With all the world at stake, it’s not good enough for us to paste the word sustainable in front of the deceptive word development when what we really mean is “continue this exploitative and destructive way of life a little bit longer.” That destroys the words sustainable and development and, of course, contributes to the ongoing destruction of the world.
Category: English
If I had not loved thee,
The days would seem brighter
and the nights less dark
Maybe I’d see the sun everyday
and feed the ducks at the park.
‘In Defence of our Present – On giving up the National Awards’ is a booklet released by Solidarity with FTII, a group of filmmakers who came together to protest against the blatant disregard by this government for plurality, tolerance and secularism in the country as well as their attempts to destroy the excellence of institutions like Film and Television Institute of India. The booklet brings together statements by filmmakers on returning their National Awards as well as essays on the struggle of FTII students. You can download the booklet
On 16th November 2015, I went to take part in the protest march called by the Garo Students’ Union (GSU), Thma U Rangli-Juki (TUR), CSWO along with a few other activists from Meghalaya. I went not because I was instructed to by ‘party high-command’, not because I was threatened or coerced by anyone…
On October 25 2015, the Editors of five Nagaland-based media houses were issued a notification by a Colonel of the General Staff for Assam Rifles. Given the gravity of the matters raised in the notification we, the Editors of various English and Indigenous language newspapers of Nagaland have taken the communication as an opportunity to reflect, consult and critically examine what our role is in these circumstances.
As India celebrates the National Press Day and the very freedom of press that has liberated us, we the Journalists, Newspapers and media houses in Nagaland faces a difficult challenge of delivering transparent and free communication and expression to our own people.
Although the buzz around TED has died down but its bastard lowbrow child called TEDx stalks the provincial countries and towns like a persistent salesman.
Shillong with its vanity number plates of ‘educational capital’, ‘rock capital’, ‘cliche capital’ has had many of these TEDx full of 18minutes of wannabe celebrities, failed politicians, music evangelists, development messiah, crumbling royalty with useless insights and bad powerpoint slides. It is high time to cap this crap.
We need a hundred Lalus. Without the willingness of leaders to change the structure of society, forcibly if necessary, there can be no development. Without Laloo, there would be no Nitish either.
Brutal attack by Meghalaya Police on the students of Kiang Nangbah College, Jowai, a government college, for demanding better educational facilities. Video via Wyrta and a statement by TUR
For the urban middle-class of Shillong, Indigenous Terre Madre (ITM) was a chance to enjoy themselves, flirt with foreigners, a day to relax and unwind, all-in-all an event to savour (literally). For the rural poor, it meant some money coming their way, some photos taken of them and for the rural elites it meant that they could show up their ”traditional” knowledge and open up ‘their’ villages to outsiders.
Raiot is excited at publishing first of the extracts from Eat Dust : Mining and Greed in Goa by Hartman de Souza. For a zine published from Meghalaya, the other frontier of Mining in India, it is fitting that we learn from Goa – that raving beach infested greed fest.
“Our land has a history of being ruled by tyrants and hypocritical regimes, but we Kashmiris have always voiced our opinion against that. I couldn’t stay silent on this issue. This is a protest song against a political gimmick set to undermine the kashmir issue and to influence our Kashmiri sensibilities through pseudo monetary packages. A shame full event done in the name of democracy.”
Ali Saffudin
It is fair to say that in any writing of the history of western music in India, Shillong would deserve a chapter. It is just that the writing of this chapter has become way too problematic – too many loose ends, too many grand unifying theories. The culture of western popular music in Shillong has no shortage of hagiographers. In fact most of the writing on this field has been gushy, uncritical and downright fallacious (there have been so many that it would be worthwhile to bring out a compendium of these).
National Film Award, Best Screenplay / In which Annie Gives it Those Ones, 1988 Although I do not believe that awards are a measure of…
We, the citizens of the Indian Union, cannot afford to forget the year 1965. The world we live in was shaped in no small way…
Newspaper: Say, Knock…Knock…Knock….Knock
Me: Knock…Knock…
Newspaper: Ask who has now turned non-vegetarian
Me: Who?
Newspaper: Cow. Today, she tried to eat two more men in Mainpuri (Uttar Pradesh).
While state seems in no mood to repeal bloody AFSPA and continue oppression on people by killing dissident voices with impunity, people are bound to revolt. A continuous humiliation and torture of people living under AFSPA is just unbearable. This colonial rule and bloody thrust of power and resources must end.
Only aspect of this work that depicts matriliny and what it does to girls lies in the context behind the pictures. Without that background, this is, sad to say, a blatant exhibitionism of the girls of the village, culminating in a series that doesn’t quite capture the empowered status of these girls but antithetically subjugates them to the desired outcome of the viewer who in this case is Karolin Klüppel.
ML 05 B 6055 documents the journey of a bazaar bus between the village of Mawjatap in the East Khasi Hills and Shillong
Has “freedom” turned into one of those buzzwords honoured more in the invocation than in its exercise?
Late Prof. G. G. Swell, MP from Shillong, speaking in the Indian Parliament on Beef eating North East and BJP’s divisive cow politics
I am tired of governments.
Of this one. This one. This one. This one. This one. And this one.
And the one before.
And the one after.
Capitalism doesn’t assist us in destroying itself. Should we actually become effective in building an anti-capitalist mass movement, they won’t issue us a paycheck. Instead, they will do everything possible to discredit, neutralize, imprison and kill us.
it felt as if you are somewhere close,
drawing near in the language of the body
and whispering a language of forgetting
to those you could not.
“Natural” Conservativeness in Shillong and Khasi-Jaintia Hills could be due to the fact that most of their encounters with Modernity are given directly by the Church or ”reviewed” by it.
Is Babri and Dadri really an anomaly in the “idea of India”? The Dadri lynching has given the recently dethroned faction of the “idea of India” establishment an opportunity to denounce the “idea of India” faction that is in power now. What is the politics of this 2-way mockfight and what other possibilities of politics does it want to suppress?
Delhi Sultanate, one of the pioneers the sounds of Dancehall / Hip Hop and performance poetry in India, writes of his musico-political influences.
Translation of a poem by Manglesh Dabral, one of the most important contemporary poets writing in Hindi. Manglesh recently returned his Sahitya Akademi award in protest at the silence of the Akademi at murders of writers and state’s complicity in rising intolerance in India.
Meghalaya RTI Movement uncovered a large scam worth Rs. 9,26,36,105.80 in distribution of CGI sheet. What follows are the findings for you to read/download
Why Meghalaya needs a Working class movement, Thma U Rangli Juki’s campaign paper on worker’s rights
Declaration made by the participants of the Third National RTI Convention Held in Shillong between March 10, 2011 – March 12, 2011
With the government trying to re-start its attempts to mine Uranium in Meghalaya – a basic faq about the impact of Uranium mining
Our contemporary political foes are utilitarian fixers. They constitute a crafty, marauding band. Mushrooming like festering weed, they are particularly severe on all forms of political art.
To say that the article published by The Northeast Today about the relationship between ‘African nationals’ and ‘North-Eastern women’ is drivel would be to do injustice to drivel.
While driving back home in evening, the remark “How much free time does Modi, our honourable prime minister and his cabinet have to impose such bans?” kept buzzing in my head
Implications of Meghalaya High Court’s suggestion to impose AFSPA in Garo Hills
In a recent Order of the High Court of Meghalaya dated 2.11.2015 has made a suo motu suggestion to the Central Government for the imposition of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, in the Garo Hills area of Meghalaya. It is shocking and deeply disturbing that a draconian law like the AFSPA is being sought to be imposed through a judicial order.
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