I had been visiting Benaras since 2002 to conduct research for a film that would document the journey of the tawaif, or courtesan, within the cultural, social and political landscape
'Somebody has to stand up,' Salman Taseer had responded in a television interview last December, after being reminded that challenging Pakistan's rightwing Islamists over the controversial
With the release of Aung San Sui Kyi from house arrest in November, there has been a renewed feeling within Burma that progress, however slight, might be being made toward
Our first glimpse of Lou Majaw comes just outside the Guwahati airport – his face is building-sized, emblazoned high above the multi-lane expressway to Meghalaya, on an advertisement for
The political partition of the Subcontinent in 1947 did not have to lead to economic partition, but that is ultimately what happened. This did not take place right away, and
It is never easy to describe a two-decade-long journey, especially one that is still ongoing. Today, Indian Ocean, the band in which I play, is called various things
For over a decade, dohori songs have dominated the Nepali music scene. These playful, improvised duets – dohori means 'back and forth' – form the backbone of the commercial recording
Chhetria Patrakar is much impressed by the Bangladesh government's ingenuity – or ingenuosness. A private TV station, Banglavision, produces a three-part series on the country's most
The End of War in Sri Lanka:
Reflections and challenges
edited by Groundviews.org, 2010
To mark the one-year anniversary of the horrific end to the three-decade long
As was seen with the War of Liberation, resulting in the birth of Bangladesh, a common religion alone cannot hold different nationalities together. Issues of good governance, economic development, social
In 2007, the euphoria over having achieved something substantial was palpable in Nepal, even though the differences between the major political parties had already begun to surface. After all, the
