Month: March 2024

In 2020, the murder of George Floyd in the US served as a catalyst for the global Black Lives Matter movement. It sparked widespread protests against police brutality and systemic racism. It also ignited debates about historical symbols of oppression, such as statues of figures associated with racial injustices.

These debates presented colonial statues in Africa as having been contested and toppled for many years, ever since African states gained independence. Indeed, colonial statues were at the heart of the colonial world, symbolising its violence, white supremacy and the erasure of precolonial history. But colonial monuments in African public spaces have much more complex and often overlooked histories.

As a scholar of African heritage, I recently published a study examining colonial statues and how they have been regarded in postcolonial Africa. My historical investigation highlights three major phases.

First, in the era of independence of African states, from the 1950s to 1980, some statues were removed from public spaces, but many remained.

Second, the 1990s and 2000s were marked by the “return of empires”: statues that had been removed were put back in public spaces and new neo-colonial monuments were constructed.

Third, the renewed challenges to colonial statues from the 2010s faced some strong resistance. Understanding this history is crucial, as it exposes…

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A Delhi court on Friday refused to stay two summons issued to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by a magisterial court on a complaint by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with allegations of money laundering in the Delhi liquor policy case, reported Live Law.

The central law enforcement agency had approached the Rouse Avenue Court claiming that the Aam Aadmi Party leader had not appeared before it for questioning despite eight summons issued to him since November 2.

On March 7, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Divya Malhotra had directed Kejriwal to be present in the court on March 16.

The Aam Aadmi Party leader had sought an interim stay against the summons. However, Additional Sessions Judge Rakesh Syal on Friday directed Kejriwal to approach the metropolitan magistrate with his request for an exemption from deposing before the Enforcement Directorate.

Syal also directed the Aadmi Party leader to appear physically in court on Saturday. Kejriwal’s revision petitions against the summons will be heard next on March 30.

The Aam Aadmi Party leader was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate on February 27 for the eighth time and asked to appear before it on March 4, which he failed to do. He had skipped the agency’s seventh summons on February 26. Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi…

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme to facilitate “the world’s largest extortion racket”, reported The Hindu.

The Wayanad MP also alleged that the funds acquired by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party through the scheme were used to divide the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra. He claimed that the funds were also used by the BJP to topple Opposition governments in other states.

Gandhi said this while addressing reporters in Bhiwandi, in Maharashtra’s Thane district, during the Congress’ Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, a day after the Election Commission published details about the purchasers and recipients of electoral bonds on its website.

“[Electoral bonds are] nothing but the biggest extortion racket and corruption scandal in the world,” Gandhi said. “Months after a contract is given or days after the Central Bureau of Investigation or Enforcement Directorate raids take place, the companies suddenly start giving electoral bonds to the BJP.”

To be sure, the electoral bonds data submitted to the Election Commission by State Bank of India does not include the unique serial numbers of the bonds matching them to their recipient political parties. However, the BJP has received the lion’s share of political funding through the scheme.

Last week, the…

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The revelation that his lottery empire is the single largest buyer of electoral bonds in India has made Santiago Martin infamous across the country. But if a person close to him is to be believed, the Tamil Nadu-based businessman is relieved that the scale of his contributions to political parties has become known.

Martin’s company, Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR, purchased Rs 1,368 crore worth electoral bonds in 22 phases, data released by the Election Commission on Thursday showed.

A close associate of the man known as the “lottery king” said he was frustrated by the endless financial demands made by political parties and hopes this will now stop.

The attempt to cast himself as a victim of political rent-seeking, however, sits at odds with Martin’s links to parties across the spectrum.

His son Charles Jose Martin is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, while his wife Leema Rose is with the Indhiya Jananayaga Katchi, or IJK, an ally of the BJP.

Martin’s son-in-law Adhav Arjun is with the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi or VCK, an Ambedkarite party which is part of the Congress-led INDIA alliance, for whom he designs election strategy.

Far from indicating ideological sympathies, his family’s dalliance with politics appears to be guided by the classic investor’s logic:…

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In 1988, Upamanyu Chatterjee gave his Indian reader English, August, a coming-of-age story that was also a sharp critique of Indian bureaucracy and commentary on the unbridgeable divide between those who held privilege in urban India and those that they attempted to govern in the rural hinterland. He also gave us Agastya Sen, 24 years old, newly appointed to the Indian Administrative Service and entirely removed from the realities of the provincial town he was posted to. English, August was a realistic (if acerbic) portrait of India in the ‘80s and its protagonist was the quintessential outsider, aware of his difference and distance from the people and the milieu surrounding him.

In his latest book, which, in Chatterjee’s own words, is a true story that is a work of fiction, we have yet another protagonist who is an outsider and is acutely conscious of it. The world of Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life is a radical departure from the author’s previous work. Instead of dark humour and generous lashings of cynicism, the narrative situates itself in the stability of faith. It tells the story of Lorenzo Bonifacio, a resident of Aquilinia, Italy, who, at age 21, embarks on a spiritual quest with a visit to…

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In an acting career that began when he was six years old and spans genres, Kunal Kemmu has consistently proven his comic timing. So it’s apt that after acing roles in such films as 99, Go Goa Gone, Golmaal 3 and Lootcase, Kemmu’s directorial debut is the comedy Madgaon Express.

Written and directed by Kemmu, the March 22 release stars Divyenndu, Pratik Gandhi and Avinash Tiwary as three men whose Goa holiday is upended when they get enmeshed with drug dealers. Kemmu intended to act in Madgaon Express, but an offer to direct gave him an unexpected opportunity, he told Scroll.

Why did you decide to direct a film at this point?

I did not pitch this film as a director. I pitched it as an actor-writer. But every time somebody would read it, they would ask, why aren’t you directing? Because it’s written with such clarity and they saw it come alive during narrations. A similar thing happened with [producer] Excel Entertainment.

Secretly, I was very happy because it’s not an easy thing, and these producers were ready to put money into it. They reassured me saying that having worked with many first-time filmmakers, they would get me all the support I need. Of course I said yes, because you have imagined the film, imagined helming…

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As we approach Holi, the festival of colours, it would be an opportune moment to listen closely to the tabla accompaniment provided for the hori or holi songform. Broadly, hori or holi is sung by Hindustani vocalists in different compositional structures. One of these resembles the bol banaav thumri structure, and therefore, lends itself to more expansive elaboration.

Since the first variety resembles the bol banaav thumri, this hori or holi is sung in a slow-paced 14-matra Deepchandi taal or the 16-matra Jat or Aadhaa taal. The melodic and textual elaboration is very much like the bol banaav thumri and the presentation ends with the laggi-chanti/laggi-nada/laggi section played by the tabla player.

The following track features a hori sung by the inimitable thumri exponent Siddheshwari Devi. It is set to the Jat taal and includes a laggi section towards the end. Conventionally, the tabla player ends the laggi section with a tihai and returns to the original taal that the vocal composition is set in.

Additionally, the tabla player is expected to return to the original pace that the presentation began with. However, in the case of the present hori, the tabla player returns to the original taal but plays it at a faster pace.

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