The kantha is the story of the ingenuity and creativity of the women of rural West Bengal. Lovingly created from the remnants of worn garments, the village women of Bengal transformed tattered cloth into beautiful warm quilts by recycling and layering old saris and dhotis.

Imagine a day when British schoolchildren are humming Saare Jahan Se Achcha, or Indian kids are tapping their feet to a typical British song like The Three Pirates, or children from Senegal are dancing to the tune of both.

The news is yet to sink in for good but the show must go on. Only three days have flown past after winning a much-harboured National Film Award recognition and the director is all set to step behind his camera and call the shots for his next movie, Apur Panchali. Critically-acclaimed Bengali filmmaker Kaushik Ganguly is certainly in a celebratory mood with his offbeat venture Shabdo resonating the right kind of noises by picking up a well-deserved Rajat Kamal (silver lotus) in the Best Bengali Film category.

Paula Aziz was born nearly a decade after 1971 — the year Bangladesh became an independent nation after what must be one of the most violent wars of the 20th century. But as this thirty something online activist and writer speaks about Bangladeshi youth today, and her generation’s fight to rekindle the “spirit of 1971” the memories come tumbling back.

It has been a long journey for India’s beauty industry’s best-known impresario Shahnaz Husain. For over 40 decades, the cosmetics czarina has been at the forefront of Ayurvedic “care and cure” that has inevitably made her a household name.

One of the tragedies of Indian democracy is that the public at large as well as our elected representatives are not aware that our bureaucracy follows the structure, the systems and procedures established by the East India Company nearly two centuries ago.

The next big milestone we have identified for the Indian film industry is to produce a Rs 1,000-crore blockbuster. Celebrating its 100th year, Indian cinema has shown proof of its enduring following and in recent times has set new benchmarks at the box office. It is time for the next audacious leap.

On the celebratory occasion of International Women’s Day, let us offer a salute to those women who chose to be different either by raiding the male-bastion or standing out from the herd by contributing to the society, doing their small bit.

The remote northeast is home to an ancient tribe whose high regard for women makes it a striking anomaly in a male-dominated country.

Husband and wife have been the pet characters and role models for any domestic drama in commercial communication. For ages it has followed a stereotype — where the husband is perpetually in trouble and wives conspired with brands to find solution and finally success for this over grown male child.