Satish Vimal, a multilingual writer, poet, and broadcaster from Buchoo village in Tral, of Pulwama district is not onpy associated with All India Radio Srinagar, but also wholeheartedly committed to promoting literary programmes as well as cultural and historical shows. His profound affection for his homeland and his mother tongue resonates deeply with listeners who have been captivated by his insightful programmes on Kashmiri culture and history. Through his unwavering passion for poetry and literature, Vimal has emerged as an influential figure in the region, garnering numerous accolades and recognition for his tireless efforts in preserving Kashmir's rich heritage. Vimal's journey as a poet began during his school days when he composed poems and actively participated in his village's mohalla theatre and cultural activities. Despite his initial shyness, he found solace in writing scripts for skits and songs. His teacher, Mohammad Shahban Mir, played a pivotal role in his life as a guide, companion, and mentor, instilling in Vimal a deep appreciation for the written word. After completing his higher education, he embarked on a career at Doordarshan Kendra Srinagar. However, his true calling awaited him at All India Radio (formerly Radio Kashmir), where his resonant voice and profound insights on Sufi thought, Kashmiri heritage, and history garnered widespread admiration. Vimal's thirst for knowledge led him to pursue higher education in English literature. Exploring the works of renowned English poets expanded his horizons and deepened his understanding of world literature. Inspired by his newfound knowledge, he began writing books in Kashmiri, Hindi, English, and Urdu, showcasing his versatility as a writer. Further, his ability to read Arabic, Sanskrit, Punjabi, and Persian further broadened his understanding of global literary traditions. Despite his demanding job at All India Radio, Vimal's passion for literature remained undeterred, even as he found himself increasingly drawn to subjects such as Physics, Astronomy, and religion. Vimal firmly believes that Kashmir is the land of spirituality, with its essence permeating every aspect of life. He attributes his inspiration to the poetry of revered figures like Nund Reshi, Lala Ded, and other mystics, whose verses from the soul and Sufi music have captivated generations of Kashmiris. This spiritual foundation, deeply ingrained in the UT, has shaped Vimal's literary endeavours and cemented his love for the treasures of Kashmir's traditions. Through his numerous books of poetry, including "Vinash Ka Vijeta," "Thoonth Kii Chhaya," "Siyah Var," and others, he passionately expresses his affection for Kashmir and its cultural tapestry. He is the only modern Indian writer whose poetry has been translated into Persian, which was recently released by the Iran Embassy in New Delhi. Vimal's commitment to preserving Kashmir's cultural heritage is evident in his extensive translations and literary explorations. From translating contemporary world poetry into Kashmiri and the works of renowned poets like Antonio Porchia and Laari Azaad to preserving the sayings of revered figures like Sheikh Ul Alam (RA) and Lala Ded, he tirelessly works to ensure the authenticity and integrity of Kashmiri literature. Vimal's upcoming book, which delves into Kashmir's contributions to Literary Aesthetics during the Sanskrit era, showcases his dedication to unearthing and documenting the region's rich literary history. He believes that the youth of Kashmir possesses immense talent and potential in the fields of poetry and literature. He urges them to channel their energy and embrace the opportunities available to them, both within Kashmir and beyond. Vimal draws inspiration from young writers who defy the challenges of the present and create works that will endure in the future. As he continues to receive recognition and awards for his contributions, he remains steadfast in his love for Kashmir. His extraordinary journey from a remote village to becoming a celebrated multilingual writer, poet, and broadcaster with national-level fame exemplifies the power of dedication and love for one's cultural heritage. Through his programs, translations, and literary works, he has become an indispensable figure in contemporary Kashmir's rich legacy. With his passion for literature and commitment to exploring uncharted territories, Vimal continues to inspire the youth and nurture their talents, ensuring that Kashmir's cultural heritage remains alive for generations to come. 

When Meghalaya Monitor met Lesitta Marak at her residence a week after the demise of Ashok Elwin, the house was in disarray. “Now that the guests have left, we have got some time to arrange everything,” said Marak as she apologized for the “mess”. The conversation about Ashok started casually as everyone in the room recalled the person that he was. “For Ashok, preserving the legacy of his father Verrier Elwin was of utmost importance,” said Lesitta. The black-and-white photographs by renowned anthropologist Verrier Elwin that adorned the walls of the living room were proof of Ashok’s dedication to preserving a crucial chapter in Indian history — the tribals of the North East and other parts of the country. When Ashok passed away on March 20 after a short period of ailment, he was 68 and was working on preserving the anthropological works and artefacts of Verrier. A sociable yet soft-spoken person, Ashok, who was the youngest of three brothers, rarely spoke about his illustrious father unless asked. But he was the only descendant of the anthropologist who took a keen interest in the latter’s works. He also took initiative to take the works of Verrier to the masses by organising lectures and exhibitions of the latter’s photographs and artefacts. One of the exhibitions took place in London where several frames were sold. A family photograph hung on one of the walls of the living room where Verrier was seen with all his sons. “Ashok lost his father at the age of 10,” said Lesitta as she introduced the persons in the photograph. The house is dotted with rare photographs of various tribes captured by Verrier. A shelf in the living room is stacked with all the books authored by the anthropologist. Harry Verrier Holman Elwin was born in an Anglo-Saxon family in Dover on August 29, 1902. An Oxford-educated scholar, he came to India in 1927 as a missionary and worked with Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress before dedicating his life to the cause of the many tribes. He lived with the Gond tribe in central India for decades and fought for the rights of these people. He also married a Gond woman, Kosi, and had to face much flak from family and friends. Verrier came to Shillong with his second wife Lila and their three children and made the hill city his home. Historian Ramchandra Guha, in his book Savaging the Civilized, gives an account of Verrier’s personal life. “What struck the boys (Verrier’s sons Wasant, Nakul and Ashok) most forcibly about their father was his cigar. A drawing by Wasant, pasted in Verrier’s diary, is called ‘Daddy with Cigar’; another by Ashok, more inventive, has the little boy smoking the dreadful thing himself, with Mummy ticking off Daddy for allowing him to have one.” Ashok did not continue to hold on to ‘Daddy’s’ habit of smoking cigars. Nonetheless, he was a smoker. A visitor to the Elwin house would often spot him smoking a cigarette near the portico and working on woodcraft or taking a stroll by the garden. He had a certain je ne sais quoi that made him appealing even to a first-time visitor who could effortlessly start a conversation with Ashok. In 2022, Ashok took up the mammoth task of digitising more than 17,000 photographs with the help of the fund that he received from the North East Council. He was also collaborating with the Department of Anthropology at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, for an exhibition. “That task remained unfinished. But we are planning to organise it,” said Lesitta, who met Ashok in Shillong when she was studying at Lady Keane College. They got married in 1978. Many of Verrier’s collections were sold to the National Museum in Delhi by Ashok’s mother, Lila Elwin, who died in 2013. Yet many artefacts and photographs still remain as a testimony to its vast works with the various tribes of mainland India and the North East. Lesitta said the family is also planning to open a museum on the premises of the house. “Ashok too was a photographer and he gave many of his photographs to INTAC,” she added. Ashok was a crucial link between Verrier’s rich legacy and the present generation. He was assiduous in preserving and presenting the works of a man who played a key role in formulating policies for the tribals of India to the common man. Without Ashok’s endeavour, Verrier Elwin and his contributions to independent India would have remained a subject only for the academicians. Sadly, his demise did not receive much of the local media’s attention. But one hopes that his works, and going forward his family’s enthusiasm, will be a valuable treasure of knowledge for generations to come. Source: meghalayamonitor.com

Beyond his political career, Mikhail Gorbachev became an unlikely cultural icon, appearing in ads for Pizza Hut and Louis Vuitton. He was immortalized in film by Werner Herzog, and even won a Grammy Award. Hours after the news of Mikhail Gorbachev’s death was made public, Pizza Hut started trending on Twitter. Amid the tributes to the last leader of the Soviet Union who initiated the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall through his perestroika and glasnost policies, a 25-year-old ad for the pizza chain went viral. The clip opens with a series of shots of Moscow landmarks, such as the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and St. Basil’s Cathedral, and then shows Mikhail Gorbachev and a young girl, presumably his granddaughter, walking through a snowy Red Square before they enter a Pizza Hut restaurant. The other clients in the restaurant recognize their former leader and all start discussing his legacy. While a middle-aged man complains that because of Gorbachev, they face economic confusion and political instability, and are even plunged into complete chaos, a younger guy points out that he is the reason that they’ve gained access to opportunity and freedom. An older lady at the table ends the dispute with one killer argument: Because of him, we have many things like Pizza Hut, she points out, and everyone agrees, leading them to cheer, Hail to Gorbachev! Commercials to finance his foundations Along with charging fees for the lectures he gave around the world, appearing in ads was one of the ways Gorbachev used to finance his foundations. The think-tank International Foundation for Socio-Economic and Political Studies, also known as the Gorbachev Foundation, was created in 1991 to monitor developments in post-Soviet Russia and promote democratic values. In 1993, Gorbachev also used the money from his Nobel Peace Prize to help establish the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, known for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian politics. Gorbachev’s Geneva-based non-profit environmental organization, Green Cross International, was also set up that same year. Among the products Gorbachev agreed to promote were Apple Computers. In the 1994 ad created for German publications, Gorbachev is shown standing next to a Macintosh computer. A man can either be part of the solution or part of the problem, the caption says, quoting the politician, I have chosen the former. The computer screen happens to be flashing the name and symbol of Green Cross International. A Louis Vuitton ad that reflected a Russian murder case But it was the details of another commercial that triggered questions. In 2007, Gorbachev appeared in an advertisement for French luxury label Louis Vuitton. In a portrait by star photographer Annie Leibovitz, the former Soviet leader is shown in the back of a car, driving past the remains of the Berlin Wall a reference to political legacy. He has a classic brown Louis Vuitton bag sitting next to him. There’s a magazine poking out of that bag. Those who were curious enough to zoom into the picture to analyze its contents still were required to understand the Russian language to read the front cover headline: Litvinenko’s murder: They wanted to give up the suspect for $7,000. That was the cover of the May 28, 2007 edition of the New Times magazine, a liberal Russian weekly that has often published pieces critical of President Vladimir Putin. The magazine’s cover refers to the case of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy and prominent critic of Putin who was poisoned. On his deathbed, Litvinenko accused the Russian president of having orchestrated his murder. The suspect above-mentioned in the headline refers to Andrei Lugovoi, who is wanted by British authorities; the Kremlin has, however, refused to extradite him from Russia. Responding to internet speculation at the time, Louis Vuitton spokespeople said that the magazine shown in the image was not chosen with any deliberate intention beyond adding authenticity to the look of the picture. Nina Hagen’s rap for Mikhail Singer Nina Hagen, aka the German Godmother of Punk, paid an early tribute to Gorbachev in a humorous rap song titled Michail, Michail (Gorbachev rap), released on her eponymous album from 1989. The song’s lyrics were actually written by her stepfather, poet and singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann, who is one of former East Germany’s most famous dissidents. Biermann also released his own version of the song that same year, on his album Gut Kirschenessen. DDR ça ira! An astute observer of the changes emerging from Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika reforms, Biermann advised his dear Gorbi through the lyrics of the song to stay smart to avoid cannons instead of butter, all while reminding him that, alongside freedom, the population will need food, too (Nix is mit Freiheit ohne Futter). From a Grammy Award to a Werner Herzog documentary Gorbachev also contributed to a number of noteworthy media productions. His recording of Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf (1936), created with Bill Clinton and Sophia Loren, won the 2004 Grammy Award for best spoken-word album for children. Different documentaries also feature interviews with the pivotal political figure. Most prominently, Werner Herzog directed Meeting Gorbachev, which features three conversations filmed over the course of six months. In the 2018 film, Gorbachev discusses different aspects of his personal life, his legacy, as well as his disappointments. At the time of the shoot, Gorbachev was already in poor health, but he was still clear-headed about what was happening in his country. The democratic reforms he had tried to set up were being swept aside, with Russian President Vladimir Putin using authoritarian measures to reinstate the Soviet empire that collapsed under Gorbachev’s watch. One quote from the Meeting Gorbachev film summarizes the melancholy mood triggered by the overturn of Gorbachev’s attempted democratic reforms. Herzog asks the veteran politician: I would like to hear, what should be on your gravestone? With a sparkle in his eye, Gorbachev simply answers: We tried.

Twenty-year-old Meeras Mahal Museum set up by late Atiqa Bano, a renowned educationist of Kashmir in 2001 preserves the identity and depicts the rich history of Kashmir. Meeras Mahal is the first and biggest private museum that has over a thousand items to display. The collections, mostly collected by late Atiqa Bano during her life include terracotta, woodwork, wicker and grass ware, metal, (including jewellery), stones, manuscripts, ancient ornaments, coins, traditional dresses, and utensils. During the peak season of tourism, heritage lovers, both locals and outsiders always prefer to visit Meeras Mahal to gain knowledge about the rich past of Kashmir. Nakul Grover, a B.Ed. student visiting the museum said, "We can see a number of earthen pots and utensils here, which were used in earlier times and are replaced by the utensils we use today. But, Meeras Mahal has kept their history alive." "We can imagine how simple that time was, how they discovered and innovated things on their own by seeing these artefacts present here. There are jute-based clothes to protect from cold, slippers made from clothes, rattraps, handcuffs and most importantly handloom machines to make clothes present here," he added. The Museum is home to more than 7000 artefacts that provide an ethnographic lens into the rich cultural heritage of the Kashmir valley. Most of the artefacts are items of daily use that were a common sight in Kashmir until the end of the twentieth century. Curator of Meeras Mahal, Imtiyaz Ahmad said, "The aim of Meeras Mahal Museum is to preserve the Kashmiri culture and heritage, which is slowly vanishing, for the future generation. Today, the children don't know much about our culture, history, how we lived and how we developed. It is Meeras Mahal's aim and desire to present a picture of our history to them, to make atleast one place where they can learn about it." "Meeras Mahal is an ethnographic museum where most of the artefacts are items of daily use that were a common sight in Kashmir until the end of the twentieth century are preserved. They used to make everything by themselves including tiles, clothes, coins, utensils and more," he further described. A number of people including writers, professors, Non-Governmental organizations (NGOs), students and educationists are doing good work to preserve the cultural richness of Kashmir through Meeras Mahal. Meeras Mahal is situated in Sopore town in Kashmir, also known as apple town of North Kashmir, around forty-five kilometres away from Srinagar city, set up by Atiqa Bano. She worked hard to collect unique and rare things aiming to attract more and more people to this beautiful museum that depicts the rich past of Kashmir. Source:ANI

The former prime minister has died from his injuries after a shooting at the age of 67. Shinzo Abe resigned from the top post in 2020, but his legacy has had a lasting impact on everyday Japanese life and politics. Former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe, who was the longest-serving prime minister in Japan’s history, died on Friday after being shot while delivering a speech at a campaign event in western Japan. He was 67. DW takes a look at his legacy and the impact that his political tenure has had on both the nation and the world. Abe’s legacy During his lifetime, Abe divided opinion across the country. To his critics, Abe represented a conservative Japan, downplaying Japan’s wartime atrocities. In a speech in 2015, when Japan marked 70 years since its defeat in World War II, Abe expressed profound grief for war victims, but stopped short of apologizing. The defining element of his career was historical revisionism, said German historian Sven Saaler of Tokyo’s Sophia University. Saaler cited the whitewashing of Japan’s wartime past in school textbooks and the reintroduction of morality lessons as prominent examples. Abe’s promises of building a strong and prosperous Japan had been reminiscent of the imperialist motto of the Meji era: rich nation, strong army. Abe also sought to revise the pacifist constitution that he believed was imposed on Japan in 1946 by the US. However, Abe was never able to realize his lifelong dream of reforms. His supporters regarded him as a pragmatic leader who strengthened Japan’s economy and partnership with the US so that Japan would never be relegated to a second-class nation, as he once said. Abe sought to relax monetary policy and pursue high government spending, and struck major trade agreements with the European Union and the Pacific Rim countries. During his tenure, Japan opened up to foreign workers, investors and tourists as never before, and proved that a developed economy can grow despite a shrinking population. Abe resigned as prime minister in 2020 due to a chronic health condition that he had battled for years. Balancing superpowers Abe also brought Japan closer to other countries in the Asian continent. With his vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific, the politician raised awareness across Asia of China’s ambitions abroad and strengthened economic ties between Japan and the region through an aggressive investment policy. India and Southeast Asia welcomed a more assertive Japan as a proactive and stabilizing regional influence, said Yoichi Funabashi, chairman of the Asia Pacific Institute think tank, following Abe’s 2020 resignation. The historic power struggle between China and the US, which escalated significantly during Abe’s tenure, forced him to walk a tightrope between the two superpowers. In doing so, he succeeded in both expanding the security alliance with the US, as well as protecting trade with China, Japan’s most important economic partner from damage through an expanded interpretation of the Japanese constitution. Abe also successfully pitched for Tokyo to host the 2020 Olympic Games, promising that the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant was under control. But Abe had lamented an unfinished peace deal with Russia, with both Tokyo and Moscow still at odds over the fate of the four disputed Kuril Islands. Weak opposition  Abe’s record length in office has been facilitated by weak and fragmented opposition parties, as well as his delivery of domestic economic prosperity and stability. German Japan expert Sebastian Maslow said, The establishment of political stability can be highlighted as his key success. He added that Abe had rehabilitated the Liberal Democratic Party after years of internal power struggles and financial scandals, making them fit to govern again. The years between 2009 and 2012 had been chaotic for the conservative party due to the inexperience of its politicians and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Voters didn’t dare experiment, and remained loyal to Abe. Born in Tokyo in 1954, Abe was born into a politically prominent and wealthy family. His father Shintaro Abe was foreign minister, his great-uncle Eisaku Sato was prime minister, as was his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi. (This article was originally written in German.)

The Durand Line has been an issue that has sown distrust between Afghanistan and Pakistan since 1948 and is also a possible flashpoint between Pakistan and the Taliban (that now control Afghanistan).    The Durand Line is the de facto border between Afghanistan and Pakistan that was unilaterally carved out by the British in 1883. Mortimer Durand, the British Diplomat largely responsible for the Durand Line, created the artificial demarcation without any regard for geography, topography, population composition of the region or any other factors that are considered when creating borders.  The British regime at the time completely ignored historical perspective, or the will of the local people and based the Durand Line solely on its geopolitical agenda. As a result, they divided a largely Pashtun dominated region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Families, relatives and villages that resided in the same region were now suddenly separated by an arbitrarily drawn “border” which has been dubbed the ‘line of hatred’, a cruel trick played on the Pashtun people. The Durand Line has been an issue that has sown distrust between Afghanistan and Pakistan since 1948 and is also a possible flashpoint between Pakistan and the Taliban (that now control Afghanistan).  Source: ZEE NEWS