Protima Bedi was a model, Odissi dancer and sanyasin before a landslide claimed her in August 1998. In one of her last letters, she wrote she was ‘finally at peace’.
Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake met Odissi with a new narrative drawn from Nala and Damyanti, the ancient Indian epic of exile, devotion, and reunion from the Mahabharata.
Apart from Sattriya dance form, the Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee was also proficient in Kathak & Odissi. She set up a school for traditional dance forms in 1982 in Guwahati.
In her short life, Protima Bedi had a successful career, first as a model and then Odissi dancer. She refused to be put in a box, and made a name as a bold, feminist icon.
Real gains can be achieved when the government focuses its reforms upstream in better contract design, stronger capacity to monitor performance and maintain documentation.
The report released at Charcha 2025, an annual gathering of India’s social development sector, found that women remain largely concentrated in low-value and routine roles.
Without a Congress revival, there can be no challenge to the BJP pan-nationally. Modi’s party is growing, and almost entirely at the cost of the Congress.
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