Puja Sen

The Caravan — The film fraternity was blindsided by the sudden abolition of the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal in early April. The FCAT is a statutory body that came into existence in 1983 to provide an avenue for redressal for filmmakers unhappy with decisions made by the censor board.

Palgrave Macmillan — Chapter in the book 'Bad women' of Bombay Films. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030267872

The Wire (India) — On September 28, 2012, three Rohingya Muslim families beat a perilous path, crossing three country borders in South Asia, to reach Nepal. Jafar Alam, Amir Hussain and Abu Takir and their wives and children, all from border villages north of Maungdaw in Myanmar's Rakhine state, were the first from the Rohingya community to seek refuge in Kathmandu.

recordnepal.com — Like any film centered around the lives of women these days, Lipstick Under My Burkha too is being subjected to strenuous examinations regarding whether or not it qualifies as a feminist film. If not dealt with in earnest, it is a remarkably reductive question, one that raises a false dilemma.

The Wire (India) — Kathmandu: Once again, Nepal's Terai region is simmering with protests. The recently formed Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN), a coalition of six Madhesi parties, has been leading protests in the southern plains of the country since the national government announced that the second phase of local elections will be conducted on June 28.

thebookreviewindia.org — Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry', wrote W.H. Auden in memorial for W.B. Yeats. The sentence herds the reader straight into the heart of the matter. It implies that there is a relationship between the poet, or rather poetry, and the social order that condition all literature.

nepalitimes.com — India’s democratic fortunes have taken another decisive turn to the right with the results of recent state assembly elections. The ruling BJP made significant gains in four crucial states: Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, and most significantly, Uttar Pradesh (UP). Overwhelmingly the mandate is seen to have been for Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, reports say, commands reverence somewhat akin to what Indira Gandhi enjoyed when in power. Prannoy Roy of NDTV declared that this was the “new India” and that “we are all part now of Modi’s nation”. On one level, that statement is absurd. It signals how the liberal establishment itself has lost its grip on the very definition of democracy.

The Wire (India) — Birgunj (Nepal): A board hangs outside a tea shack in Pani Tanki, Birgunj, a city in central-southern Nepal bordering Bihar, announcing the martyrdom of Sohan Sah Kelwar. Inside, the recently widowed 21-year-old Binita Devi has doubled her effort to keep the bhojanalaya running, the sole source of income for her family since Kelwar's death.

himalmag.com — In the introduction to These Fine Lines, a collection of poems written by young Nepali women, the editor of the anthology Itisha Giri asks, "What kind of women are we?" The poems seek to present to the reader an "intimate insight into the Nepali female experience" - an attempt to centrestage the lives of women in their own words, to represent their own subjectivities.

Livemint — A work by Sandra Calligaro from 'Afghan Dream'. Courtesy: Sandra Calligaro Photo Kathmandu 2016, the international photography festival in Nepal's capital, is running its second edition, on from 21 October to 3 November. Last year, in 2015, it was organized in the aftermath of major geological and political upheavals that had the country in tatters.

caravanmagazine.in — On , as Nepal was trying to pull itself together in the wake of the 25 April earthquake and its continuing aftershocks, the country was greeted by an unexpected visitor: Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan.

Scroll.in — On May 14, nearly 2,000 cadres from 27 parties representing Madhesis, Janjatis and other Nepali ethnic minorities, under a loose coalition called the Sanghiya Gathbandhan, or Federal Alliance, marched through central Kathmandu inaugurating the beginning of planned protests within the capital of Nepal.

3quarksdaily.com — Puja Sen in Muse India: On 30 April 1979, feminists, writers and other New York intellectuals gathered at Town Hall to attend what turned out to be an explosive and combative event starring Germaine Greer, Norman Mailer, Jill Johnston, Jaqueline...

himalmag.com — The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government's chief tactics have long been clear to those who have cared to pay attention: shock and awe violence, pitched noise about majoritarian culture disguised as nationalism, sustained attacks on reason and rationality, and now, by extension, the thought policing of the country's youth.

himalmag.com — On 25 April, Purna Bahadur Tamang was working in a forest that overlooks his village when the earthquake struck. As he saw houses collapse and the dust rise around his home, in which he knew his wife and two young kids were, he made a mad dash for 20 minutes across the hilly terrain to reach them.

himalmag.com — Harisiddhi town is all dust, bricks and stones. The earthquake on 25 April devastated almost all the old brick houses in the area, leaving 23 people dead and 100 injured in the town of over 20,000 inhabitants.

himalmag.com — A group of villagers from Gathi in Sindhupalchowk, about 100 kilometres from Kathmandu, stand along the Araniko Highway to gather provisions - a sack of rice and a packet of salt - that have finally arrived on Sunday evening, a full eight days after the earthquake.

thehoot.org — Most media reports on the 18th summit of SAARC remained anxiously focused on the Modi-Sharif intrigue thereby missing out on informed reportage on Southasia's critical challenges,

himalmag.com — The President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, His Excellency Mr Ashraf 'proxy-server-settings-are-wrong' Ghani; the Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, Her Excellency Sheikh 'where-be-the-peeps' Hasina; the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bhutan, His Excellency Mr Tshering 'militantly-happy' Tobgay; the Prime Minister of the Republic of India,