Rekha, Muzaffar Ali`s immortal Umrao Jaan, has finally won the Padma Shri. The recognition may have come 29 years after her arguably most memorable screen performance, but she has joined a truly illustrious group. Sahir Ludhianvi, Hindustani cinema`s social conscience and greatest poet, is a member. So are a few legends of screen acting, including Balraj Sahni and Suchitra Sen, as is the melodi
In course of an argument, UP chief minister Mayawati`s counsel in the supreme court contested that the erection of her statues in Lucknow and Noida was part of Mayawati`s political project to empower marginalised social sections through symbols. This argument implied that despite her four stints as the chief minister of the country`s most populous state, Mayawati still considered symbolism as a
Sixty years into the Republic, India’s agriculture sector is serving up some rather unpalatable facts: we have not eliminated hunger; we are not self-sufficient in food; we have not bettered farm incomes. On the other hand, we have bankrupted our natural resources and created a system which is ecologically and economically unsustainable. The absence of famine has not transl
The release of this inaugural issue of Governance Now, on the completion of sixty years of the Republic of India, naturally raises the obvious question as to what have been the achievements, or failures, of our republic in these sixty years. This logically leads to the still deeper question that comes to the mind, viz, did India become a republic only on the adoption of the constitution which d
