Article/Essay
 16 Jan 2017 Article/Essay
Essay:
The long journey of the Brahmin Bull
By Akanksha Damini Joshi

#BosIndicusInAmerica #JallikattuLearning

The story starts in 1854. Southern America, Louisiana.
Once upon a time, 2,500,000 acres of tall wild grass, wild flowers.
Within this expanse, a small plantation town called St. Franci... Read More
 13 Jan 2017 Article/Essay
Essay:
When Did We First Celebrate Makar Sankranti?
By Raj Vedam
Swarajya - Jan 13, 2017

The widespread celebration of the Makar Sankranti festival and its many regional variations hint great antiquity. In this article, we will take a journey through time, weaving together history, astronomy, c... Read More
 13 Jan 2017 Article/Essay
Essay:
Jallikattu - its historical and cultural relevance
By Sparsh Sharma

Jalli in #Jallikattu means gold coins tied to the bulls’ horns. Kettu means to tie.

Brave matadors were eligible bachelors in the olden days. This is the reason why men used to display dare devilry.

The Spanish bullfi... Read More
 11 Jan 2017 Article/Essay
Essay:
Banning Jallikattu Will Decimate India’s Indigenous Cattle Breeds
By Himakiran Y Anugula
The Wire - 10/01/2017

Imagine this scene a few thousand years ago in the Indus Valley region. A group of herders out grazing a few hundred cattle, enjoying the warm sun on their backs with the occasio... Read More
 7 Jan 2017 Article/Essay
Beautiful Libraries of the world

France National Library (Bibliothèque Nationale de France), Paris.

Source: http://huff.to/2iTQHDi Read More
 2 Jan 2017 Article/Essay
The Swamimalai Murugan temple and the Tamil Calendar
By Raj Vedam

The Swamimalai Murugan temple near Kumbhakonam has existed since the Sangam Era (~500BCE), and later built ornately by the Cholas around 900 CE. The temple was heavily damaged in 1740 during the cannon exchanges between the Britis... Read More
 29 Dec 2016 Article/Essay
Beautiful Libraries of the world

The multi-floored George Peabody Library at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, USA was built in the mid-18th century and is still open to the public.

Credit: Flickr/Matthew Petroff Read More
 29 Dec 2016 Article/Essay
Essay:
Revolutionary heroes
By Blake Smith
aeon.co

If the sultan of Mysore had had a bit more luck, George Washington might be known as the Haider Ali of North America. As the ruler of Mysore, a kingdom in what is now southwestern India, Haider fought a series of wars with Great Britain in the l... Read More
 28 Dec 2016 Article/Essay
Essay:
Counterview: Taimur's actions were uniquely horrific in Indian history
A response to a Scroll.in article about Hindutva's distorted reading of medieval Indian history.
by Girish Shahane
Published in Scroll.in, 28 December 2016

The unlikeliest of events set off bitter historical debates in... Read More
 26 Dec 2016 Article/Essay
Essay:
From Macaulay to Frawley, from Doniger to Elst: Why do many Indians need White saviours?
By Devdutt Pattanaik
Scroll.in Dec 24, 2016

Would non-White Indologists evoke such passions as the likes of Sheldon Pollock and Wendy Doniger or David Frawley and Koenraad Elst do?

There is a wound t... Read More
 25 Dec 2016 Article/Essay
Essay:
Astonishing Christmas-themed Mughal miniatures from the courts of Akbar and Jehangir
By Mridula Chari
Scroll.in Dec 25, 2014

Jesuits came to the Mughal court hoping to convert the emperors. Instead, the Indian rulers used Christian images for their own royal propaganda.

When Mughal emp... Read More
 25 Dec 2016 Article/Essay
Essay:
Christian footprint in Mughal India
By B.N.Goswamy
Tribune India - Dec 14, 2014

Pictures of Christian themes were favourites as gifts to be brought by embassies to the emperor and the imperial elite.

We see them everywhere in books on Mughal painting: painters bending over their task, co... Read More
 24 Dec 2016 Article/Essay
There is much to learn about Bangalore
By Thejaswi Udupa

Bangalore is a city older than Bombay or Madras. Give it the love and attention it deserves, especially if you think of it as your city.

Learn Kannada. Some of the best works about Bangalore are available in that language. In the early 1... Read More
 16 Dec 2016 Article/Essay
Essay:
How India went from World’s Education Capital to Depths of Illiteracy - Part I
By Sahana Singh
IndiaFacts - 6 December 2016

Just a thousand years ago, India was dotted with universities across its length and breadth where international students flocked to gain credentials in advanced educ... Read More
 16 Dec 2016 Article/Essay
Essay:
Robert Bruce Foote: The father of India’s prehistory
By Deepa Kandaswamy
Live Mint - 16 December 2016

In the mid-19th century, Foote almost single-handedly tried to reconstruct India's unwritten past.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published the theory of natural selection in his book, “Origin ... Read More
 16 Dec 2016 Article/Essay
Article:
A discovery that changed the antiquity of humankind who lived in Indian subcontinent
By T. S. Subramanian
The Hindu - May 27,2013

One hundred and fifty years ago, on May 30, 1863, young geologist Robert Bruce Foote bent down and picked up a stone tool on the Parade Ground at Pallavaram ... Read More
 9 Dec 2016 Article/Essay
Essay:
Are we using the wrong calendar to mark human history?
By Scroll staff

A new calendar aims to incorporate all cultures and histories.

When does the human history begin? The answer lies in the way we count years – before and after a significant event – that is today based on the year Jes... Read More
 27 Nov 2016 Article/Essay
Essay:
The East India Company: The original corporate raiders
By William Dalrymple
Guardian - 2015

For a century, the East India Company conquered, subjugated and plundered vast tracts of south Asia. The lessons of its brutal reign have never been more relevant.

One of the very first Indian wor... Read More
 27 Nov 2016 Article/Essay
New Book Review:
An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India
By Shashi Tharoor
Published by Aleph Book Company - 26 October 2016

Shashi Tharoor: You can’t revenge yourself upon history, history is its own revenge
By Manik Sharma
FirstPost - Nov 5, 2016

Shashi Tharoor's new book — An Era of... Read More
 26 Nov 2016 Article/Essay
The Austrian National Library (Nationalbibliothek) is first and foremost the country’s largest working library, home to millions of books. It is located in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna; since 2005 some of the collections find themselves in the baroque Palais Mollard-Clary. Hofburg Palace is a pal... Read More