Tryst with Destiny | Jawaharlal Nehru

Recommendable!

Cholas: How a dynasty around 1000 CE in southern India created a cultural and economic superpower

Very recommendable!

"It's 1000 CE - the heart of the Middle Ages.

Europe is in flux. The powerful nations we know today - like Norman-ruled England and the fragmented territories that will go on to become France - do not yet exist. Towering Gothic cathedrals have yet to rise. Aside from the distant and prosperous city of Constantinople, few great urban centres dominate the landscape.

Yet that year, on the other side of the globe, an emperor from southern India was preparing to build the world's most colossal temple.

Completed just 10 years later, it was 216ft (66m) tall, assembled from 130,000 tonnes of granite: second only to Egypt's pyramids in height. At its heart was a 12ft tall emblem of the Hindu god Shiva, sheathed in gold encrusted with rubies and pearls.

In its lamplit hall were 60 bronze sculptures, adorned with thousands of pearls gathered from the conquered island of Lanka. In its treasuries were several tonnes of gold and silver coins, as well as necklaces, jewels, trumpets and drums torn from defeated kings across India's southern peninsula, making the emperor the richest man of the era.

He was called Raja-Raja, King of Kings, and he belonged to one of the most astonishing dynasties of the medieval world: the Cholas.

His family transformed how the medieval world worked - yet they are largely unknown outside India. ..."

Cholas: How a dynasty in India created a cultural and economic superpower

The Brihadishvara temple, built in the 11th Century by King Rajaraja Chola, is a Unesco World Heritage site

How India Proved Western Naysayers Wrong After Independence with Palki Sharma

Very recommendable! Western arrogance towards India and its people has to cease in the light of its great accomplishments since independence!

The Rise of the Gupta Empire

Recommendable!

How did India and Iran Become Partners? with Palki Sharma

Very recommendable! Relations dating back at least 4000 years! India, a rising major superpower!

The Story of India’s Old Parliament Building with Palki Sharma

Very recommendable!

How India’s Spice Route Inspired G20 Corridor with Palki Sharma

Recommendable! Variety is the spice of life! Spice up your life! 

The Unanswered Questions from India's Independence with Palki Sharma

Very recommendable!

How Civil Servants Built Modern India with Palki Sharma

Very recommendable! How much does India, the largest democracy of the world, owe it's former colonial power? A lot!

Had it been some other European colonial power India's modern history would be very different and quite likely worse.

How Did the Ancient Indian City of Muziris Disappear? with Palki Sharma

Very recommendable! It was apparently a southern Indian city. It became a very prosperous city trading black pepper with the Romans! Only about 1% of the ancient city has been excavated so far.

Will India Follow in China’s Footsteps? (of oppressiveness)?

Is this becoming a new Western narrative about India! It's largely phony! This article is actually a contradiction as the last paragraph testifies!

To compare a totalitarian communist dictatorship like China with the largest democracy of the world in this fashion is pretty foolish and simplistic!

The author is apparently not very fond of Narendra Modi!

"... India was insular and hostile to foreign investment until the 1990s, focusing on traditional agriculture and crafts, in line with the moral teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and his idealization of frugality. ...
capitalism was frowned upon, and it was almost impossible to create even the smallest business without countless bureaucratic authorizations. ...
It took the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 for India to change its model. However, China got there first, flooding the global market with cheap manufactured goods. India arrived on the scene late, behind China and Vietnam, with less experience and a less-educated workforce [???].  ...
After turning its back on socialism, the Indian government under the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party, or “Indian People’s Party”), in power since 2014 and led by Narendra Modi, has taken a page out of China’s book. At great expense, it has built ports, highways, and airports to unite the Indian market. It is also staunchly capitalist and open to both domestic and international investment ...
Unfortunately, Modi also seems drawn to the worst aspects of the Chinese model, including the one-party system, a state that operates above the law, and the cult of personality. India is the world’s largest democracy, but having previously enjoyed unprecedented press freedom and judicial independence, the country now finds itself at the mercy of the BJP’s despotic whims. The party is seeking to impose a nationalist ideology based on a cheap form of Hinduism and traditions completely divorced from the linguistic, religious, and cultural diversity of eternal India. ...
Muzzling the people, as the Chinese Communist Party does, might be achievable due to centuries of subjugation. But silencing Indians? No one has ever succeeded in doing that—not even the British. India will certainly become an economic and military power, finally taking its place on the world stage. Modi and his radical Hinduism will have contributed to this evolution, but only Mahatma Gandhi and Amartya Sen will remain the saints of India."

Will India Follow in China’s Footsteps? | City Journal Under Narendra Modi, economic growth and political illiberalism have advanced together.

KHALISTAN | Growing Sikh Separatism?

Recommendable!

The rise and fall of the Mughal Empire

Recommendable!

India, the land of several major religions

It has tremendously fascinated me for many years how many major religions were established in India and they have coexisted side by side for a long time to the present.

Caveat: I am no expert on Indian religions and make no claims but to be a lay person and an occasional student.

Add to this, the delicious blend of spices and the variety of food!

Just a few, selective brief notes on these religions (My apologies for much is omitted or neglected):

Buddhism

Among other things teaches the value of all life on earth, because of the cycle of rebirth and the respect for all sentient beings. When you kill an insect, perhaps it was your grandparent (my liberal personal interpretation). 

Its tenets ask to search for a path to end suffering. Human desire and cravings are much to blame for suffering. Is a modest life a better life? Nirvana?

Moreover Buddhism will always be associated with the great emperor Ashoka (ca. 300 CE)!

Edicts of Ashoka

Hinduism

I guess, no one since the 20th century is more associated with Hinduism than Mahatma Gandhi! He grew up as a Hindu, trained as a lawyer in London, worked in South Africa as a lawyer, used non violence to shake off British colonial power in South Africa and India, established religious pluralism, and who ended untouchability. Then he was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist at an interfaith prayer meeting! What a tragedy and what a lesson for future generations! Fanaticism in whatever shape or form is evil! His non violence movement has inspired many followers and a few leaders!

A non violent skinny man in skimpy beggar's clothes with a British lawyer's degree and a spinning wheel defeated the British Empire (weakened by World War II). An eternal lesson!

Sikhism

I certainly have fond memories of the great movie The English Patient! That little dagger (called a Kirpan) or how he grew his hair under the turban (called Kesh)? 😊 

"God is presented as masculine and God's power as feminine ... and without form. [Something to think about in our so gender confused times]" (Wikipedia)

Jainism

It is famous for ahimsa (non violence), non absolutism, and asceticism.

I guess this religion stands out because of its symbol. 

Sanskrit: Ancient grammatical puzzle solved after 2,500 years

I recently blogged here about it, but now discovered this video by the author! This is amazing stuff as it may refer to some of the earliest known algorithms known in human history

Sanskrit: Solving one of grammar’s greatest puzzle after 2,500 years

Amazing stuff! I am not sure, I fully understand the importance of this discovery, but it seems of great significance!

Did Occam's razor (about 800 years old) help here too: "Professor Vincenzo Vergiani, Professor of Sanskrit, gave him some prescient advice: “If the solution is complicated, you are probably wrong.”"

This is about "Pāṇini ... was a Sanskrit philologist, grammarian, and revered scholar in ancient India, variously dated between the 6th and 4th century BCE.

Since the discovery and publication of his work by European scholars in the nineteenth century, Pāṇini has been considered the "first descriptive linguist", and even labelled as “the father of linguistics”. ..." (Wikipedia)

Note that Panini lived around the same time or even earlier than the great philosophers of Ancient Greece and Ancient China.

"... While researching for his PhD thesis, published on 15th December 2022, Dr Rajpopat decoded a 2,500 year old algorithm which makes it possible, for the first time, to accurately use Pāṇini’s ‘language machine’.

Pāṇini’s system – 4,000 rules detailed in his renowned work, the Aṣṭādhyāyī, which is thought to have been written around 500BC – is meant to work like a machine. Feed in the base and suffix of a word and it should turn them into grammatically correct words and sentences through a step-by-step process.

Until now, however, there has been a big problem. Often, two or more of Pāṇini’s rules are simultaneously applicable at the same step leaving scholars to agonise over which one to choose. ..."

Solving grammar’s greatest puzzle How a determined student made Sanskrit’s ‘language machine’ work for the first time in 2,500 years

Arthashastra - The Indian Il Principe published at least 1,200 years earlier

How much does the West know about India? I am afraid way too little!

Arthashastra - Wikipedia

Michael Wood: The Story of India

I just started to watch this great documentary series from 2007 again on YouTube! I will add more episodes as time passes by.

Very recommendable! Michael Wood is such a gifted story teller and his encounters with all kinds of people is fascinating! He captures the splendor and variety of India quite well.

BBC The Story of India - Episode 1 - Beginnings

BBC The Story of India - Episode 2 - The Power of Ideas

BBC The Story of India - Episode 3 - Spice Routes and Silk Roads

BBC The Story of India - Episode 4 - Ages of Gold

BBC The Story of India - Episode 5 - The Meeting of Two Oceans

BBC The Story of India - Episode 6 - Freedom

Meet Droupadi Murmu a tribal leader: India's new President

Fascinating! I did not know there were several hundred tribes in India. This could be an important recognition of these tribes and more. It might be mostly a ceremonial role, but you never know what the new incoming president will do with her office.

"The president is the nominal head of the executive,[a] as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces." (Source)

75 years since Independence, time for India to reclaim its rich heritage

Very recommendable! Some food for thought! 

I am afraid Thomas Babington Macaulay was unfairly singled out here and portrayed in a very narrow fashion.