Basav Biradar

I wrote a profile of the playwright and theatre director Abhishek Majumdar for @thecaravanindia . Statutory warning: It is a long read. caravanmagazine.in/arts/abhishek-…

This video is both heartbreaking and life-inspiring. A film crew tries to film the destruction caused by US/Israeli bombing at an apartment complex in Iran. One of the tenants, an old man whose apartment has been almost completely shattered, insists on inviting the film crew in and offering them something to eat. "We have only come to film, we don't want anything," the crew says. But the old man insists on at least offering them oranges and apples. Ultimately, those who come out victorious from conflicts are those who retain their dignity. Who never let war make them lose their humanity and self-respect. Who, even in the worst of situations, insist on upholding sacred traditions and beliefs, including that of hospitality. That's what makes a civilization indestructible. Please remember this video and do your best to forget the videos of the lost souls dancing and cheering on the streets when their countrymen, women, and children were being killed by "democracy and freedom" bombs.

I think we are conflating film theory and film criticism here. Bazin's work leans more towards film theory where as Kael, Truffaut mostly film criticism. I prefer scholarly writing as most critics tend to focus more on the narrative implications. Iqbal Masud was India's finest.

Images from a plane carrying Iran’s delegation to US-Iran talks in Islamabad show seats filled with photos and belongings of victims of the Minab school strike. The aircraft, “Minab 168,” honours the 168 killed, mostly children.

We are looking for a reviewer for Divided Media: Politics and Mediated Movements in India by Suruchi Mazumdar. In case you are interested, please email to doingsociology2020@gmail.com.

@SumanaSiliguri @SAAGanthology Wow! This is very interesting Sumana. The opening scene of Meghe Dakha Tara is something I often show to students but from a very different (film studies) perspective. Now you have given me more to think about.

Very happy to see RITWIK'S TREES, my essay on plant life in Ritwik Ghatak's cinema, on the SAAG (SOUTH ASIAN AVANT GARDE) website. Please take a look at the images even if you don't read the essay. :) @SAAGanthology saaganthology.com/general/ritwik…

I spoke at length with Shanta tai when I was writing the Caravan profile of the playwright Abhishek Majumdar. I was amazed at how respectful, kind, and generous she was in sharing and indulging me. Someone who genuinely cares about her work and the Indian cultural scene.

The Indian state has perfected making the poor wait. I write about ‘temporal citizenship,’ where full urban belonging requires ‘discretionary time,’ which is redistributed from the poor to the comfortable. Read my essay for @frontline_india to know more! frontline.thehindu.com/social-issues/…

Why would PM fund prayers to make JD Vance's plane disappear?? Does US know about this? I thought everyone wanted peace.

Something remarkable happened on this day, 90 years ago … on 9 April , 1936. A galaxy of writers from different bhashas met at the Rifat-e-Aam Hall in Lucknow for the first of its kind All India Progressive Writers Association . Premchand came to deliver the Presidential Address

So excited for "The Man From Kashmir" to be in bookstores soon. Muddasir is one of those voices coming out of Kashmir that puts the devastation of the everyday into immersive and necessary context. Keep an eye out! @ASuitableAgency

@Plebeian42 I am reminded of my own H1B days and the surprise and shock I felt after seeing all the shady H1B holders:)... (known as contractors in those days)

It's finally here! Phew, it's been so long.

Eric Hobsbawm defined darkness not as a apocalyptic break but as the state where everyone "gets used to living under conditions which should not be tolerated". Getting used to livestream genocide, carpet bombings and now threat of imminent nuclear attack is living in darkness.

This is shocking!

@arunk_patel Thank you

@BasavBiradar Will send a copy

For the last 10 years, I have been researching on the history of the Kanpur Missionary Industrial/technical School. I worked in the archives from India to Oxford. The chapter is now published in this wonderful book. Details in the pic 👇

Book Launch Alert! I'll be talking about my new book "Computing in the Age of Decolonization", out from @PrincetonUPress, at the @MITMuseum on April 27, in conversation with the wonderful @moikiweigel. The book traces India's ambitious postcolonial drive to build its own computing industry, and why that vision was abandoned. Mon 4/27, 6–7:30pm | $5 (free for students) Books + signing after, courtesy @mitpbookstore mitmuseum.mit.edu/programs/autho…

Madman Theory? Trump got summits with “little rocket man” Kim Jong Un last time around, but never in all my years reporting America at war have I heard anything like this: an American president threatens to destroy a “whole civilization” and says it’ll take 100 years to rebuild. Striking Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, Israel warning people to avoid trains and stations, Trump threatening whole power grids, desalination plants, the nation’s bridges… Is this war still against the Iranian regime or now against a whole people?

'This Too is a Story', Poonam Saxena's translation of Mannu Bhandari's memoir, a sensitive, immensely candid glimpse into the world of one of Hindi literature's best women writers. My review. madhulikareads.wordpress.com/2026/04/06/thi…

Much like the lynchings, we stopped reacting to bulldozing homes, often of Muslims, often of people who’ve done nothing wrong. This numbness is dehumanising. As #Assampolls near, read or (scroll) this poignant multimedia story @ahmermkhan @buriedsignals article-14.com/post/cleared-h…