Truly Saptarshi

One of the most popular festivals of India, it is the festival of lights. It is the day to drive away the spirit of the dark, its a day to fight against the bad and the winner is the good. Maa Kali is worshipped on this day and she is the symbol of power. In many parts of India, Lakshmi Puja is carried out today, to make the Goddess of wealth happy and ask her for prosperity. The lights and fireworks make up the added attraction of this day. The world seems much more colourful and everything seems so wonderful. But, the sad thing is that many forget that this is a festival of lights, not of sound. However, i am happy that this year the policemen have taken extra care to stop the sound fireworks to some extend. With all these by the side, enjoy to the most and let others enjoy too, do not make your enjoyment the cause of sorrow for someone else. And try to light up the day with diya s and candles as much as you can and use less of electric light, its much more beautiful. I am tr

Regardless of the ambiguity that shrouded the eruption of the Libyan popular uprising, regardless of the various conspiracy theories that tried – and still are –to somehow find a hidden foreign agenda behind this armed revolution, regardless of the many apologists for the Gaddafi’s regime who elaborated on his good deeds and achievements for the Libyans during the last four decades … one simple and utterly painful truth remains, that Muammar Gaddafi held nothing for the Libyan people but sheer contempt. On his first speech that followed the start of the Libyan uprising last February and as he was threatening to turn Libya into a bloodbath Gaddafi defiantly disparaged the rebels as he shouted “who are you, anyway?” With the assistance of oil revenues, Libya’s small population has enjoyed one of the continent’s high rates of economic growth and social welfare and medical services but still the Libyans remained politically and educationally impoverished as the colonel alway

He deserves the tag line that i have given to him. Although i am not a fan of Chetan Bhagat and do not like his style of writing but could not resist myself from finding out what makes him so popular among the Indian mass. And this IIT and IIM passout has become more of an youth icon than an author. He has earned himself the tag of 'The biggest selling English language novelist in India's history'. All the four novels he has written so far has created waves and has went on to become bestsellers. His just released, fifth novel 'Revolution 2020' is also no exception. So is his aura that Time magazine had named him as one of the hundred most influential people of the world. But, is his aura really something worth of so much appreciation? We have some of the finest Indian authors in Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Anita Desai, R.K. Narayan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy to name a few and is he really worthy of more appreciation than these names that i just told? He is

I came across these two news articles, maybe many of you have heard about them but i came to know recently and they really disturbed my mind. One is a recent incident and the other is a incident which took place long back. Both show the torture that took place and is still taking place on women.  Coming to a recent incident in Iran which shows the unruliness of the Governing body of that nation. This incident is that of Marzieh Vafamehr.  The Iranian opposition website Kalaemeh.com says the Iranian court has sentenced actress Marzieh Vafamehr to 1 year imprisonment and 90 lashes for portraying social alienation, artistic repression and drug use in the country in an Australian-made film.  The 2009 film portrayed a Tehran actress who has been banned from theater by the authorities. The character was then forced to join Tehran’s cultural underground in order to express herself artistically, then started to craft a plan to leave Iran for exile abroad.  Vafamehr reportedly appeared with

Three women were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their nonviolent struggle for safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from Liberia is a 72 year old and was Africa's first elected female head of state in January 2006. She has earned lots of applauds for her work of rebuilding Liberia and is still working very hard to convince people of the change. She would also contest the presidential polls of 2011. Leymah Gbowee is yet another lady from Liberia who won this honour. She mobilised and organised women across ethnic and religious divides to help bring an end to war in Liberia and to ensure women's participation in elections. Following the 2003 peace treaty, she was instrumental in the victory of Johnson-Sirleaf. She is a commisioner on Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation panel. Tawakul Karman from Yemen is a 32 year old journalist. Both before and during the Arab Spring, she has

Five days have passed since this iconic public figure, Steven Paul Jobs has passed away but the vacant place felt behind is being felt more and more with every passing day. Undoubtedly one of the finest entrepreneurs and a wonder inventor who changed the way world looked at computers. He could always take the risk to come up with something new and every other new thing he brought to the market became the talk of the town. His Apple has always shown a direction when it came to technology. He co-founded 'Apple' in the late 1970s along with Steve Wozniak and Steve Markkula and others. Apple went on to make Macintosh and it created a huge market. Jobs left Apple in 1985 to build his own company, Next, which was again later acquired by Apple and he went back to Apple as interim CEO from 1997. Jobs also spun up the Pixar Animation Studio in 1986 and was its 50.1% shareholder till in 2006 it was acquired by The walt Disney Company making him the largest individual sharehold

Firstly, i wish all my readers a very warm ' Subho Bijaya '. May the days ahead be even more prosperous and glorious! Its the time to have lots of sweets and mouth watering bengali edibles. Maa Durga has gone back to her house in heaven and now we are to go back to our regular routine too. After dashami the whole thing around seems so gloomy and its another 360 days wait for these 5 days. Among all these lights and sounds, somewhere we are lost and everything around seems to be so wonderful. Even the regular things look special. We go deeper and deeper into this magical days but then suddenly its over. And when this magic is over we are into an extended festive mood because we never want it to end. But, life is not all about festivals. It has more to it. The routined life is all the same and these 5 days seem like a blessing for everyone with end with the bisharjan.  The studies, the work are all too messy but they have to be done. So, with a heavy heart we are back to

'the prince amongst painters... the painter amongst princes...' These two lines from the biographical film 'Rang Rasiya', based on his life seem to be very appropriate for this painter. He was born in a aristocratic family of Travancore on Aril 29, 1848. Ravi Varma was a child prodigy and got recognised for his inherent talent at a young age in China and recieved the patronage of king Ayilyam Thirunal of Travancore. He came across many Indian and European painters and learned to use water colour and oil paints. In 1873 he got the Governor's gold medal at Vienna Art Exhibition and was awarded the title of 'Raja' by king Ayilyam Thirunal.  He soon became famous for his portrayal of Indian and British royals. He had an unique style of painting, making an amalgamation of classic Indian style with European realism. he left for Bombay after the death of Ayilyam Thirunal. He expanded his horizon as he became more and more popular. He was the fir