Last week, at a meeting without publicity and far from the headlines and hungry, aggressive media, a senior Assam health department official spoke wonderfully and evocatively in Assamese to a group of assembled doctors, health workers, organizers, activists and researchers, sharing his concerns and difficulties. The All-India National Family Welfare Survey (NFWS), released last year,…
Burma is opening up. In the past few months foreign leaders paid high-profile visits to the long-isolated country, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Foreign Secretary William Hague who both congratulated Burma on its progress toward democratisation. These endorsements signal that Western sanctions against Burma could soon be lifted. Meanwhile, Burma’s neighbours…
A set of spell binding performances by members of the late Dr. Bhupen Hazarika's family, the gospel-choir group, the Nagaland Singing Ambassadors, and the father of Naga blues, Rewben Mashangva, and his 11-year-old son Saka, from Manipur, lifted spirits and brought the rich sounds and enchanting melodies of the North-east to Delhi this evening. Organized…
Nations created, nations divided at the whims and fancies of a few. I still remember a lesson from my English book back in school, which touched me deep. It was about this little boy living in the border town near the Alsace - Lorraine region of France who realizes, a little to late, that he…
Veteran journalist and former NE Correspondent of The Hindu, MS Prabhakara's book on the region, 'Looking into the Future', is being released in Bangalore on November 23 at the British Council Library, 11 am, on Kasturba Rd. Prabhakara is a legendary scribe, a true foot soldier of the craft of journalism unlike most of today's…
Just consider. Every time petrol prices are raised, oil companies end up losing more money. Simply because the price differential between petrol and diesel increases further, and people gravitate towards diesel vehicles. More the use of diesel, more the oil companies bleed. Worse, we all bleed because diesel vehicles add to toxic pollution in our…
In every household in Assam, a lamp has burned these past few days to honour the greatest figure that most people of this beautiful but blighted state, locked away in India's eastern borderland by distance, lack of growth and conflicts, have known in perhaps hundreds of years. Why just in Assam? Across India, South Asia…
The Bard of the Brahmaputra may be silent but the river flows on. It may be centuries before it finds another. But till then, it will flow and so will his music. Bhupen Hazarika’s ballads will sustain the river, which was his true muse. There is few of his great songs – and he wrote…
Spanning the centuries, Dr. Bhupen Hazarika has taken his place among the handful of visionaries and revolutionaries who have sustained Assam even in the worst of times, brought joy in times of sadness and pain, bolstered our spirits and shared their creative genius with millions, not only at home but across the world. He joins…