I am sad that while every major city of India has a proper public-sponsored art gallery, Kolkata does not. Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore have great facilities called the National Galleries of Modern Art (NGMAs),

• Culture | সংস্কৃতি
• Government । সরকার
• 2024 | ২০২৪
• Kolkata Museum of Modern Art । কলকাতা মিউজিয়াম অফ মডার্ন আর্ট
• National Galleries of Modern Art (NGMAs) । ন্যাশনাল গ্যালারিস অফ মডার্ন আর্টস

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Today, as we celebrate the Mahavira Jayanti, I am reminded of his association with the western tract of Bengal, known since ancient times as the Rarh or Radh. When I served as the Additional District Magistrate of the Asansol-Durgapur belt of Burdwan (now known as Paschim Barddhaman district) in 1980-81, I had visited the ruins of a famous Jain temple at Punchra.

• Culture | সংস্কৃতি
• Religion । ধর্ম
• Festival & Celebrations | পার্বণ ও উদ্‌যাপন
• 2024 | ২০২৪
• Mahavir Jayanti । মহাবীর জয়ন্তী
• Jainism | জৈনধর্ম

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When Narendra Modi attacked Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav recently for violating the ‘strict norm’ of vegetarianism during the Ram Navami period, he was directly inciting voters in the northern Hindi belt, and of course, in adjunct areas like Gujarat.

• Politics । রাজনীতি
• Narendra Modi । নরেন্দ্র মোদী
• Election । নির্বাচন
• 2024 | ২০২৪
• Vegetarianism । নিরামিষভোজী
• Non-Vegetarianism । আমিষভোজী
• Rashtriya Janata Dal । রাষ্ট্রীয় জনতা দল
• Tejashwi Yadav । তেজস্বী যাদব

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Nothing could sum up better the transactional relationship between big capital and authoritarian rule than these words of William E. Scheuerman, Professor of Political Science at Indiana University in the ‘Boston Review’, under the catchy title Why Do Authoritarians Win?

• Politics । রাজনীতি
• Narendra Modi । নরেন্দ্র মোদী
• Government । সরকার
• 2024 | ২০২৪
• Bharatiya Janata Party । ভারতীয় জনতা পার্টি
• Electoral Bonds । ইলেক্টোরাল বন্ড

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In the last three years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has introduced and carried through, with lightning speed and his brute majority in parliament, a series of legislations that choke or restrict our freedom of expression, information, data and their transmission. We have reasons to believe that the apparatus of a surveillance state has been grafted, stealthily but surely,

• Politics । রাজনীতি
• Narendra Modi । নরেন্দ্র মোদী
• Government । সরকার
• 2024 | ২০২৪
• Fact-Check Units । ফ্যাক্ট-চেক ইউনিট
• Freedom of Expression । মত প্রকাশের স্বাধীনতা

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Just a couple of days after the sad death of the one and only Ameen Sayani, I stumbled upon a photo with him, taken by his son at the NCPA, Mumbai. ‘August 2019’ was scrawled on it and I had gone there to deliver the Jamshed Bhaba Memorial Talk on Indian Culture. I was his great admirer and came to know him well from the time I headed All India Radio and Doordarshan, as CEO, Prasar Bharati.

• Vividh Bharati । বিবিধ ভারতী
• People & Memories । মানুষ এবং স্মৃতি
• Culture | সংস্কৃতি
• Akashvani । আকাশবাণী
• B V Keskar । বি ভি কেসকর
• All India Radio (AIR)। অল ইন্ডিয়া রেডিও
• 2024 | ২০২৪
• Ameen Sayani । আমীন সায়ানি
• Radio Ceylon । রেডিও সিলোন

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Just a couple of days after the sad death of the one and only Ameen Sayani, I stumbled upon a photo with him, taken by his son at the NCPA, Mumbai. ‘August 2019’ was scrawled on it and I had gone there to deliver the Jamshed Bhabha Memorial Talk on Indian Culture. I was his great admirer. And came to know him well from the time I headed All India Radio and Doordarshan, as CEO, Prasar Bharati.

• Vividh Bharati । বিবিধ ভারতী
• People & Memories । মানুষ এবং স্মৃতি
• Culture | সংস্কৃতি
• Akashvani । আকাশবাণী
• B V Keskar । বি ভি কেসকর
• All India Radio (AIR)। অল ইন্ডিয়া রেডিও
• 2024 | ২০২৪
• Ameen Sayani । আমীন সায়ানি
• Radio Ceylon । রেডিও সিলোন

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The roots of the celebrations on the 26th of January as our Republic Day actually go back to a very significant development in our Independence struggle. Till 1929, Gandhiji and the mainstream of the Indian National Congress could not decide whether to demand complete independence from the British Empire.

• Jawaharlal Nehru । জহরলাল নেহরু
• Politics । রাজনীতি
• Mahatma Gandhi। মহাত্মা গান্ধী
• Republic Day। প্রজাতন্ত্র দিবস
• 2024 | ২০২৪
• Independence Day । স্বাধীনতা দিবস
• Indian National Congress । ভারতীয় জাতীয় কংগ্রেস

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As a normal human being who prefers not to jog or climb unless compelled to, it was rather foolhardy to agree to my wife’s persuasion to visit Amaranth. Once trapped, I did a bit of reading and panicked when I learnt that it is one of the most strenuous treks, with unnecessary exertions.

• Memoir। স্মৃতিকথা
• Religion । ধর্ম
• Travel । ভ্রমণ
• 2024 | ২০২৪
• Amarnath । অমরনাথ
• Mahadev । মহাদেব

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When PM Narendra Modi sent out his closest bureaucrat, Nripendra Misra, from the PMO to Ayodhya to head the Shri Ram Mandir Construction Committee in February 2020, he was clearly signalling that Ram Mandir was his highest priority.

• Politics । রাজনীতি
• Narendra Modi । নরেন্দ্র মোদী
• Religion । ধর্ম
• Ramayana । রামায়ণ
• Ram Mandir । রাম মন্দির
• Ayodhya Verdict । অযোধ্যা সংক্রান্ত রায়
• Hanuman । হনুমান
• 2024 | ২০২৪
• Ayodhya ।অযোধ্যা
• Mahabharata । মহাভারত

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The unseemly haste and rough manner in which Prime Minister Modi and his Communications Ministry rushed through the Telecommunications Bill in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha not only reveals their muscular, majoritarian psyche but also the regime’s apathy towards (or fear of) debate.

• Politics । রাজনীতি
• Narendra Modi । নরেন্দ্র মোদী
• Government । সরকার
• 2023। ২০২৩
• Telecommunication Bill । টেলিকম্যুনিকেশন বিল

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Now that as many as 14 Lok Sabha MPs, including senior ones like DMK’s Kanimozhi and Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien, have all been suspended, let’s get the facts clear. They were all protesting vociferously against the Union home minister’s failure to ensure security of parliament on December 13. The Bharatiya Janata Party MP who was responsible for permitting those who burst tear-gas canisters in the Lok Sabha is scot free till the time of writing. The irony is, however, that 15 Opposition MPs were punished, on the majorityparty BJP’s resolution, for shouting heated slogans (defying the chair) and demanding that the prime minister or the home minister explain to parliament why the major security lapse happened.

• Government । সরকার
• Electoral Bonds । ইলেক্টোরাল বন্ড

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গত ১২ অক্টোবর, ২০২৩-এ ‘ইন্টারন্যাশনাল ফিনান্সিয়াল টাইমস’-এ একটি প্রতিবেদন প্রকাশিত হয়। শিরোনাম, ‘আদানির কয়লা আমদানি রহস্য যেটার মূল্য চুপচাপ দ্বিগুণ হয়ে গেল’। এই শিরোনামের নিচে কিছু কথা লেখা ছিল উপশিরোনাম হিসেবে। সেটাও সমানভাবে স্পষ্ট। সেখানে লেখা : কাস্টমস-এর নথিপত্র থেকে বোঝা যায়। ‘সাগরপাড়ের ফড়েদের ব্যবহার করে ভারতীয় বাণিজ্যসংস্থাগুলির একীভূত সংস্থা জ্বালানির দাম বাড়িয়েছে।’

• 2023। ২০২৩
• Finance and Economics । অর্থব্যবস্থা ও অর্থনীতি
• Nirmala Seetharaman । নির্মলা সীতারামন
• Coal। কয়লা
• Finance Ministry । অর্থমন্ত্রক

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As we head to the last day of Navratri it may be good to observe how Hinduism brought together dissimilar customs and rituals in harmony and mutual respect — with no single theme thrusting itself on any. All Hindus agree on the same nine days and ten nights in autumn, but after that, the observances in different regions contrast quite a lot — as the ‘local’ adjusts itself within the ‘universal’.

• Culture | সংস্কৃতি
• Religion । ধর্ম
• Navaratri । নবরাত্রি
• 2023। ২০২৩

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Durga in her present form incorporates different streams, like Simha Vahini (the goddess who rides the lion), the Mahishasura Mardini (one who slays the Buffalo-Demon) and the Dashabhuja or ten-armed goddess. They evolved in different stages and ages.

• Culture | সংস্কৃতি
• Durga Puja । দুর্গা পুজো
• Religion । ধর্ম
• 2023। ২০২৩
• Durga । দুর্গা

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