Vidya Bhushan Rawat

COVID-19 News

Opinion 17 April 2021

Fight against Covid-19: Incompetence or deliberate negligence

Vidya Bhushan Rawat The second wave of Coronavirus has stuck hard in India particularly states such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar-Pradesh and Delhi have seen an alarming rise in the cases and the governments have been caught by surprise. Was the Corona wave surprising or we allowed this to happen. Let us go to the latest figures.  As per reports 14.5 million cases of Covid 19 registered in India, of which 12.7 million recovered. 15, 69, 743 cases are still active and the total death to date is 1,76000. In the last 24 hours, 2,17,353 new cases have come in and death during this period is 1,185 as of April 16th evening and the numbers are now increasing exorbitantly. In terms of total cases, Maharashtra seems to be still taking it big but one has to appreciate chief Minister Uddhav Thackery for being forthright by now allowing religious gatherings as well as going for testing. Situation in Gujarat particularly in Surat and Ahmedabad seems to be critical as hospitals are overcrowded. It is sad that Gujarat’s incompetence and failure has not become ‘national news’ which has obsession with Maharashtra and Bengal. Leadership Failure to strengthen scientific temperament Last year when the government imposed lockdown on March 24th last year, the cases were around 550 but that time there were not many detections so you can’t really believe the numbers but we can safely say that a few thousands. Indian leadership was so confident that it converted this into a PR exercise by asking people to bang thalis, clapping and lighting the torch or candles to do away with Coronavirus. The entire country mocked the first day Janata Curfew as people came on the street shouted Jai Shri Ram and clapped as if they had won the battle against Corona. For several months we were under severe restrictions. The government allowed no space for planning and imposed harsh lockdown. Those who build our cities, do the menial work, the informal sector workers were left to fetch themselves. Their isolation was complete and compelled them to return to their villages in…

S P Balasubrahmanyam

Opinion 26 September 2020

Tribute to S P Balasubrahmanyam: Music and art transcend regions and boundaries.

Tribute to S P Balasubrahmanyam: Music and art transcend regions and boundaries. S P Balasubrahmanyam who had the world record of singing more than 40000 songs in 16 different languages of India represented the idea of ‘India’, very much under attack. The Film Industry in Bombay was actually Hindustani and not really Hindi because I believe it was built mostly by those whose mother tongue was neither Hindi nor is the cities original mother tongue is Hindi, it is Marathi or Mumbai Hindi. Obviously, Bombay was a very cosmopolitan city but when the name was changed for the purpose of respecting the local sentiments, then one cannot say anything as name changing is the new culture in the world. That is a long-debated issue and need not be discussed here. In the late 1970s and early 80s when cinema was going through a new patch, and though Mohammad Rafi had passed away and Kishore da was there, many new singers emerged to give playback to new actors but they were no match to the old trio of Rafi, Kishore and Mukesh. Every one of them was trying to copy them. Yes, many became popular but two outstanding personalities actually provided us some of the most melodious songs of all times in the Hindustani Cinema and they were the spiritual voice from Kerala and I call him the golden voice and he is legendary Yesudas. Yesudas sang a very limited number of songs for the Hindustani films like Chitchor, Dada, Chhottee see baat, Swami, Sawan ko Aane Do and so on. However, he remained a favourite of music director Ravinder Jain who introduced him to Hindi world with ‘Gori Tera gaon bada pyaara’. Almost all the songs that Yesudas sang became super-duper hit such as aaj se pahle, aaj se jyada khushi aaj tak nahi mili, jab deep jale aanaa, jab saanjh dhale aana, kaa karoon sajni aaye naa balam. SPB’s entry into Hindustani films happened in the 1981s with Kamal Hasan’s remake of old Telugu film with Kamal Hasan and Rati Agnihotri in the lead while the music of the…

Bhagat Singh

India, international, literature, News 25 September 2020

The Legend of Bhagat Singh

In Conversation with Prof Jag Mohan Singh The revolutionary ideals of Shaheed Bhagat Singh have become more than relevant in today’s time. It is beyond the imaginations of many how a man who just lived 23 years of his life had so much of idealism. In his prime time, he spent his life in jails under difficult circumstances. Yet, Bhagat Singh was a voracious reader. His family had a long history of dedication for the nation. In today’s time, people discuss so many things and have been divided between icons as if these heroes of our movements were fighting against each other. Bhagat Singh is a role model for peacebuilding, for socialism and secularism in India as well as South Asia. To know about the life and time of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, I spoke to Prof. Jag Mohan Singh, a very well-known historian now dedicated to social movements and intellectual discourse of our freedom movement. Prof Jag Mohan Singh belongs to Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s family and his mother Biwi Amar Kaur, was the younger sister of Bhagat Singh. Prof Jag Mohan Singh has done extensive research on Bhagat Singh but that apart he is also part of the family hence will definitely have more information on Shaheed Bhagat Singh than anyone else. I think many of the information and explanations by Prof Jag Mohan Singh about Bhagat Singh are extremely new particularly in today’s time when we see the rise of sectarian fascist agenda globally and failure of the democratic forces to come together. In such a scenario Bhagat Singh’s ideal has become more relevant today and all secular socialist democratic forces must join hand together to forge a common agenda against global corporate control over resources and communal casteist agenda being fixed by the ruling forces. The conversation is lengthy but it gives complete detail of the making of Bhagat Singh, the Gadar movement and the background of Bhagat Singh’s family.  Listen to this complete conversation of Vidya Bhushan Rawat with Prof Jag Mohan Singh on the following link.  

attempt to intimidate independent media

Opinion 28 August 2020

Stop them spreading hatred before it is too late: The TV channels today have turned the biggest anti-national

The air is more polluted than what used to happen during the worst period of a natural disaster or December winter when Delhi would be choked in heavy toxic smog. This time the contamination is not natural as because of Covid-19, the birds have acquired their spaces and the sky is looking absolutely stunning while we can breathe now while walking around but the contamination and pollution are now artificially created by the political masters. Look at the TV channels and how shamelessly they have reduced an entire incident of a painful death of a film star into a ‘national issue’ spreading hatred and speaking the language of misogyny.  A young girl who was a live-in partner of the dead star is being humiliated and harassed in public, her family is being under media gaze and reporters harassing her. There are three of India’s national agencies such as ED, CBI and also Narcotics and Drugs related bureau investigating her case. Some of the netas are now asking NIA to look into ‘foreign’ connection. It looks Rhea Chakravarty has been converted into India’s ‘villain no 1’.  And through targeting her, the aim is to bring the Muslim angle from the back and then attack Maharashtra government as well as Congress Party to ensure a ‘massive’ victory for Nitish Kumar in Bihar during the next elections scheduled within three months from now. We all know that the Nitish government has miserably failed in Bihar in handling the Covid-19 crisis as well as the flood situation in Bihar remain critical. It is this media which has forgotten Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder or that of Dr Payal Tadavi or missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed. None of them ever bothered to investigate these issues honestly and their only aim was to victimised the victims in these cases and create a conspiracy theory around them alone. All those who stood for the honest probe in these cases were hounded and termed as anti-national. None of them ever bothered to seek CBI inquiry. None of them ever discussed the issues so much on their prime time as…

Vidya Bhushan Rawat at deekshabhoomi

Opinion 14 February 2019

Policing political ideas will fail

The power today does not want the new young to think and speak. They don’t want you to debate and discuss the politics, the issues confronting our society and nation.