TAKING A CLOSE LOOK The Central team in Kolkata
In March, Mamata Banerjee took the Covid-19 fight to the streets, distributing masks and drawing circles on the road to enforce physical distancing. But, for the past one month the West Bengal chief minister has been spending more time inside her Nabanna office in the red zone district of Howrah. Notices from the Union home ministry have been piling up on her desk. She is probably the chief minister whose political acumen has been tested the most during the pandemic and, in her case, the results have changed from positive to negative in two months.
And, Banerjee is miffed. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s conference with chief ministers on May 11, she accused Home Minister Amit Shah of being the brain behind the “politics” over the pandemic. “When something happens in Gujarat or an ordinance is declared to snatch away the rights of labourers in Uttar Pradesh, why don’t you question them? Why are you targeting Bengal and its people by sending notices?” she asked.
Shah has been firing notices through home secretary A.K. Bhalla. The first set of letters criticised the state government for violating lockdown norms. Banerjee had been visiting hospitals, quarantine centres, stadiums and markets, sometimes sporting a mask, sometimes not. Her visits to pacify people won her praise even from her detractors.
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We need to engage more with communities
Designer Aratrik Dev Varman of the label Tilla has long been a lover of history. One could comfortably call him part-aesthete, part-archeologist, for his clothes dip into vintage styles of the Kutch, Sindh, Balochistan and Afghanistan, bringing alive antique styles and crafts. Tilla, the store and atelier, are situated on a tree-lined avenue in Ahmedabad.
The great luxury slowdown
A year or so ago, if anyone had told me that Tommy Hilfiger would have stolen the show at New York’s Met Gala, I would have laughed. But it seems the end of giant luxury labels is upon us even before we expected it. The American ready-to-wear designer Tommy Hilfiger seems to have created the maximum media buzz at the 2024 Met Gala, according to several data analytics firms.
RAP BRINGS RAPTURE
How indie artistes, especially hip-hoppers, are driving the phenomenal rise of Malayalam music
Employability issues are a narrative created by the corporate world
Prof Yogesh Singh is the 23rd vice chancellor of the century-old University of Delhi (DU). An engineer with a PhD in computer engineering, Singh has an impressive track record of teaching, innovation and research in the area of software engineering. He has more than 250 publications and his book, Software Testing, published by the Cambridge University Press, is well-received internationally. In an interview with THE WEEK, Singh talks about trends in higher education in India, the challenges faced by big universities, and how to make higher education more interesting. Asked about the perception that Indian graduates are “not employable”, he reacts strongly, and emphasises the difference between training and higher education. Edited excerpts:
SERVING WITH DISTINCTION
Conceived as a university like no other, Jawaharlal Nehru University became India's best. Here is how
Mandela Effect and Liar's Dividend
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The other Sabyasachi
I am Sabyasachi Mukherjee, not to be confused with my namesake, the celebrated fashion couturier, declared the venerated director-general of Mumbai’s pride, George Wittet’s Indo-Saracenic jewel, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, formerly known as the Prince of Wales Museum.
THE MANGO HUNTERS
'Naadan Maavukal' started out as a Facebook group, but what it does offline has helped conserve many indigenous varieties of mangoes
ANGRY, YOUNG AMERICA
Campus protests against the Gaza war continue to linger as students demand a realignment of US ties with Israel
BJP LEADERS, TOO, HAVE HAD ENOUGH
Farmers’ protest has taken the centre stage in Haryana, which goes to the polls on May 25. Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is confident that the Congress, which has been out of power for 10 years, will regain its hold on the state. “People who voted for the BJP are disappointed today. It is clear that they want change,” he told THE WEEK.
