RIVANCH

Mizoram celebrates its foundation day on 20 February. The north-eastern state came into existence on this date in 1987. The name of the state comes from the words Mi (meaning people), Zo (which signifies a lofty place, such as a hill) and Ram (land). So, Mizoram basically means "Land of the hill people", according to the official website of the state. A brief history of Mizoram The region was first part of Assam after India gained independence in 1947. The Mizo National Front (MNF), a political organisation established in 1961, stated that the independence of Greater Mizoram was its primary goal. The MNF launched Operation Jericho on 28 February, 1966, to throw out the Indian troops stationed in the region. Government installations and offices in Aizawl, Lunglei and other places were attacked by the MNF. The Union government sent fighter jets to bomb the city of Aizawl on 5 and 6 March the same year. It marked the only time in Indian history that the country used its a

Dwijapriya Sankashti Chaturthi, also called Sankasthi Chaturthi will fall on 20 February, 2022. The auspicious occasion falls on the fourth (Charuthi) tithi of the Krishna Paksha or waning phase of the moon, according to the Hindu calendar. Devotees believe that worshipping Lord Ganesha on this day can help them overcome all hurdles in life. Date and timings: According to the Drik Panchang, the Dwijapriya Sankashti Chaturthi, which occurs in the month of Phaguna (February-March) will fall on 20 February, 2022. The Chaturthi tithi will commence from 9:56 pm on 19 February, 2022 and continue till 9:05 pm on 20 February, 2022. Puja Vidhi: People begin Sanksahti Chaturthi by making preparations for worshipping Lord Ganesha. This includes cleaning their homes thoroughly before the start of the Chaturthi tithi, preparing sweets to offer to the god and decorating their homes. Most devotees observe a day-long fast, from sunrise to moonrise to seek the blessings of Lord Ganpati. People be

The foundation day of Arunachal Pradesh is marked on 20 February. Also called the Land of the Dawn-lit Mountains, Arunachal became the 24th state of India on 20 February, 1987. Arunachal Pradesh which means Land of Rising Sun in Sanskrit, was established as a separate state under the 55th Amendment to the Indian Constitution, 1986. The north-eastern state of Mizoram also came into existence on the same date as Arunachal Pradesh. A brief history of Arunachal Pradesh: The region first finds mention in the Mahabharata and Kalilka Purana. Arunachal Pradesh is said to be where Lord Krishna married Rukmini. It is also said to the place where the sage Parshuram atoned for his sin of matricide. Several archaeological sites around the state bear testimony to its rich heritage. During the colonial rule, the British ruled over Arunachal Pradesh, which was then part of North East Frontier Tracts. The area came under the jurisdiction of the Assam government post-independence. It became known a

When the film  Ishq Ishq Ishq  was released in 1974, its director, Dev Anand, decided to invite some rather unusual guests for the premier in Bombay (now Mumbai). Unusual, of course, in the context of Bollywood, though every bit familiar with the Nepal Himalaya that doubled up as a backdrop for the film. In fact, the movie also boasts of a glorious shot, as Anand is quoted as saying, “…of Mount Everest with a sweetheart of a cloud spinning around it, a very rare sight indeed!” Those two guests were all too familiar with the world of the high mountains. One of them was Noel Odell, the last man to see his British teammates, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, before they disappeared on Everest in 1924. Closer to home, Odell had been the first mountaineer alongside Bill Tilman to have climbed Nanda Devi in the Garhwal Himalaya in 1936. The other was Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountaineer who made the first ascent of the notorious North Face of the Eiger and is the protagonist of the film

Nepal signed a deal with China to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2017 when Maoist leader Pushpa Kumar Dahal alias ‘Prachanda’ was the Prime Minister of Nepal. Concurrently, America’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) signed a $500 million compact with the Government of Nepal. The MCC Nepal Compact marked a new chapter in the US-Nepal Partnership and is designed to increase the availability of electricity and lower the cost of transportation in Nepal. It was designed to counter China’s BRI. China launched the bloody Maoist insurgency in Nepal during the era of Mao Zedong to wean it away from India and the US. The civil war in Nepal (1996-2006) resulted in the deaths of over 17,000 Nepalese (civilians, insurgents, army and police) and the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands. Some 63,000 complaints were received by the Truth Reconciliation Commission while the Commission for Investigation of Enforced Disappearances received around 3,000. Chinese hard and

The tragic death of Lavanya in Tamil Nadu has foregrounded the issue of conversion. In this article, I will try to locate the issue of conversion, within the matrix of Indic civilisation in general. As we do so, we will discover how alien a concept it is for people of dharma, and realise how its application to Indic culture requires qualification at almost every step. Movement, or even migration, from one religious orientation to another, is not unknown to Indic civilisation, but conversion, in the Western sense, is another kettle of fish. Conversion is essentially a phenomenon associated with the Abrahamic religious traditions, particularly with Christianity and Islam. The prevalence of conversion within the Indic religious tradition is not immediately apparent, but if we interpret the term liberally, then it can be contextualised within the Indic religious tradition, though in a somewhat laboured way. In order to do so, however, some key distinctions need to be introduced. The firs

Chandrachur Ghose, with Anuj Dhar, has devoted his entire life to Mission Netaji — an endeavour that works towards decoding the mystery surrounding Subhas Chandra Bose’s ‘life’ post-1945. Unlike the official history that says that Bose died in a plane crash in Taiwan on 18 August 1945, Ghose cites new data to prove that no crash took place on that particular day. His new book,  Bose: The Untold Story of an Inconvenient Nationalist  (Penguin) ,  however, isn’t just about Netaji post-1945, but about some “missing gaps” in his life that will help understand the ‘inconvenient nationalist’ better. Excerpts: Please tell us about your new book on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and how is it different from other biographies on him? I started focusing on the disappearance of Netaji Bose in 2004-05. One thing that struck me in the past 17 years was that it would be difficult to answer the Netaji questions post-1945, if we don’t understand him as a person, his thought process, his viewpoints, his

Green economy is a combination of two words — greenery (ecology) and economics. Economics studies human needs in relation to material ends and means, while ecology deals with the study of living organisms and their interactions with the environment. Green economy is a new theory and approach in which an economy is considered to be a component of the ecosystem in which it resides. Simply, the economy is part of the ecosystem in which it exists, being its subsystem. Green economy is known by different names such as Eco-economics or Ecological economics. As per this theory, material wealth and environment are not mutually exclusive. It presupposes that economic resources of the earth and planet earth are interconnected, interdependent and can co-exist. The purpose of the economy to fulfil the material needs of human beings cannot be at the cost of the environment which is as important for the well-being of human beings as his material well-being. Green economy refers to the efforts towa

Results for the Stenographer Phase 2 Exam-2018 have been declared by the Rajasthan Subordinate and Ministerial Services Selection Board (RSMSSB). The merit list contains roll number of candidates who have been shortlisted for document verification. The RSMSSB has also declared the category wise cut-off marks, along with the result. Candidates who gave the exam may check their results on the official website of RSMSSB -  rsmssb.rajasthan.gov.in Methodical procedure to check the result is as follows: -Visit the official website -  rsmssb.rajasthan.gov.in -Go to the ‘News Notifications’ section on the RSMSSB homepage -Then click on link that reads, ‘Stenographer 2018: List of Selected Candidates for Document Verification’ -View the result displayed on your screen along with the category wise cut-off marks -Download and save a copy to use it in the future Direct link to check RSMSSB Stenographer stage 2 result 2018 is here. Applicants who are shortlisted in the RSMSSB Stenographe

The 20th anniversary of the Godhra tragedy, in which 58 Hindu pilgrims were burnt alive in a train, will be observed on 27 February. Do we recall the carnage? Yes, we remember the Gujarat riots of 2002. Yes, we remember the killing of Muslims in Gujarat; and yes, we are constantly reminded of a Muslim ‘genocide’ that happened in Gujarat when Narendra Modi was chief minister. This one-sided narrative is readily available where Modi stands accused despite a clean chit being given by the Supreme Court. This narrative of a Muslim ‘pogrom’ thrives despite the fact that of the 1,044 people killed in the post-Godhra Gujarat violence, 254 were Hindus. Today, when we look at the 2002 violence, Godhra finds itself barely confined to the footnotes. The Bilkis Bano case was widely publicised, which no doubt was horrendous, but the silence over 20 children and 27 women burnt alive in the train was equally abhorrent. The issue is, why we don’t seem to care for the 58 people who were burnt alive in

Of all the challenges Indian Muslims face today the hardest, they say, is dealing with their systematic political marginalisation with even their traditional allies — the Congress and other avowedly liberal mainstream parties — reluctant to be seen in their company for fear of being portrayed as anti-Hindu. For a community long used to be courted as an electoral asset — a solid vote bank, if you will — it hurts to be suddenly treated as a political pariah. The extent of its political isolation is evident from the fact that in the ongoing campaign for Assembly elections there's barely any discussion of the once-prized Muslim vote. The so-called "Muslim factor", once regarded as crucial to the outcome of an election—especially in north India and more particularly Uttar Pradesh — is conspicuously missing in campaign speeches. To be sure, some parties have fielded Muslim candidates but their nomination has more to do with other considerations than necessarily their Muslimnes

It makes for quite a composition. A Christian-Dalit-Sikh, just months old Congress chief minister (and CM candidate) Charanjit Singh Channi, atop a red tractor. And a Congress High Command nominee, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, of mixed parentage, perched to his side and slightly behind. Channi calls Priyanka Vadra a ‘Punjaban’. This, despite Priyanka being half-Italian plus a mixture of ancestors from other regions, none of them from Punjab. Channi thinks she is a Punjaban, only by virtue of her marriage to an Anglo-Indian Punjabi combo from (originally) Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh. Channi declares from atop the tractor that “UP, Bihar ke bhaiya” should leave Punjab. At the time, the televised photo opportunity gets a quota of claps and wolf-whistles from the faithful before the duo. Vadra herself claps and grins her delight, displays her dimples, her much mentioned Indira Gandhi nose. Channi’s inexperience in high politics shines through as he explains after a substantial backlash from P

When I closely observe the governance ethos and principles of Yogi Adityanath, I find a great reflection of his childhood and young days in it. During the research of my previous book on Yogi Adityanath, I got the opportunity to spend time with Savita Devi and late Anand Singh Bisht, parents of Ajay Singh Bisht, the pre- sanyas  name of Yogi Adityanath. I also spent time with his siblings, his teachers, his friends and classmates and people in Gorakhnath Mutt. And having observed his work in these 4.5 years, I am able to reflect back on whatever I heard from the people who were close to him in his social, spiritual and political journey. Savita Devi, his mother, told me about his love for cows while growing up; his teachers told me about his regular participation in school debates on social topics; his classmates told me about his habit to go out of the way to help his colleagues; his friends told me about his interest in the stories of freedom fighters and ancient Indian history. Whi