Culture

Kashmir’s much-hyped literary festival has been cancelled. The organisers of ‘Harud: The Autumn Literature Festival’, scheduled for September 24-26 in Srinagar, cited the possibility of violence as the main reason behind this decision. The festival secretariat said they were concerned about the possibility of protests and the "heightened" nature of the debate. The debate in question was the incisive criticism that the organisers faced from writers, journalists, filmmakers and artists, among...

For the first time, a seminal scripture of Ayurveda – the most ancient and important system of medicine in India – is being textually analysed and historically explored piece by piece through the existing manuscripts. The project aims to reconstruct a more authentic version of this treatise and its content. Methods from evolutionary biology are also being used in order to assess the originality of the different versions of the text, which was written in Sanskrit. Preserving health and curing...

There are many casualties of an entertainment-driven media industry. One of those is heritage. News about cultural heritage are usually relegated to news briefs and used as fillers in newspapers. The less said the better about television. So when UNESCO announced earlier this week that three Indian elements were among the 46 inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, it failed to make news. Among major news establishments, it was The Hindu alone which...

"That's All Right Mama" by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup is the world's oldest rock-and-roll song. Southeastern Louisiana University rock historian Joseph Burns claims it was the first to contain all of the elements that are associated with rock and roll. Burns, who hosts the weekly radio program "Rock School" on Southeastern’s KSLU 90.9 FM radio station, cites the following elements to be identified as a rock and roll number: * It is music that draws heavily from blues and country in a hit form that...

American rock legend Jim Morrison may receive a posthumous pardon for charges framed against the singer in 1969 after he exposed himself during a drunken bout on-stage. Morrison, the lead singer of The Doors, was accused of indecent exposure and lewd acts while drunk during a 1969 concert in Coconut Grove, south of Miami. He was absolved of drunkenness charges during the trial, apart from a felony charge for lewd and lascivious behaviour, but was convicted of exposure and profanity. Morrison, a...

A painting said to be of Sir Sean Connery posing for an art class wearing only a thong is slated to go on public display soon. Robert Webster, known as Rab, painted the actor in 1951 while a student at the Edinburgh College of Art. The previously unseen oil painting shows bare back of Sir Sean, now 80, with his head turned to one side and wearing a thong. Webster died last month aged 83, according to BBC News. The painting was made long before Dr No (1962) was to make Connery a film legend. Nick...

A Montana woman drove 1,500 km from Montana to a museum in Loveland, Colorado so she could destroy a controversial piece of art featuring Jesus. Kathleen Folden has been arrested for damaging a print that portrays Christ engaged in a sex act. The woman entered the Loveland Museum Gallery on Wednesday, used a crowbar to break glass over the art and ripped the print, the Associated Press reported quoting the Loveland Reporter-Herald. Folden was reported to have been screaming, "How can you...

Since the Nobel Prizes were instituted, 106 individuals have won the Nobel Prize in Literature on 102 occasions. It was shared four times. The youngest Literature Laureate is Rudyard Kipling, best known for The Jungle Book, who was 42 years old when he was awarded the Literature Prize in 1907. The Laureate till date is Doris Lessing, who was 88 when she was awarded the Prize in 2007. Twelve women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, with Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf being the first...

Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa has won the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat." The Swedish Academy, which is responsible for choosing the Nobel Laureates in Literature, made the announcement in Stockholm on Thursday. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation. Vargas Llosa, who...

The British Library in London has posted more than a quarter of its Greek manuscripts, equating to more than 280 volumes, online, the latest step toward digitising important ancient documents. The manuscripts, available for free on its website at www.bl.uk/manuscripts, are part of one of the most important collections outside Greece for the study of more than 2,000 years of Hellenic culture. The website provides researchers with access to high quality digital images of a major part of the...