[BenarNews]
Singers of the Baul folk tradition in Bangladesh are struggling to survive after more than a decade of physical and legal attacks by Islamic hardliners who consider these artists apostates and heretics.
Bauls – as these wandering minstrels are called in Bangladesh and West Bengal in India – are neither of those things, but they are nonconformists whose songs boldly showcase their syncretic mystical roots.
Rita Dewan, an acclaimed Bangladeshi Baul singer, says she was forced into hiding for most of last year after religious zealots in the Muslim-majority nation threatened to kill her. They accused her of defaming Islam “by making vulgar remarks about god” in a performance uploaded online last January.
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Ekushey Book Fair postponed again
Staff Correspondent
11th January, 2021 10:26:03
The Amar Ekushey Book Fair, the biggest book festival of the country, will not be held in February this year amid the coronavirus situation in the country.
Bangla Academy Director General Habibullah Shirajee said, “We have postponed the book fair for the time being. We will observe the situation, discuss the matter with publishers and make a fresh schedule once the situation improves.”
Earlier, the academy requested to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs to suspend the book fair considering the coronavirus situation. In reply the ministry told them to arrange the book fair virtually.
AK Balan | Photo: Mathrubhumi
Thiruvananthapuram: Minister AK Balan stated that IFFK cannot be organised as usual in the backdrop of the pandemic. He also justified the decision to organise IFFK in four different venues.
COVID transmission will increase when a large number of people gather together at a place. The Government and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs does not want the film festival to cause COVID transmission. The minister also added that there is no intention to change the venue from Thiruvananthapuram and that the capital city will continue to remain the permanent venue for the festival.
Shashi Tharoor MP and KS Sabarinath MLA had criticized the government’s decision to shift the venue for the festival this year. This caused polarised discussions in the social media space as well. IFFK will start from February 10.
by Prof. K.N.O. Dharmadasa Efflorescence
Going back to the “cultural desert” remark, Goonetilleke records that Jennings thought of “Thurstan Road as an oasis” He was eagerly awaiting the transfer to Peradeniya where ” the desert would blossom like the rose” ( KR, Intro. Xxiii) .As we all know it did indeed. (Let us leave aside the “cultural desert” part.) . Being empowered to “develop” in a separate Faculty, Sinhalese, Tamil, Pali and Sanskrit studies expanded their academic vistas. I think the most momentous development was in the Department of Sinhalese. In Peradeniya, it had come under a new Professor and Head of Department, D.E.Hettiarachchi (B.A.;Ph.D. Lond; M.A.; Ph.D. Calcutta) The study of modern Sinhala literature was added to the curriculum of the Department enlisting the services of Ediriweera Sarachcnadra, a scholar who had been making pioneering studies on modern Sinhala literature, getting him transferred from the Department of Pali. This proved to