the rest, one wishes to be taken back immediately to the people.
The book is not bereft of tenderness. A remarkable moment occurs between the young narrator and her grandmother. It is her grandparents’ wedding anniversary which the grandfather forgets. The grandmother, having prepared a nice anniversary dinner for the evening, waits for her husband to return. Slowly the night mutates into dawn, and when he does return, he informs his wife that he has already eaten and makes for the bathroom.
When the narrator asks her grandmother to remind her husband the importance of the date, she refuses. “It is not enough for just one person to consider something important that requires two people to do so,” she says and closes the conversation.
Jaffer’s book should be read for the people in it. Though the writing is of varying merit, when it does succeed in bringing out nuances, the experience of reading is elevated and the city becomes immediately accessible. But the book also struggles to sustain this elevation. Jaffer’s writing undulates through the pages, taking us on both enjoyable drives and tiring detours.
The writer is the author of Painting That Red Circle White, a poetry collection.
Love and Life in Lucknow: An Imaginary Biography of a City; Mehru Jaffer, Niyogi Books, ₹395
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books > Imaginary Biography / by Mihir Vatsa / April 14th, 2018
The calligraphy is the soul of The Musalman. | Photo Credit: R. Ragu
The Musalman was established in Chennai in 1927
Reed pens, ink bottles, stacks of papers — these are the first things you notice when you step into the computer-less office of The Musalman. Aged a venerable 91, what is possibly the world’s only handwritten newspaper (and the only one without a computer) shows no signs of signing off.
In its office in Chennai, a dark green visiting card bears the newspaper’s name and that of its editor, Sayed Arifullah, and lists the 13 degrees he holds.
Arifullah, in his mid-30s with a salt-and-pepper beard, exudes a casual confidence. He has been at the helm for nearly 10 years now.
The Musalman, established in 1927, was started by Syed Azathulla, Arifullah’s grandfather, because “he felt there was no voice for Muslims and there should be one.” Located in a small lane next to Chennai’s iconic Wallajah Mosque, the office is a tight space with two rooms, one housing the press and the other acting as reception area. “We are renovating, hence the bustle,” he says.
Since its inception, the newspaper has seen three editors: Azathulla, his son Syed Fazlullah and now, Arifullah. When I ask if he had always planned to take over the reins from his father, he shrugs. “It was important that the newspaper be kept running and so I chose to do it. I edit, I write, and I run the paper now.”
Potter-esque
Almost all the articles in the four-page broadsheet are selected by Arifullah himself. He says he has reporters in different parts of the country, but the newspaper, much like The Economist, does not carry bylines. Around 10 every morning, two translators come in and set out the news in Urdu. In the next two hours, the paper’s three calligraphers, called katibs, painstakingly write out each news item on to the broadsheet using calligraphy pens in a Harry Potter-esque manner.
The calligraphy is really the soul of the paper. But with the advent of technology, the katibs, earlier employed in newspapers and Urdu publishing houses, have become redundant. The Industrial Training Institute in Srinagar, one of the last government institutes where Urdu calligraphy was taught, wound up the course last May because of no takers.
Finding skilled scribes is a challenge, Arifullah acknowledges, but he is quick to add that he isn’t looking yet. His scribes have been with the paper for the past 30 years. “At that time, my father conducted calligraphy tests, analysed their handwriting, and hired them. They have remained with us all these years — we’re like a family,” he says.
Once the laborious scripting is done, the advertisements are added and the paper is set to the negative. It goes to print around 1 p.m. and reaches most of its 21,000 readers by the evening. And it costs 75 paise. “It’s the cheapest paper in the country!” Arifulla quips dryly, his income coming from the press and not the paper.
“We cover all sorts of news: national, international, local… all the important happenings,” says the editor. From the Egypt elections to ‘carcinogenic’ coffee, The Musalman does cover it all. But like most Urdu newspapers, the focus is on opinions rather than news itself. “The Urdu newspapers in our country are often revenue-strapped and might not be able to carry breaking news or pay for agency copy, so the focus is on providing opinions and context,” says veteran journalist and Urdu aficionado Shams Ur Rehman Alavi.
Arifullah seconds this. “We don’t carry breaking news. It’s very difficult to rewrite entire pages, so we stopped.” He also says that there is a strong preference for topics that are close to the community. “Our focus is obviously on Islam and Islamic teachings, but that is not all of it. We have many Urdureaders who are non-Muslims as well,” he says.
Personal process
The paper has readers all over the country. “Delhi, Kolkata… families who have been subscribing to the newspaper for generations. We send them the paper by courier. It’s a very personal process,” says Arifullah.
The newspaper carries a few advertisements, in English and Urdu, for jewellery, furniture, tour operators, even a few government tenders. Otherwise, it largely sticks to a format. The front page is for top stories with a thrust on international news. Page two carries the editorial, and the other two pages are for local news and advertisements. The Monday edition is different — there are more articles on the Quran and a bit of Islamic history.
In the pre-Independence era, many prominent newspapers in north India were in Urdu and were read by everybody, regardless of religion. But after Partition, Urdu fell out of favour and many newspapers shut down. The last decade has seen a slow reversal, with the revival of papers like Sahara (renamed Roznama Sahara) and Inquilab.
Other papers might be going online, but The Musalman has no such plans. As Arifullah says, the paper’s uniqueness is in being handwritten, and anything else would kill the legacy.
For 91 years, the paper has been published every day, without fail. Even during Partition, The Musalman was on duty. So what happens after Arifullah? Will his children carry forward the legacy? “Sure,” he says, sounding amused. “They aren’t even five yet, but sure.”
navmi.krishna@thehindu.co.in
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Focus> Society / by Navmi Krishna / April 14th, 2018
Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s Padmaavat in Hyderabad. | Photo Credit: The Hindu
Digitised manuscript of epic tale draws scholars from all over
Away from the violence and din surrounding the release of Padmaavat, a nearly 200-year-old copy of Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s 16th-century epic poem, on which the film is based, sits in the library of the Jamia Nizamia Islamic seminary here.
Records at the Jamia, which is itself a 140-year-old institution, show that the book was copied in 1239 Hijiri (Islamic calendar), which corresponds to 1823 CE.
The title finds a place in the library alongside over 2,500 books and rare manuscripts, one of which — on Islamic jurisprudence — is 700 years old.
In the poem, the Sufi Jayasi speaks of Padmavati, princess of Sinhaldweep in Sri Lanka, and Ratansen, the King of Chittor. After hearing of the princess’ beauty from Hiraman, a parrot, the king, who is already married to Nagmati, embarks on an arduous journey to Sinhaldweep, and later marries the princess.
But there is a twist: Devpal, another king, too, has heard of Padmavati’s unmatched beauty and covets her. A battle ensues between the two kings. Meanwhile, a banished courtier seeking vengeance tells Alauddin Khilji of Padmavati and he marches to Chittor. But upon his arrival, he sees that the princess has committed jauhar.
The Jamia’s library is on the first storey in one of several buildings on its sprawling campus in the Old City. There are several cupboards and shelves which contain books, most of them handwritten, on different disciplines. One has books on tasawwuf, or Sufi mysticism, written in Farsi, others house books on Arabic grammar, and a third has books on liturgy in Urdu.
But perched on a shelf marked adab, or literature, is Padmaavat. The poem, handwritten in delicate nastaliq calligraphy on ageing paper, is contained within fine boundaries in red ink. Its 216 pages, which narrate the tale, are largely well-preserved. It has also been digitised.
The Jamia’s chief librarian of 20 years, Mohammed Fasihuddin Nizami, alumnus of the Islamic varsity, points out that the book belonged to its founder Maulana Anwarullah Farooqui.
Reverentially referring to Maulana Farooqui as Baani-e-Jamia, he says, “He was the vazeer (Minister) for the Umoor-e-Mazhabi (ecclesiastical affairs) in the Hyderabad State. He tutored the sixth Nizam Mir Mahbub Ali Khan and seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan. Once he was appointed Minister, it was realised that the Hyderabad State did not have a Jamia. The Jamia Nizamia is a result of this realisation. This copy of Padmaavat is a part of his vast collection.”
Mr. Nizami explains how the book reached Maulana Farooqui’s library. “While we do not know for how much [this copy of] Padmaavat was procured, Baani-e-Jamia was a Minister and he had the required resources at his disposal. He had men and money to procure books,” he says.
The seasoned librarian then turns to the last page of the book and reads the name of the calligrapher who painstakingly made of the copy of the original so that it could be preserved for posterity, “Az qalam Tilokchand.” From the pen of Tilokchand. Apart from using scientific methods to preserve the book, the Jamia has digitised it for scholars. Researchers have arrived here from West Asian countries and even Japan. “We cannot say that there is an increase in footfalls as the general public is unaware of its [the copy of Padmaavat] existence here. Primarily, the kutub khana is for scholars and researchers.
The book is old and needs to be preserved. We do not want to damage the manuscript by wear and tear. This is why we let scholars use the digitised version,” Mr. Nizami says.
But there is more to the poem than meets the eye. Jayasi’s work is deeply allegorical as is the nature of Sufi mysticism. Each character in Padmaavat has an implied meaning.
Speaking to The Hindu, noted historian Rana Safvi said, “The parrot is the spiritual teacher. Ratansen is the Sufi seeker. Padmavati is the wisdom which he is seeking. Nagmati, the first wife, is the material world. Ratansen brings Padmavati to his palace. There is a fight between the two wives. He tells them that they have to live together. This is the existence of the temporal and spiritual world.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad – Sunday Special / by Syed Mohammed / Hyderabad – January 27th, 2018
Going With the flow: Mansoor Khan. —Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma
Filmmaker Mansoor Khan on the cinema of his illustrious father and his comeback plans
Director Mansoor Khan puts his father Nasir Husain’s contribution in perspective following the release of Music, Masti, Modernity – The Cinema of Nasir Hussain by author Akshay Manwani in New Delhi recently. Excerpts from an interview:
The book mentions that you criticised the kind of films your father made. What then made you take up filmmaking?
I always thought I wanted to do engineering. I pursued it for 5 years, but when in my last year at MIT, I felt I did not want to be in a 9 to 5 job. I dropped out and returned to India. Around this time, I wrote a short film and shot it with friends. It turned out well and my father felt I could direct. He did not guide me formally, but I learnt a lot sub-consciously when I was in school and college and that is what I recalled while working along with him on the script of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak.
Your dad was a dynamic personality. As a son, how do you remember him best, as a writer, producer or director?
I always think of my father first as a writer, director and then producer. That is the order in which he emerged as a film personality. His forte was writing and he developed a unique style that was fresh and counter-current to the times. That is apparent from the movies he wrote and directed.
He wrote dialogues for a number of films but his dialogue writing was always under appreciated?
I feel that he wrote dialogues with subtlety, without being overly melodramatic. Audiences tend to remember dramatic dialogues and that is why he is under-appreciated. That applies to his sense of humour too.
What are the elements that made him standout in the league of top filmmakers?
The primary focus of my father was to entertain the audience with finesse, and leaning towards the new. This combined with excellent music and hilarious situational comedy made a tasty concoction that worked time and again. He made no bones of the fact that he repeated the basic plot in most of his films.
Nasir Husain changed the way Hindi film heroes behaved on screen. Did you have any particular image in mind while writing the role for Aamir Khan in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar ?
In QSQT he had to play an honest man who loved his father and family, and also stayed true to his girl. These counter forces created the endearing moments in the film. Sanjaylal inJo Jeeta…. is a brat who wants the easy way out in life and has a justification for all his antics. He needs to grow up and understand what character and hard work are all about. This he learns the hard way when his actions almost result in his brother losing his life and shattering his father’s dream of him winning the cycle race. So it is not as though I have a particular hero in mind. It has to be true to the premise of the story.
What kind of music he used to listen to? Who were those singers who influenced him?
He had a tremendous intuitive sense of a good melody. It is hard to pin down which singer he liked particularly, because he went mainly for was a good melody. It could be in any genre of music from western pop to Indian folk. He did not advise me as such but he led me to listen to some bands in the early ‘70s like Pink Floyd and Emerson, Lake and Palmer that influenced my taste. He bought their albums on trips abroad. That is how I ended up listening to them.
Aamir Khan assisted your father before becoming an actor. But the kind of cinema he makes is different from Nasir’s cinema.
Aamir has a tremendous love for cinema and a great sense of script. He goes by his inner instinct and belief in a good script.
Are you planning for a comeback!
I live peacefully in Coonoor and I am following my heart. I was clear about this even before I made my first film. I will continue to follow my heart and if that leads to a film then so be it.
I will make a film if it comes to me but that has to emerge from within. As of now, I am not planning ,it but be optimistic about the future.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Mumbai / by Atif Khan / November 10th, 2016
In 1963, a human skull was discovered in a pub in Kent in south-east England. A brief handwritten note stuck inside the cavity revealed it to be that of Alum Bheg, an Indian soldier in British service who was executed during the aftermath of the 1857 Uprising. Alum Bheg was blown from a cannon for having allegedly murdered British civilians, and his head was brought back as a grisly war-trophy by an Irish officer present at his execution. The skull is a troublesome relic of both anti-colonial violence and the brutality and spectacle of British retribution.
Kim Wagner presents an intimate and vivid account of life and death in British India in the throes of the largest rebellion of the nineteenth century. Fugitive rebels spent months, even years, hiding in the vastness of the Himalayas before they were eventually hunted down and punished by a vengeful colonial state. Examining the colonial practice of collecting and exhibiting human remains, this book offers a critical assessment of British imperialism that speaks to contemporary debates about the legacies of Empire and the myth of the ‘Mutiny’.
source: http://www.penguin.co.in / Penguin House / Books> Non-Fiction
The skull belonged to a 32-year-old Indian soldier who revolted against the British
In 2014, while sitting in an office in London’s Mile End, historian Kim Wagner received an email from a couple who said they owned a skull.
Dr Wagner, who teaches imperial history at Queen Mary University of London, says the couple told him they did not feel comfortable with the “thing” in their house, and did not know what to do with it.
The lower jaw of the skull was missing, the few remaining teeth were loose, and it had the “sepia hue of old age”.
But what was remarkable was a detailed handwritten note in a neatly folded slip of paper inserted in an eye socket. The note told the brief story of the skull:
Skull of Havildar “Alum Bheg,” 46th Regt. Bengal N. Infantry who was blown away from a gun, amongst several others of his Regt. He was a principal leader in the mutiny of 1857 & of a most ruffianly disposition. He took possession (at the head of a small party) of the road leading to the fort, to which place all the Europeans were hurrying for safety. His party surprised and killed Dr. Graham shooting him in his buggy by the side of his daughter. His next victim was the Rev. Mr. Hunter, a missionary, who was flying with his wife and daughters in the same direction. He murdered Mr Hunter, and his wife and daughters after being brutally treated were butchered by the road side.
Alum Bheg was about 32 years of age; 5 feet 7 ½ inches high and by no means an ill looking native.
The skull was brought home by Captain (AR) Costello (late Capt. 7th Drag. Guards), who was on duty when Alum Bheg was executed.
A handwritten note inserted in an eye socket told the brief story of the skull
What was clear from the note was that the skull was of a rebel Indian soldier called Alum Bheg, who belonged to the Bengal Regiment and who was executed in 1858 by being blown from the mouth of a cannon in Sialkot (a town in Punjab province located in present-day Pakistan); and that a man who witnessed the execution brought the skull to England. The note is silent on why Bheg committed the alleged murders.
Native Hindu and Muslim soldiers, also known as sepoys, rebelled against the British East India Company in 1857 over fears that gun cartridges were greased with animal fat forbidden by their religions. The British ruled India for 200 years until the country’s independence in 1947.
The couple in Essex had trawled the internet and failed to find anything about Bheg. They contacted Dr Wagner after they found his name as a historian who had authored a book on the Indian uprising, often referred to as the first war of independence.
‘Grisly trophy’
On a wet November day, which was also his birthday, Dr Wagner met the couple. They told him that they had inherited the skull after one of their relatives took over a pub in Kent called The Lord Clyde in 1963, and found the skull stored under some old crates and boxes in a small room in the back of the building.
Nobody quite knows how the skull ended up in the pub. The local media had excitedly reported on the “nerve-shattering discovery” in 1963 and carried pictures of the new pub owners “proudly posing with the grisly trophy” before it was put up on display at the pub. When the owners died, it was finally passed on to their relatives who simply hid it away.
“And so it was I found myself standing in a small train station in Essex with a human skull in my bag. Not just any other skull but one directly related to a part of history that I write about and that I teach my students every year,” says Dr Wagner.
What was very clear, he says, is that it was a “trophy skull, irrevocably linked to a narrative of violence”.
But first Dr Wagner had to confirm that the skull matched the history outlined in the note, written by an unknown person. At London’s Natural History Museum, an expert examined it and suggested that it dated back to the mid-19th Century; and that it definitely belonged to a male of Asian ancestry, who was possibly in his mid-30s.
The skull was discovered in a pub in Kent called The Lord Clyde in 1963
There was no sign of violence, said the expert, which is not unusual in the case of execution by cannon, where the torso takes the full impact of the blast. The skull also bore cut marks from a tool, suggesting that the head was defleshed by being boiled or being left exposed to insects.
Dr Wagner says he did not believe immediately that it would be possible to find out very much more about Bheg.
Individual soldiers rarely left any traces in the colonial archives, with the possible exception of someone like Mangal Pandey, who fired the first shot at a British officer on 29 March 1857 on the outskirts of Kolkata and stirred up a wave of rebellion in India against the colonial power.
Bheg’s name was not mentioned in any of the documents, reports, letters, memoirs and trial records from the period in the archives and libraries in India and UK. There were also no descendants demanding the return of the skull.
But there were a few helpful discoveries.
Dr Wagner found the letters of Bheg’s alleged victims to their families. What proved crucial, he says, in piecing the story together were the letters and memoirs of an American missionary, Andrew Gordon, who lived in Sialkot during and after the uprising. He knew both Dr Graham and the Hunters – Bheg’s victims – personally and he had attended the soldier’s execution.
There was also a revealing report in the illustrated newspaper, The Sphere, in 1911 on a grisly exhibit in a museum in Whitehall:
The ghastly memento of the Indian Mutiny has, we are informed, just been placed in the museum of the Royal United Service Institution at Whitehall. It is a skull of a sepoy of the 49th Regiment of Bengal Infantry who was blown from the guns in 1858 with eighteen others. The skull has been converted into a cigar box as we see.
The newspaper said that “while we may be able to understand all the savagery of the terrible time – the cruelty of the natives and the cruel retribution that followed – is it not an outrage that a memento of our retribution, which in these days would not be tolerated for a moment, should be placed on exhibition in a great public institution?”
Indian soldiers rose up against the British in 1857
Battling a famine of evidence, Dr Wagner began researching Bheg. He worked in the archives in London and Delhi, and travelled to Sialkot to locate the forgotten battlefield of the four-day Trimmu Ghat clash in July 1857 – during which the Sialkot rebels, including Bheg, were intercepted and defeated by General John Nicholson. The general was mortlly wounded two months later leading the assault to recapture Delhi from the mutineers.
He relied on letters, petitions, proclamations and statements by rebels after the outbreak of the uprising, went through 19th Century newspaper databases and scanned books.
“It was only after I spent some time researching the story, in the UK and in India, that I managed to piece a historical narrative together and realised that there was a bigger story to tell,” he told me.
‘Detective novel’
The result is Wagner’s new book, The Skull of Alum Bheg, a vivid page-turner on life and death in British India during the largest anti-colonial revolt of the 19th Century. Yasmin Khan, associate professor of history at the University of Oxford, says the book “reads like a detective novel and yet is also an important contribution to understanding British rule and the extent of colonial violence”.
Dr Wagner writes that his book sets out to “restore some of the humanity and dignity that has been denied to Alum Bheg by telling the story of his life and death during one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of British India”.
“I hope I have prepared the ground for Alum Bheg to finally find some peace, some 160 years late.”
Kim Wagner says the ‘final chapter of Alum Bheg’s story has yet to be written’
In Dr Wagner’s telling, Alum Bheg – properly transliterated as Alim Beg – was a Sunni Muslim from northern India. The Bengal Regiment was raised in Cawnpore (now Kanpur) in today’s Uttar Pradesh state, and it is likely that Bheg hailed from the region. Muslims made up around 20% of the largely Hindu regiments.
Bheg was responsible for a small detachment of soldiers, and had a gruelling routine, guarding the camp, carrying letters and working as a peon for higher officials of the regiment. After the revolt in July 1857, he appeared to have evaded the British troops until his capture and execution nearly a year later.
Resting place
Captain Costello, who was described as being present at the execution in the note, was established as Robert George Costello. Dr Wagner believes he is the man who brought the skull back to Britain. He was born in Ireland and sent to India in 1857, and retired from his commission 10 months later, boarded a steamer from India in October 1858, and reached Southampton a little more than a month later.
“The final aim of my research is to prepare for Bheg to be repatriated to India, if at all possible,” Dr Wagner says.
He says there have been no claims to the skull, but he’s in touch with Indian institutions and the British High Commission in India is also involved in the initial discussions.
“I am very keen for Alum Bheg’s repatriation not to be politicised, and for the skull not to end up in a glass-case in a museum or simply be forgotten in a box somewhere,” says Dr Wagner.
Dr. Wagner says Bhegh should be buried in an island on the current India- Pakistan border
“My hope is for Alum Bheg to be repatriated and buried in a respectful manner in the near future.”
A fitting place to bury Bheg, he believes, would be on the island on the Ravi river, where the sepoy and his fellow soldiers had taken refuge after surviving the first day of the battle and which today marks the border between India and Pakistan.
“Ultimately, that is not for me to decide, but whatever happens, the final chapter of Alum Bheg’s story has yet to be written.”
Photographs courtesy Kim Wagner
source: http://www.bbc.com / BBC News / Home> India / by Soutik Biswas / India Correspondent / April 05th, 2018
This year, Sahitya Akademi’s ‘Annual Festival of Letters’ will feature a seminar on Oral and Tribal literature and Tribal poet meet. The Annual Festival of Letters is going to take place in New Delhi at Rabindra Bhavan from Monday, February 12 to 17, 2018.
This year the theme of the six-day long festival is ’70 Years of Indian Independence’. The festival will begin with the inauguration of the Akademi exhibition by Hindi writer Chitra Mudgal followed by the Sahitya Akademi Awards presentation ceremony.
The seminar on Oral and Tribal literature and Tribal poet meet will be held on February 13 and 14 and feature eminent writers and scholars from all over the country, including over 30 tribal poets.
The following tribal poets will take part in the seminar and reading session at the Akademi’s annual Festival of Letters: Arjun Singh Dhurve (Baiga), Rajkishore Nayak (Bathudi), Kuldeep Singh Bampal (Bhotia, Sudarshan Bhumij (Bhumij), Zohming Thanga (Bongchar), Kulin Patel (Dhodia), Colnat B. Marak (Garo), Rafiq Anjum (Gojri), Roop Singh Khusram (Gondi), Veera Rathod (Gormati), Rudra Narayan Panigrahi (Halbi), Kairasing Bandia (Ho), Riquoma Rq. Lalloo (Jayantia), On Teran (Karbi), Saroj Kerketta (Kharia), Minimon Laloo (Khasi), M. P. Rekha (Kodava), Bikas Ray Debbarma (Kokborok), Mahabir Oraon (Kurux), Deenabandhu Kanhar (Kui), Konchok Rigzen (Ladakhi), Kachyo Lepcha (Lepcha), Kalachand Mahali (Mahali), Th. Thumbu Maram (Maram, Dipok Kumar Doley (Missing), Puni Losii (Mao), Ashrita Tuti (Mundari), Jamuna Bini Tadar (Nyishi), N Vumsuan (Paite),Charu Mohan Rabha (Rabha), Rajesh Rathava (Rathavi), Aasim Sardar Tadavi (Tadavi), and Satyajit Toto (Toto).
The keynote address will be delivered by T.V. Kattimani, Vice-Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University.
The six-day-long festival will witness participation of more than 250 writers and scholars from different parts of the country representing various languages.
“National seminar on ’70 Years of Indian Independence: Literary Portrayals’ and a seminar on Tribal and Oral Literature will feature eminent scholars and writers from all over the country. Apart from other regular features, we will have Indo-Israeli Writers’ Meet on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Israel,” said the Akademi’s Secretary K. Sreenivasarao while talking to media persons .
Importantly, three Muslim writers were selected among others representing 24 Indian languages for 2017 Sahitya Akademi award. Afsar Ahmed for his Bengali novel, “Sei NikhonjManusta”, Baig Ehsas for his Urdu short stories “Dakhma” and poet LateInqulab for his Tamil poetry “Kandhaal Naatkal” are among those honored with Sahitya Akademi award 2017.
Two more Muslims, Iqbal Nazki and Mahmood Ahmed Sahar were selected for Sahitya Akademi prize for translating Tamil novel “Chaivu Narkli” to Kashmiri “Araam Kursi” and Sanskrit poetry “Meghdootam” to “Kalidas ki Azeem Shairi” respectively.
On December 21, 2017, Sahitya Akademi had announced its annual awards in 24 languages.
source: http://www.twocircles.net / TwoCircles.net / Home> Adivasis / by Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net / February 09th, 2018
The Munshi Premchand Award-2016 for contribution in the field of literature was awarded to Ali Zamin Kazmi by the state government for his novel ‘Godan Ke Baad’ on Saturday.
A cash award of Rs 1lakh was also given to Kazmi.
“The Munshi Premchand award 2016 came as a surprise to me as I was not expecting it,” said Kazmi. He said youngsters should develop a love for books and literature.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Lucknow News / March 25th, 2018
Doctors of the Department of Internal Medicine at Government Royapettah Hospital have brought out a book, Manual of Toxicology — An Indian Perspective, which, they say, will fill a lacunae in the knowledge about poisons.
“Most toxicology manuals are silent on many of the Indian posions, as they have been written from a western perspective. This book is based on our experience treating cases involving toxins,” says Dr. A. Shaik Sulaiman Meeran, one of the doctors who spearheaded this book project.
Dr. P. Paranthaman was the editor-in-chief. Dr. Sulaiman, Dr. A. Samuel Dinesh and Dr. D. Venkateswaralu served as associate editors and Dr. P. Raja as co-editor. The book has been brought out by Chess Educational Publishers.
Dr. Sulaiman says that knowing the sources of danger will prevent accidental ingesting of poisons or strikes by venomous reptiles and insects.
Knowing where to seek help will be a crucial factor in recovery.
He says snake bite cases from the southern suburbs, which include Tambaram and surrounding areas, parts of Old Mahabalipuram Road and East Coast Road are common. Anti-venom serum for treatment of bites by cobra, viper and krait is available. Government general hospitals have them.
Residents of semi-urban areas can face the problem of snake bikes, it is available in primary health centres, he says. Here is a word of caution. “Ninety percent of the sea snakes are poisonous and there is no anti-venom serum for them. Only supportive treatment can be given. Sea snakes are sometimes found near fishermen’s settlements. They get entangled in fishermen’s nets and are brought ashore. There is always a high possibility of finding them near fishermen’s hamlets on East Coast Road,” says Dr. Sulaiman.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / March 23rd, 2018
