March 19, 2024

National

Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Services Selection Commission (UPSSSC) has released the provisional answer key of the Anudeshak Main Exam 2022. Eligible candidates can download their answer keys from the official website upsssc.gov.in. The applicants will be able to send suggestions, if any, till March 21, 2024.

The Main exam was conducted on February 25. The recruitment drive is being conducted to fill up a total of 2504 vacancies.

Here’s the official notification.

Steps to download the answer key

  1. Visit the official website upsssc.gov.in

  2. On the homepage, click on the Instructor Mains 2022 answer key link

  3. The answer key will appear on the screen

  4. Check and download the answer key

  5. Take a printout for future reference

  6. Send suggestion, if any

Direct link to UPSSSC Instructor answer key.

Direct link to UPSSSC Instructor objection window.

For more details, candidates are advise to visit the official website here.

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Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said that 7 lakh Muslims and 5 lakh Bengali Hindus have been left out of the National Register of Citizens for the state, News Live reported.

Sarma, during an interview with the television channel, added that 2 lakh Assamese caste Hindus and 1.5 lakh Gorkhas had also been excluded from the list.

Assam published a National Register of Citizens on August 31, 2019, with the aim to separate Indian citizens from undocumented immigrants living in the state. Residents had to prove that they or their ancestors had entered Assam before midnight on March 24, 1971 in order for them to be included in the list.

Over 19 lakh persons, or 5.77% of the applicants, were left out of the final list.

Sarma had told The Indian Express at the time that nearly five lakh to six lakh of those excluded had migrated from Bangladesh due to religious persecution before 1971.

On Sunday, the chief minister said that 3 to 6 lakh of those excluded from the register could apply for citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act, the rules for which were notified on March 11.

The Citizenship Amendment Act aims to fast-track Indian citizenship for refugees from six minority religious communities, except Muslims, from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and…

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Border Security Force (BSF) has commenced the online application process for recruitment to the various Group B, and C posts. Eligible candidates can apply for the posts on the official website bsf.gov.in till April 15.

The recruitment drive aims to fill up a total of 82 vacancies. Candidates can check the vacancy details, educational qualification, pay scale, age limit and other details available in the notifications below:

Advertisement Number combatised_b/2024.

Advertisement Number combatised_c/2024.

Advertisement Number air_wing/2024.

Application Fee

The candidates applying for Group B posts in BSF Engineering setup will have to pay the examination fee of Rs 200+Rs.47.20 service charges, whereas examination fee of Rs 100+Rs.47.20 service charges are applicable to the Group C posts in BSF Engineering setup and Group C posts in BSF Air Wing.

Steps to apply for BSF Group B, C posts 2024

  1. Visit the official website rectt.bsf.gov.in

  2. Click on “Apply Here” against Group-C and Group B posts

  3. Fill up the details, upload the required documents, and pay the fee

  4. Submit the form

  5. Download and take a printout for future reference

For more details, candidates are advised to visit the official website here.

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I have personally benefited a great deal from a capitalist system all my life. I was born into a poor lower-caste family in India. My father had studied up to the fourth grade and earned a living by running a small business selling lumber to feed his family and educate all his eight children. I came to America on a boat with $40 in my pocket in 1964 to get a PhD in physics. Later, I turned to electrical engineering because of its financial potential and started on a long journey building several tech businesses in the US. I love the capitalist system, with its freedom, flexibility, opportunities and innovations that meet the market’s changing needs and lead to design and development of new products to serve people at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

The relationship between capitalism and democracy, however, can be highly complex and nuanced. On the positive side, capitalism supports democracy by creating a financially secure middle class that can engage in political participation. It can also encourage innovation, leading to a higher standard of living for citizens and lifting people at the bottom of the economic pyramid out of poverty. However, since wealth and resources tend to…

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The West Bengal Joint Entrance Examinations Board (WBJEEB) will close the online application window for the Common Entrance Test for Lateral Entry In Bachelor’s Degree Courses in Engineering/ Tech./ Pharmacy (JELET 2024) today, March 18. Eligible candidates can apply for the exam on the official website wbjeeb.nic.in.

The exam will be conducted on June 29 (11.00 AM to 1.00 PM) and the admit card will be made available to download on June 21, 2024.

The exam will be conducted for admission in the academic session 2024-25 into 2nd year (3rd semester) of 4-year Undergraduate Courses in Engineering/ Technology and Pharmacy of different Universities, Government Colleges as well as Self Financing Engineering & Technological Institutes in the State of West Bengal. More details in the notification below:

Here’s the official notification.

Application Fee

The application fee for JELET-2024 is Rs 500 for General Male candidates, Rs 400 for General Female candidates, Rs 400 for SC/ST/OBC-A/OBC-B/EWS Male candidates, Rs 300 for SC/ST/OBC-A/OBC-B/EWS Female candidates and Rs 300 for Third Gender candidates.

Steps to apply for WB JELET 2024

  1. Visit the official website wbjeeb.nic.in

  2. On the homepage, click on WBJEE JELET 2024 application link

  3. Register and proceed with the application process

  4. Fill up the form, pay the fee and submit the form

  5. Take a printout for future reference

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Three years ago, Bhutan announced a mandatory programme to train all youth who had turned 18 in sectors such as agriculture, entrepreneurship, construction and technology. But it was only this year, as unemployed youth started to leave the country in large numbers, that the Gyalsung (“service to the nation”) initiative was fully launched.

Since 2022, the tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan has witnessed a surge of citizens leaving for other countries. That year, the country’s only international airport at Paro recorded 16,973 outward migrants – a cause of worry for a country with a population of 7.7 lakh.

Nearly 30% of those leaving the country were below 35 years, reported the government-owned daily Kuensel.

The exodus of Bhutan’s younger people and skilled workers is a concern for India as well. People-to-people relations have been a central aspect of the Indo-Bhutanese relationship. Over the decades, thousands of Bhutanese have come to India to be educated and receive technical training.

The goodwill this has generated has fostered support and sympathy in Bhutan for better relations with Delhi and deterred the influence of China in the Himalayan region. This explains Bhutan’s support for trilateral negotiations on Dokalam. Though this region in Bhutan is claimed by China, Thimphu agrees that New Delhi should have…

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Just days before the release of his new movie Aadujeevitham, actor-filmmaker Prithviraj Sukumaran is in Mumbai, attending a press conference and talking up a project he says is one of the demanding in his career yet.

Blessy’s Malayalam-language movie will be released on March 28 as The Goat Life in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. Aadujeevitham has been adapted from renowned Malayalam writer Benyamin’s Goat Days, itself inspired by real-life migrant worker Najeeb Ahmed’s hellish experiences while herding livestock in the Saudi Arabian desert.

Apart from starring Sukumaran as Najeeb, The Goat Life has Amala Paul and Haitian actor Jimmy Jean-Louis in the cast. Shot by Sunil KS and scored by AR Rahman, the survival drama promises a visually striking and psychologically rich exploration of one man’s attempt to liberate himself from modern-day slavery.

The film’s director is a reputed hit-maker. Sukumaran himself has a storied career, spanning productions in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. The 41-year-old movie star will be familiar to Hindi viewers from Aiyyaa (2012), Aurangzeb (2013) and most recently Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire ((2023).

Despite their collective heft, and even after the reputation of Benyamin’s novel, Blessy and Sukumaran struggled for years to get The Goat Life off the ground. Sukumaran spoke to Scroll during his Mumbai visit about the obstacles involved in the film’s production, the personal investments he made…

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Thirty-five pharmaceutical companies in India have contributed nearly Rs 1,000 crore to political parties through electoral bonds, data released by the Election Commission on March 14 has revealed.

Of these, at least seven companies were being investigated for poor quality drugs when they purchased the bonds.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers are regulated by the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, which empowers state-controlled Food and Drug Administrations to inspect manufacturing units as well as test the quality of medicines being sold in the market.

Any state Food and Drug Administration can send notices to a company if its drugs fail the quality test. But punitive action – such as the suspension of manufacturing or cancellation of a manufacturing licence – can only be taken by the state where the company’s factory is located or by the Centre.

“We often see a lax approach by drug regulators, both at state and central level,” said Amar Jesani, editor of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. He said it would not be surprising “if pharma companies finance political parties to strike some compromise in regulatory cases at the state level”.

Other experts noted that drug regulation is just one area where the pharmaceutical industry seeks concessions from governments. Firms could also be looking for cheap land, tax exemptions,…

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When Indian office manager Maya heard of an opportunity to work as a carer in Britain she jumped at the chance to gain overseas experience and send money home, but she is now heavily in debt and says she and colleagues were “treated like slaves”.

The mother-of-two is among tens of thousands of overseas carers who have arrived in Britain under an initiative launched in 2022 to plug massive staff shortages in the country’s creaking social care system.

But reports of exploitation have sky-rocketed since the scheme’s introduction, with one migration expert describing the care sector as “a complete wild west”.

Maya and other care workers told Context they ended up working long days for little money after paying thousands of pounds to an agent in India to secure jobs with a care company in the north of England.

They said a climate of fear left staff terrified of speaking up in case they were sacked, which would put them at risk of deportation because their visa was tied to their employment.

“We’ve thought about going back to India but how would we survive with so much debt? We’re trapped,” said Maya, who asked to use a pseudonym for fear of repercussions.

“I pledged my home to the bank to get the loan to come…

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Renowned Carnatic vocalist Thodur Madabusi Krishna will be conferred the 2024 Sangita Kalanidhi award by the Madras Music Academy, The Hindu reported on Sunday.

The Sangita Kalanidhi award is considered one of the highest honours in Carnatic music.

The academy’s executive committee has decided to confer Krishna with the award for his excellence in music.

“He has been a top-ranking and extremely talented musician for a long time and truly deserves the award for his music,” the newspaper quoted N Murali, the president of the academy, as saying. “The Music Academy has thought it fit to confer on him the award on the basis of sheer excellence in music.”

Krishna has used music as a tool for social reform, PTI quoted Murali as saying.

Krishna, 48, told The Hindu that “it is very overwhelming to be chosen for the award”. “It is also humbling because the recipients of the awardees include my teacher Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, T Brinda, MS Subbulakshmi who you admire and look up to for inspiration,” Krishna said on Sunday.

The musician will preside over the academic sessions of the 98th Annual Conference and Concerts of The Music Academy, the Deccan Herald reporting quoting Murali. The session will be held from December 15, 2024 to January 1, 2025, when he will receive the award.

Neena Prasad will be awarded the Nritya Kalanidhi, the…

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The Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s MP representing Telangana’s Chevella constituency, Ranjith Reddy, switched sides to join the Congress on Sunday.

In his resignation letter to Bharat Rashtra Samithi chief K Chandrashekar Rao, Ranjith Reddy said that he had decided to “pursue an alternative path” because of the “current political circumstances in the state”.

Ranjith Reddy joined the Congress in the presence of Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy.

This came a day after another Bharat Rashtra Samithi MP, Pasunuri Dayakar, who represents the Warangal Lok Sabha constituency, switched to the Congress.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi had won nine of Telangana’s 17 parliamentary seats. While the Congress had won three seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party had won in four constituencies. The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen had won one seat.

However, in December, the Congress defeated the Bharat Rashtra Samithi in the Assembly elections.

Voting for the Lok Sabha polls in all 17 seats of Telangana will happen on May 13. The counting of votes will take place on June 4.

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Artificial intelligence has immense potential to enhance human capabilities and drive growth in several industries. It is projected to greatly improve governance, healthcare, and education outcomes.

However, this potential may not be realised if the building blocks of AI remain concentrated in the hands of a few dominant companies or the countries in which they are located.

The priorities for AI adoption in India can be quite different. Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah propose that the toughest challenges for a state – such as the tax system – involve processes that feature a high number of transactions, the need for discretion, high stakes for individuals, and some degree of secrecy.

AI adoption could reduce the complexity of such challenges on some of these dimensions, such as the transaction volume and discretion. This makes it easier to overcome state capacity limitations and deliver better governance and public services.

On the other hand, widespread AI adoption could also negatively affect the availability of low-skilled jobs upon which a large part of India’s labour force depends. Thus, the opportunities and challenges for India might be significantly different from those of developed countries.

Technology and geopolitics are becoming increasingly intertwined. Many countries have identified critical and emerging technologies that are essential for national security and economic…

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The counting of votes in the Assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim will happen on June 2 instead of June 4, the Election Commission announced on Sunday.

The date of polling in the two states, April 19, will remain unchanged.

The poll panel said on Sunday that the date of counting of votes in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim needed to be done earlier because the term of their legislative Assemblies will expire on June 2. The election process needs to be completed before the term of the Assembly expires.

However, there will be no change in the date of counting of votes for the Lok Sabha polls in the two states.

On Saturday, the Election Commission announced that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1. The results will be announced on June 4.

Besides Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha will be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections. While voting for Assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh will take place on May 13, the election in Odisha will be held in two phases on May 13 and May 20.

The results of the Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha will also be announced on June 4 along with…

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Visual stories carry the weight of history and are our safety net against the fallibility of memory. Raghu Rai’s camera has been at the frontline of the most exceptional and the most quotidian of moments. Street life dominates the black and white images of his stunning ongoing show A Thousand Lives at the Kiran Nadar Museum in Delhi and offers a visual journey through his analog work from 1965-2005.

In their introductory essay, the curators of the show Roobina Karode and Devika Daulet-Singh write, “This exhibition focuses on the pre-digital phase of Rai’s career, when he used analog/ film photography, exploring it with unprecedented fervour, freedom and imagination. From his inexhaustible archives of photographs that defy being contained easily within any of his exhibitions, a fresh slice has been pulled out which brings many extraordinary photographs into the public domain for the first time.”

A section of the exhibition has a selection of Rai’s photo-essay on Jayaprakash Narayan and the volatile 1974 Bihar student movement. It documents some of the most defining moments of its tumultuous history. Rai’s reportage involved keeping his camera trained on Narayan and his followers and getting as close to the action as possible.

He visited Patna, a riverside city spread across twelve…

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India’s Ram Baboo achieved the men’s 20km race walk qualification mark for the 2024 Paris Olympics on Saturday after clocking a personal best time of 1:20.00 at the Dudinska 50 Meet in Slovakia.

Baboo, a Hangzhou Asian Games Mixed team 35km race walk bronze medallist, finished third at the event to dip below the Paris Olympics mark of 1:20.10.

Baboo is the seventh Indian men’s race walker to qualify for the Paris Olympics after Vikash Singh, Paramjeet Singh Bisht, Akshdeep Singh, Suraj Panwar, Servin Sebastian and Arshpreet Singh.

However, every country is only allowed to send three athletes for the event. The Athletics Federation of India will now have to decide who makes the cut for Paris from the seven race walkers.

Priyanka Goswami is the only women’s race walker to have qualified for the Olympics after clocking below the qualifying standard of 1:29.20 in February last year. Munita Prajapati and Bhawan Jat are also in the running to qualify for the Olympics via World Rankings quota.

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The Chhattisgarh Police has filed a first information report naming former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel as an accused in the Mahadev betting app scam, reported Hindustan Times on Sunday.

Along with Baghel, “unnamed” bureaucrats, police officers and officers on special duty during his tenure as the chief minister are also included in the FIR.

Additionally, Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal, the two main promoters of the Mahadev app, and 16 other named accused have been listed.

Mahadev Online Book, a betting app, reportedly enabled illegal betting in live games such as poker, cricket, tennis and football as well as on elections in India. In November, the Central government issued blocking orders against the app.

Baghel has been booked under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to cheating, criminal conspiracy, breach of trust and forgery. He was also charged with Sections 7 and 11 of the Prevention of Corruption Act by the Economic Offences Wing in Raipur on March 4.

Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act states that obtaining, accepting or attempting to obtain an undue advantage by a public servant constitutes an offence. Section 11 deals with the punishment for such offences.

According to the FIR, the Mahadev app and its associate companies illegally collected Rs 450 crore worth of proceeds of crime every month, reported Hindustan Times.

In January,…

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Indian badminton star Lakshya Sen’s campaign at the All England Open came to an end of Saturday after he lost to Jonatan Christie in the men’s singles semi-finals.

Sen, who finished as runner up in the 2022 edition, lost to Christie 12-21, 21-10, 15-21 in an hour and eight minutes.

It was a close start to the match with both sides exchanging the lead in the opening game. Christie began to stitch together consecutive points to take a 9-7 and then a 15-8 lead. Sen could not muster a comeback as Christie took the first game 21-12.

The second game was a one-sided affair as Sen raced away with the lead. Leading 4-3, he won 13 of the next 14 points to take a 17-4 lead. His Indonesian opponent could not find a way back as Sen won the second game 21-10 to force a decider.

Both players exchanged points at the start of the third game. However, Christie took the lead at the mid-game break at 11-8. The 2018 Asian Games gold medallist held on to his lead and at 15-12 won five points…

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Political parties in Jammu and Kashmir have expressed disappointment at the Election Commission not announcing the dates for Assembly elections in the Union territory.

On Saturday, the poll panel announced the dates of the Lok Sabha elections and said that voting will be held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1. It also said that Assembly polls for Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim will be held simultaneously with the general elections.

The results of the Assembly polls will also be announced on June 4 along with those of the Lok Sabha elections.

While announcing the schedule, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar cited security reasons for not holding the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir simultaneously with the parliamentary polls.

Following this, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah said there was “something fishy” in the decision, reported PTI.

“If there are conducive conditions for the parliamentary election, how is it not alright for the state election?” the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister told the news agency.

His son and party leader Omar Abdullah took to social media to say that the Election Commission was “unable to” conduct Assembly polls in the Union territory despite acknowledging that they are due.

Is speaking favourably about Pakistan a criminal offence in India?

Four men arrested in Karnataka last week for allegedly shouting “Pakistan zindabad”, long live Pakistan, were the latest in a rapidly lengthening list of persons prosecuted across the country in the last few years for allegedly chanting pro-Pakistan slogans.

However, on March 7, the Supreme Court, in a judgment, outlined that extending good wishes to Pakistan, or to any other country, for that matter, is not a criminal offence.

The court stated in the judgment in no uncertain terms that the country’s police machinery is disregarding the fundamental right of citizens to freedom of speech.

Scroll explains what the judgment said and why there is no legal basis for criminalising pro-Pakistan statements.

Supreme Court judgment

The Supreme Court’s judgment, delivered by a two-judge bench comprising Justices AS Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, stems from a first information report filed in 2022 by the Maharashtra police against Javed Ahmad Hajam, a Kashmiri professor who was at that time teaching at the Sanjay Ghodawat College in Kolhapur.

He had been booked under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code that prohibits acts that promote disharmony or enmity between different groups based on religion, race, language, caste or community. In other words, it makes it illegal to engage in activities, make statements or…

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Good evening, friends. I must begin by thanking the committee of the Dr Aroon Tikekar Centre for Advanced Studies at the Asiatic Society of Mumbai for inviting me to be the keynote speaker at this evening’s event. Dr Tikekar was a friend from my Times of India days. He would come up to my cabin once in a while to have a chat, often an angry one. His sudden and unexpected death ended an association that had lasted some 20 years, in the course of which, as editor of Loksatta, Dr Tikekar had persuaded me to write two fortnightly columns for the paper, the first one on culture and the second on good manners.

Turning to the topic of my speech today, I must confess I was at a loss to know how to make it relevant to this year’s research projects, one of which is on Marathi literature and the other on Marathi theatre. Four memories came to my aid in quick succession to give me the title and substance of my talk. Memory number one was a visitor from Chennai, staying with friends in Walkeshwar, assuming that my mother tongue was Gujarati. He seemed surprised to hear it wasn’t. “But isn’t that the…

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There will be an old finalist competing, but a new champion will be crowned when the Delhi Capitals and Royal Challengers Bangalore meet at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Sunday, for the 2024 Women’s Premier League final.

The Capitals, runners-up last season, have a chance to make amends for the defeat to the Mumbai Indians last season.

The Bangalore team meanwhile, have been clutch in the important moments in their last two games and will hope to do it once again on Sunday.

Delhi Capitals

For the second season in a row, the Meg Lanning-led Delhi Capitals booked their slot in the Women’s Premier League final directly as the table toppers.

The Capitals started on a wrong foot, losing the season opener to Mumbai Indians in a repeat of the last year’s final, but have grown from strength to strength since. They won four matches in a row after the opening game before falling to a narrow one-run loss to UP Warriorz, courtesy a Deepti Sharma special.

They then bounced back well ever since, stopping a Richa Ghosh onslaught against Royal Challengers Bangalore, and rounding off their campaign with a clinical seven wicket-win over Gujarat Giants.

There have been hardly any problems for the Capitals in the competition. Almost all batters have chipped in with runs as and when…

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In The Manchurian Candidate, little is as it appears to be. A medal of honour turns out to have been granted for a fake act of bravery. A politician who claims to be the last man standing between American values and Communism is a shill for his country’s enemies. A game of cards isn’t just a game of cards.

John Frankenheimer’s neve-wracking thriller is suffused with the feeling that comes from being in a topsy-turvy world. The Manchurian Candidate is filmed too in a style that accentuates its strangeness. The 1962 black-and-white classic is available on Prime Video.

The lensing, framing and lighting by Lionel Lindon have an unnatural, heightened quality. Dramatic close-ups, unusual compositions and the choice of lenses distort the actual scale of characters or their backdrops.

At times, the faces of characters crowd the screen. Events seen through the eyes of disturbed characters have a hallucinatory quality. The entire effect is one of throwing the viewew off guard – perfect for a film about deception, mind control and insidious propaganda.

Robert Shaw (Laurence Harvey) has returned in 1952 from the Korea War a mental wreck….

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There is a fascinating short story in MT Vasudevan Nair’s latest book of autobiographical pieces and short storiesBear With Me, Ammawhere the narrator, a little boy, crawls out of his room in the night and raptly watches as his three grandmothers sing and dance in the courtyard. When he is ordered to go back to his room, he complies, only to quickly sneak out again. As the grandmothers clap their hands and swerve their feet in a swift rhythm, he looks on. In an instant, three other grandmothers appear out of a clump of trees, join the ongoing dance, and begin to sing a different song than the one being sung. Some commotion ensues. When the boy takes another look at the courtyard, extra carefully this time, he no longer sees the three grandmothers that had abruptly materialised. He discovers, later, that he was taken inside and put to bed as he sat burning with fever – it was all a dream, a vision. The three bonus grandmothers were performers never in the courtyard but only inside his head.

Like the narrator in the story who takes his three grandmothers and makes up three more, MT effects something similar with this book: to take…

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