Historian Chithra Madhavan is turning the spotlight on Tamil Nadu’s neglected ancient temples and their stories in a lecture series organised by Chennai-based Tattvaloka.
My one quarrel with Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan is that it emphasises on the war-mongering elements of Chola history not on their aesthetic, administrative achievements.
The Cholas are now Hindu nationalist heroes. And the BJP is keen to link itself with this image. But The resurgence of the Cholas in political memory is strange.
The NCERT was set up in the heyday of our Gosplan-inspired socialist Permit Raj. It chose to suppress the rich histories of the Cholas, Ellora, Elephanta, Kalachuris.
Rashtrakutas raided the Himalayas, Tamil Nadu; the Cholas Bengal, Indonesia; Kashmiris Punjab, Afghanistan, and Xinjiang. Medieval Indians had a big appetite for conquests.
Peter Manuel's ‘Cassette Culture’ showed the booming Bhakti music during the '80s and '90s when Anoop Jalota, Gulshan Kumar achieved success by singing the sanitised Bhajans.
Economists say there are weaknesses in India’s GDP data. But statisticians claim the accusations are based on flawed understanding, saying while GDP has problems, the economists are looking in the wrong places.
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