Culture

Chennai dance and music festival is a rich cultural extravaganza that celebrates classical music and dance of south India. Here, more than 2,000 artistes from across India and abroad participate display their fascinating vocal and instrumental range. The number of participants and spectators is constantly on the rise every year. So, are the reputed national and international composers and musicologists. While, connoisseurs discussing the various ragas over piping hot idlis and steaming filter coffee. Lady participants, dressed immaculately in colourful Kanchipuram silks, are an added attraction to the event’s ambience. December evokes a cultural identity of Chennai that has been ...

In this series, Kanchan Banerjee attempts to find the origin of casteism in India along with Hinduism’s concept of varna classification and ostracism. He explores how the original varna system had an evolutionary plan embedded in it as expressed by various Indian thinkers and in what ways many modern thinkers’ works, especially in the fields of developmental psychology, are following a similar pattern to classify socio-psycho evolution of people and societies. Read the first part: Of society, caste, human evolution & Indian thinkers. ...

Overseas Indian Facilitation Centre (OIFC) in association with the ‘Foundation for Indian Diaspora in Europe’ and the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) organized a ‘Business Session’ on Sunday, 25th September 2011 in The World Forum, The Hague (The Netherlands). The Business Session was a part of the one day ‘Indian Diaspora Conference’ being organized by Foundation for Indian Diaspora in Europe (FIDEU). The conference had a theme of “The Indian Diaspora in Netherlands: Achievements, Contributions & challenges”. 400 participants, mostly business leaders and professionals from India and The Netherlands participated in this conference. ...

The sweetness of the erstwhile eastern state, Odisha, is evident from the urge of its people to munch upon sweets. As per the age-old culture and tradition, sweet dishes are a non-replaceable entity in the Odia food menu. The custom of bringing along a box of sweets whenever one visits a friend/relative can be traced back to the Jagannath culture. Folk lore testifies that when Lord Jagannath returned to the Shree Mandir (famous Jagannath Temple in Puri) after nine days of the Chariot Festival (better known as the Rath Yatra), the Lord himself brought rosogollas for his wife, Laxmi, to ...

Dr. Kumar Mahabir gets the inside story of the first Hindu theme park in the world and the second-largest, open-air, national festival in multi-ethnic Trinidad and Tobago. The Divali holiday will be observed on Wednesday October 26, 2011, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the Divali Nagar, the first Hindu theme park in the world. ...

This year end consummates 100 years of New Delhi since the British pageantry of coronation of 1911 Durbar. King George the Fifth had declared the shifting of capital of British Raj from Calcutta to Delhi. Incredulous enough, the Coronation Park of New Delhi hosted all the three British durbars of 1877, 1903 and 1911. Ratnadeep Banerji flips across the flaxen pages of history to redeem the epochal moment. Delhi Coronation Durbar held on 12th December, 1911saw the presence of 80,000 select people of India’s British rulers, Indian princes and nobles of the princely states and related panoplies of the powerful. ...

In this series, author Kanchan Banerjee attempts to find the origin of casteism in India along with the nation’s original idea of varna classification and discusses how social classes were ostracized. He also explores how the original varna system had an evolutionary plan embedded in it as expressed by various Indian thinkers and in what ways many modern thinkers’ work especially in the fields of developmental psychology are following a similar pattern to classify socio-psycho evolution of people and societies. ...

Tagore’s Best Cargo: At the end of the day It was surprising that at the end of the day, Rabindranath Tagore declared his educational experiment to be his priority in spite of his worldwide name and fame as a man of literature. He was Asia’s first Nobel laureate and he stormed the world of literature. But in 1940, when he was only a year away from death, he became mostly anxious about the future of his dream project — the Viswabharati. He appealed to Gandhiji to take charge of the ‘best cargo of (his) life’. Gandhiji handed over the letter to ...

The Red Fort is twice the area of Europe’s largest palace, the Escorial of Bourbons in Spain. While the Escorial still remains intact and exuberant, the Red Fort lost its grandeur within two centuries ending with the British takeover Red Fort Faces Decay, Unless… Ratnadeep Banerji delves out the travails of this jinxed Fort of splendour. ...

There are over one million strong people of the Indian Diaspora across Canada. They are among the most successful and affluent communities across the nation. They play five significant roles as investor, customer, supplier, ambassador, and philanthropist. They are high in demand because of their reputation as the most skilled and hard working group of people. There are many who have been a part of the House of Commons in Ottawa representing their constituents as members of Canadian Parliament. They are firmly entrenched in the civil society and have been known to make a significant contribution to the cultural mosaic ...