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ALL DEALS 
February 8, 2016 Why the sun is setting on the Boeing 747
Photo Credit: pixabay 30K Total Views It’s difficult to imagine now, in the age of mass global travel, that building an aeroplane to carry hundreds of people at a time was once seen as a huge risk. But as the world’s first wide-body airliner, the Boeing 747 went on to change not only aviation but […]
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ALL DEALS 
February 8, 2016 Why no book-buying expedition can still match a visit to the Kolkata Book Fair
Photo Credit: IANS 18.9K Total Views I had been warned about the dust time and again. Magazine articles, friends, all warned, bhishon dhulo (awfully dusty)! So I was prepared for the 2016 Kolkata Book Fair to be something akin to the Thar Desert. What I had not expected, however, was the music. And the public […]
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ALL DEALS 
February 7, 2016 ‘Bad elements’ or ‘no orders to control’: Who was responsible for Andhra train burning?
Photo Credit: Mridula Chari 21.1K Total Views On Sunday afternoon, Y Jaswanth boarded the Ratnachal Express from Visakhapatnam to Vijayawada at Tuni, a small town of 53,000 people in Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district. Jaswanth, his wife and son hoped to reach Vijayawada by 6.30 that evening. Instead, their journey ended a few kilometres beyond […]
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NEWS 
February 7, 2016 Remembering the legacy of Bhupen Khakhar, India’s first openly gay artist
12.7K Total Views This is the full text of a presentation prepared by Ranjit Hoskote for the symposium, ‘Remembering Bhupen’, held at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi on January 27. 1. It seems faintly absurd to discuss the question of Bhupen Khakhar’s legacy in a country that legally regards one of […]
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ALL DEALS 
February 7, 2016 Intizar Husain (1923-2016): The Pakistani writer who mourned what the Partition did not bring
Photo Credit: Tanveer Shehzad / Dawn 20.1K Total Views Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize for 2013, Intizar Husain (1923-2016) has chronicled the changes that unspooled from the Partition of 1947 possibly like no other writer from the Indian subcontinent. Starting his literary career close on the heels of Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955), he […]
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ALL DEALS 
February 7, 2016 This year, Goans are being urged to hug a new Valentine – coconut trees
13.5K Total Views Last month, the Goa government declared that the state’s iconic coconut palm was not actually a tree. It removed the species from the purview of the Goa Daman and Diu Preservation of Trees Act, thus allowing palms to be felled without a permit. In a state where the palm is highly valued […]
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ALL DEALS 
February 7, 2016 Disease may wipe out world’s bananas – but here’s how we might just save them
Photo Credit: pixabay 21.8K Total Views Catastrophe is looming for the banana industry. A new strain has emerged of a soil-borne fungus known as “Panama disease” which can wipe out entire plantations – and it is rapidly spreading around the world. Farmers in Australia, Latin America and across Asiaand Africa all fear the worst. The […]
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ALL DEALS 
February 7, 2016 TRS sweeps Hyderabad polls, decisively settling the question of whom the city belongs to
Photo Credit: IANS 25.7K Total Views On Friday, as results began to come in for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections held on February 2, it was clear that the Telangana Rashtra Samiti was doing much better than the opinion polls had predicted. The surveys had shown that the party would get 75-85 seats in […]
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NEWS 
February 7, 2016 Krupabai Satthianadhan’s ‘Saguna’, which appeared in 1887, was largely autobiographical.
18.3K Total Views I began this series last summer with the first book written in English by an Indian. So when it was time to read the first book of 2016 for my bottom shelf, I picked another old volume that enjoys a similar honour. This time, it’s by an author who is credited with […]
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NEWS 
February 7, 2016 Two rare archival interviews with the formidable vocalist.
Photo Credit: via YouTube 35.2K Total Views Known for his unbelievable virtuosity, superb intonation, unpredictability, and above all, a unique tonal quality, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan (1901-1968), doyen of the Patiala gharana, took the world of Hindustani music by storm in the 1940s. Though inimitable, he left behind a stylistic legacy that has impacted several […]
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NEWS 
February 7, 2016 Meet the three Indian comic book artists on the global 100 list (and one who isn’t)
23.7K Total Views The year 2015 was a watershed for women writers of graphic novels. They swept the IgnatzAwards but then, as the year came to a close they shook the foundations the prestigious Angoulême Comics Festival in France by protesting against all-male 2016 Grand Prix nominee list citing gender discrimination. This resulted in the […]
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CLOTHING 
February 7, 2016 Don’t expect to see women dressed in feathers at Goa’s version of the pre-Lent festival.
Photo Credit: YouTube 21.5K Total Views Earlier this week, residents of Panaji, Goa’s capital, awoke to the sight of large pink masks and blue, red and green buntings being draped on the street along the Mandovi River, where a sprinkling of brown-headed gulls enjoyed the early February sun. This weekend, Carnival ‒ the burst of […]
