Articles

How Mamata lost people’s mamata?

Ms Banerjee’s party did not win a single seat in north Bengal that has a sizeable Gorkha, Adivasi and Rajbanshi population. The Gorkhalis were angry because of Ms Banerjee’s abortive bid to impose the Bengali language on them, and the use of excessive force by her government when the Gorkhas took to the streets demanding protection of their linguistic and cultural rights and a separate state of Gorkhaland.






The curious case of “Chota Tiger Hill”

What I had learnt is that in order to save a little time on the return journey, some of the tour operators on purpose does not want to reach the the actual view point and apparently park their vehicles haphazardly on the way causing a traffic jam.


Buddha Jayanti: A Celebration of Love of Compassion

Buddha Jayanti or Vesak is the most important of festivals of the Buddhists all over the world. It is celebrated on the Full Moon Day of May (Vaisakh) and is celebrated as the thrice blessed day as all the important events in the life of Lord Buddha — His birth in Lumbini, His attainment of Enlightenment in Buddhagaya and entering into Mahaparinirvana in Kusinagar took place on this eventful day.


Sandakpu: A reflection on a walk some moons back

For Conrad said “you know yourself only when away from the safety of social trappings, faced with the elements of nature and nothing to fall back on but yourself, you discover then whether you are weak or strong.” I tested myself and found I was a mixture of both with a wee bit more of the strong side. There still is much of life left in me. More of arches to cross; the time for me to sit and contemplate has not begun.


English Writing in Sikkim: A New Bloom

Most of the writings, from Sikkim, are mostly in Nepali. The Sikkimese mass never received British mode of education or rather there were no schools that could strictly be called an English medium, barring a few. Most of the scanty English writing by the Sikkimese was mainly restricted to non-fiction books and that too mainly concentrated on the history or polity of Sikkim. The Sikkimese wanted to write their own history first.


When Nature Reclaims Territory

Natural phenomenon often brings huge devastations and cause a tremendous hazard in our lives and properties. We have seen numerous examples of the fury of nature in the form of Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Cyclones, Landslides, Avalanches, Flood and Tsunami, etc. Man-made disasters are of much smaller scales and less destructive. However, large scale implications of human actions on the environment are often overlooked.