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Return of the
great Indian traveller
Forget the firang.
Travel experts advise on the need to concentrate on the
dependable, growing, high-spending Indian traveller. Give the aam
aadmi more affordable, tourism facilities all across our
diverse land
Hugh & Colleen Gantzer |
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| The
national tourism organisations of more and more countries
are making a beeline for India, trying to court the Indian
tourist: the world’s highest-spending visitor. Even the
once-lethargic, chalta hai, domestic tourist industry is
waking up and smelling the coffee. Western nations might be
facing financial crisis after financial crisis but in spite of
the doomsayers in our land claiming that everything is going
down the drain, perceptions tell a different story. Cellphone
penetration is up, digital TV has become the rule rather than
the exception, and the number of motor vehicles from scooters to
SUVs outpaces the construction of highways. |
ARTS
Sculpture
seen from close
Art historian Devangana Desai’s
latest collection of essays on early Indian art takes the reader on a
grand tour of Indian sculpture, halting briefly at some places, and in
an engagingly leisured manner at others
Icon:
one knows that the word comes from Greek eikon, image in other
words, which, in turn, stems from eikenai, meaning, ‘to be
like’. In the Greek world, in the Eastern Church, in particular, and
in Europe, in general, it signifies a representation of Christ, the
Virgin Mary, or a saint, ordinarily painted in oil on a wooden panel
in the Byzantine style. But it is astonishing how much the use of the
word has changed over time.
broad
brush
Wellbeing
Winter
wows
If winter brings woes like
bone-chilling cold, it is also time to gorge on warming foods that can
raise the body temperature and help one to cope with the dipping
mercury
Nature
has its own ways of keeping the body warm in cold winter
weather. This heat can be generated from within the body and also by
eating foods that can raise body temperature and help the body cope
with the falling temperature outside. The body tends to burn more
calories to keep warm and thereby the need to eat more. However,
certain foods have a more profound warming effect than others. The
overall warming effect of food known as "diet induced
thermognesis" is due to energy released during digestion and
assimilation. This released energy is in form of heat and helps
increase the body temperature.
Health
Capsules
Society
Will learning
alter her quality of life?
There is focus on the
education of girls, but will increasing access make women, especially
those in the rural areas, educated? The larger question is has it
improved the employment avenues of those who can go to schools and
colleges?
Sudhamahi Regunathan
Time
and again studies are finding the number of girls harnessing
undergraduate education to be increasing in areas where they have
access to it. Have women benefited from the education they have
accessed and if they have, in what way?
travel
Delft delights
Located between Rotterdam and
The Hague, the historical Dutch town of Delft is known for its lovely
canals; besides painter Vermeer and blue pottery
Nivedita Choudhuri
There
is more to Delft than blue plates. The delightful town was home
to Dutch Golden Age painter, Johannes Vermeer, and lies between The
Hague and Rotterdam. The town, with its humpbacked bridges and
eye-catching buildings along pretty canals can boost anybody’s
spirits.
Globetrotting
Entertainment
Chronicles rooted
in reality
The space occupied by
commercially oriented Hindi films that address burning socio-political
questions is steadily expanding
Saibal Chatterjee
Veteran
writer-director Sudhir Mishra’s upcoming release, Inkaar,
starring Arjun Rampal and Chitrangada Singh, deals with the social and
emotional ramifications of gender politics. The film’s female
protagonist is a victim of sexual harassment in the workplace — a
figure that has rarely, if ever, been seen in popular Hindi cinema.
In
the heart of terror
The 26-minute documentary Angels
of Troubled Paradise gives a different perspective to the
situation in Kashmir
Shoma A. Chatterji
"If there is heaven on earth,
it is here, it is here, it is here."
This
was poet Firdaus’ exclamation when he saw the valley of
Kashmir for the first time. What happened to this paradise on earth?
One gets a small glimpse of things we do not know happened to the
children of Kashmir who are innocent of all the political implications
in the Kashmir conflict and its constant impact on the lives of
ordinary people. This comes across in Angels of Troubled Paradise, a
26-minute-long documentary by Raja Shabir Khan. The film tracks three
years in the life of 11-year-old Adil, who grows to be 14 when the
film ends.
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