|
|
Defenceless on the streets
 More than one crore people earn a livelihood by selling wares on the streets. Yet there is no adequate national policy in place for them, and they are at the mercy of extortionists and rusted rules. With help from organisations like Manushi, street vendors are putting up a fight for their rights.
Harvinder Khetal reports on their struggle in Delhi.
Illegal hawkers have reappeared in the Sewa Nagar area in Delhi where earlier, due to Manushi’s intervention, only licenced vendors were allowed.
Photo by Mukesh Aggarwal
Splendour of Sheesh Mahal
The Faridkot fort depicts the architectural style that developed in Punjab in the 19th century, says
Subhash Parihar
The historical buildings
of Faridkot, once the capital of the Sikh state of Malwa, represent
the architectural style that developed in Punjab during the mid-19th
to mid-20th century. After the decline of the Mughal empire in the
18th century, the chaudhuries, who were the local officials of the
Mughals for collecting revenue, became the virtual rulers of their
territory. The successive rulers adorned the 638-sq-miles of the town
with forts, palaces, gardens, gateways, guest houses and a clock
tower. Of these, the fort of Faridkot is the most significant.
Stories set in stone
The ruins in Mamallapuram near Chennai are
a fascinating storehouse of mythological tales,
writes C.D. Verma
The ruins make the
ancient seaport of Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram) one of the most
popular haunts of the foreign and domestic tourists. The white sand
beaches are lined with pretty resorts. It is the kind of place where
you can wander around monuments in the morning and retire to the
sun-warmed beach in the afternoon.
Losers on a roll
Winners on various music shows may fade away. But often losers on these shows have made their mark in Bollywood, says
Vijay Vedala
Even as television
channels gear up for an all-new season of music-based reality shows,
promising new superstars year after year, the past winners have faded
into oblivion, unable to live up to the hype generated by these shows.
On the food trail
Food items that figure in movie titles usually have little to do with the story
of the film, says Shoma A. Chatterji
What do films like Mirch
Masala, Garam Masala, Cheeni Kum, Hope and a Little Sugar, Chocolate,
etc. have in common? The films are as different as chalk from cheese
but they generously borrow an ingredient of food for their titles even
though this spice or condiment has nothing to do with the theme or
story except in rare cases. Perhaps, they are pointers to the average
Indian’s passion for food and everything that goes into its making.
Staying Alive at Stuttgart fest
Director Anant Mahadevan’s
Staying Alive, based on a true story of a journalist and an
underworld kingpin, has been selected for a screening at the 5th
Stuttgart Bollywood and Beyond film festival starting July 16 in
Germany.
Women with a ‘healthy’ attitude
A television programme has inspired women in Chhattisgarh to start a movement for health awareness
in villages, writes Swapna Majumdar
In Kunra, a small
village in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh, a group of women were so
inspired by Kalyani, a bi-weekly television programme on health
produced by Doordarshan, that they decided to get together to tackle
illness and disease in their village. But they didn’t know how to go
about it. So they approached the programme producer, who gave them the
idea of forming a Kalyani Club.
Death of a supermodel
David Usborne
Like every supermodel,
Ruslana Korshunova had to grow up a lot faster than the rest of us.
Plucked from her native Kazakhstan by a London fashion of New York and
on the cover of Vogue. Her almond eyes and "fairy-tale"
features had given her a life of almost instantaneous success that, we
might imagine now, became overwhelming.
|
