Adam Liaw's chicken korma
Korma comes from the Urdu word for 'braised', and most modern varieties include a rich gravy of browned onions, yoghurt and nuts.
Method
Step 1
Combine the chicken and the marinade ingredients and set aside for at least an hour, but preferably refrigerated overnight.
Step 2
Heat a large saucepan over medium heat and add 1 tablespoon of oil and the onions. Fry the onions for about 6 minutes until browned, then transfer to a blender with the cashews, yoghurt and about ½ a cup of water. Blend to a smooth purée.
Step 3
Return the saucepan to the heat and add the remaining oil. Add the cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, bay leaf and chilli (if using) and fry for a minute until fragrant.
Step 4
Add the chicken and fry for about 5 minutes until the chicken starts to brown. Pour the onion purEe over the chicken, stir to combine and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 10 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and a little oil rises to the top of the pot. Stir through the garam masala and ground coriander, scatter with the coriander leaves, then serve with steamed rice.
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The Hindu
2 hours ago
- The Hindu
Javed Akhtar receives Dostoevsky Star Award for cultural contribution
Veteran screenwriter, lyricist, and poet Javed Akhtar was honoured with the Dostoevsky Star Award by the Russian House on June 6 in Mumbai. The award is presented for his role in promoting cultural dialogue and preserving literary heritage. At 80, Akhtar reflected on the personal significance of receiving an award named after one of his early literary influences. 'Dostoevsky is one of the most respected novelists and journalists. In our Khandala house, we have his portrait on the door of our study,' he shared. 'I don't think any Indian writer has received the Dostoevsky Star Award before.' As part of the felicitation, a book of Akhtar's poems translated into Russian by Ramdas Akella was also released during the event. Akhtar, who grew up reading Russian literature in Urdu and English translation, credited writers like Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, and Maxim Gorky for shaping his narrative sensibilities. He highlighted the long-standing mutual admiration between Indian and Russian literary traditions, noting how both cultures have influenced each other through translated works. Akhtar's wife, actor Shabana Azmi, took to social media to share the moment. Posting a photo of the ceremony, she wrote, 'Another big honour for Javed Akhtar as he received the Dostoevsky Star Award! This year, the Russian House is deeply honoured to award the renowned poet, lyricist and public intellectual Mr Javed Akhtar.' Known for his iconic contributions to Indian cinema, Akhtar co-wrote classics such as Zanjeer, Sholay, Mashaal, and Lakshya, and has also been recognised for his lyrical work in countless Hindi films. Over the years, he has received five National Film Awards for Best Lyrics, the Padma Shri in 1999, the Padma Bhushan in 2007, and the Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu for his poetry collection Lava. In 2020, he became the first Indian to receive the Richard Dawkins Award for his commitment to rationalism and critical thought.
Express Tribune
a day ago
- Express Tribune
Keti Bandar teeters on the verge of annihilation
'Are we not citizens of this country? Or do we perhaps belong to some other country that you seem to want to punish us in this way?' asks Pir Gulam Shah, a resident of Keti Bandar, a sinking coastal area marking the point where the Indus meets the Arabian sea. Shah's anger resonates with the grievances of a native community deeply agitated at the state of the Indus river delta – a river that has sustained their forebears for thousands of years. Keti Bandar was once a thriving port. However, over the latter half of the last century, the port's commercial use has consistently declined to the point that today, only the boats of local fishermen can be seen at the coast. During the same time, a large number of barrages, dams and canals were built along the Indus River, gradually reducing the water reaching the delta and allowing seawater to mix with the fresh water of the delta's agricultural land. As a result of the saltwater intrusion, acres of fertile land have been destroyed, significantly impacting the livelihoods of those dependent upon farming. 'We were told that all of these barrages and dams were being built for storing water, which would then be sent downstream when needed. However, this still hasn't happened,' laments Shah. Like him, many locals in Keti Bandar feel the resentment with the same intensity as one feels the heat and the wind in this part of Sindh. This gradually sinking town lying 150 kilometres away from Karachi may slowly fade into extinction unless the provincial and federal governments take action to address the lack of water reaching the delta of the Indus and the economic and social implications of the shrinking wetlands. The salty river and the farming crisis There is a phrase in Urdu 'ulti ganga bahna' which translates to 'the Ganges flowing backwards'. This idiom, which is used to emphasise a phenomenon directly contradicting common sense and logic, is an accurate phrase to sum up the absurdity of a river turning salty owing to the scarcity of fresh water reaching the delta. 'The water you see here is the salty water of the Indus,' said Nazir Shah, another resident of Keti Bandar. 'There was once a time when the sea used to be 100 kilometres farther from the present-day shores of Keti Bander,' added Pir Shah, while speaking of the area where seawater intrusion has devastated the land fertility of the agricultural area. 'This farmland was once fertile. We used to grow large quantities of bananas, papaya, melon, watermelon, bottle gourd and betel leaf. We already don't have enough water, but if the government builds more canals, all of Sindh will become barren,' worried Pir Shah. Driving by Keti Bander, one can clearly see acres of land with yields that have died before the harvest season purely due to the unavailability of an adequate amount of non-salty water fit for agriculture. Dr Altaf Ali Siyal, Professor at the Sindh Agriculture University, noted in a study titled 'The Indus Delta: The Impact of Sea Water Intrusion' that an analysis of the annual flow below the Kotri Barrage in billion cubic meters (BCM) from 1937 to 2017 revealed an 80 per cent decrease in water flow. However, it should not take an exceptional economist's intellect to figure out the impact of water shortage on Sindh's economy, where the majority of the population earns a living either through agriculture or fishing. In fact, many residents have tried making up for their lost farming income by fishing however, this too has failed to offer relief since the destruction of mangrove habitats due to reduced water has caused drastic changes to the environment hence reducing the fish population. 'The Palla fish used to be abundant here, but the decimation of mangroves has ruined their habitat, and the fish are no longer spawning as they once did,' noted Pir Shah. This can be corroborated from the website of the Sindh Forest Department which estimated that 90 per cent of commercially important tropical marine fish species, especially prawns, spent at least some part of their life in the mangroves. Therefore, the degradation of the mangroves will endanger up to 250,000 tons of fish caught off the Sindh Coast. (IUCN) Deforestation, loss of income and migration Mangrove deforestation has significantly altered the natural landscape of the wetlands, which are neither fit for agriculture nor for fish farming. As a result, the local people, robbed of their primary source of income, are forced to migrate to the cities. WWF's technical advisor and fisheries expert, Moazzam Khan, during an interview with the Express Tribune, highlighted the fact that there has been a significant reduction in the numbers of the mangrove species. 'There used to be six species of mangroves which have been reduced to just one. This will harm the overall biodiversity of the delta,' said Khan. While emphasising the economic importance of the mangroves, the Sindh Forest Department's website claimed that they provide important breeding zones for commercially important marine fish, shrimps, lobsters and crabs, which helped the national economy to earn foreign exchange worth 100 million US dollars annually in addition to providing employment to more than 100,000 people associated with the fishing industry. Khan too confirmed a reduction in the yield of the fishing industry. 'This reduction is aggravated by the Kotri barrage, which has impacted the population of the Palla fish by segmenting the fish population,' noted Khan, whose claim mimics similar concerns raised regarding the segmentation of the endangered Indus river dolphins due to the construction of canals and dams. Understandably, people frustrated with the state of the economy in the coastal areas are forced to migrate, many often choosing to go to cities like Karachi. According to the Jinnah Institute, approximately 1.2 million people have migrated to Karachi from other coastal regions of Sindh. This is primarily linked to the shrinking of the wetlands of the delta, and the corresponding economic implications. 'The land that we are standing on is a 2,000-acre land, but due to a lack of water not even one acre of this land is fertile. Many people have already emptied, locked, and vacated their homes while others will be doing the same in the coming months and years. There is a state of drought here hence people are forced to leave," said Ghulam Nabi, a resident of Keti Bandar. It is worth mentioning that the Sindh Irrigation Department had given a drought and water shortage alert in March this year, a development many in Karachi may not even be aware of. In many Western countries, drought like situations necessitate a total ban on non-essential uses of water, such as watering lawns. Responsible development: The state vs. locals In a world full of passionate views on international affairs, people are often more outraged about crises and issues that are far from home. Perhaps it is easier to passively implicate oneself in a distant victimhood narrative than to acknowledge and address the suffering of people in one's own country. For the people of Keti Bandar, the word 'economic progress' is a sour reminder of the futility of their own existence in the wider rat race for development. 'As a result of this progress, our lives have been devastated. Does it make sense to irrigate and cultivate land that is a natural desert while abandoning and ruining a land that is cultivable, forcing its people to leave? The canals that they are building are robbing us of our rights. We should be consulted before any such project is announced,' urged Pir Shah. From the government's perspective however, corporate farming is required to modernise the agrarian economy fuelled by the Indus, in line with IMF recommendations thereby opening up the economy to the market. Although this is not bad in principle, these projects should be initiated once there is a consensus amongst the relevant stakeholders, which includes people like the ones here in Keti Bandar - small landowners, farmers, and fishermen. 'Before devising a new policy, we should be briefed on whether or not the scheme will benefit us or not. The Green Initiative Program should benefit areas that are already cultivable and already have people living there,' opined Pir Shah. Many a times, when the government fails to address the basic grievances of people living on the margins, the inclination among society is to turn to charity. Similarly, when people face droughts and conditions similar to the people in Keti Bander, a common instinct is to supply them with aid however, locals from the sinking wetland make it clear that they are not interested in charity. 'We don't want electricity, or roads, or any economic development projects. Just give us our water. We were happy before and we can be happy again. We don't need anything from the government except for what's been a faithful companion for the people of Sindh for thousands of years: the Indus river,' clarified Pir Shah. At the moment, as far as the eyes can see, Keti Bandar is little more than barren land where nothing except for the occasional red chilli can be cultivated. People who had farmed for centuries were forced to fish but just as they were learning to fish, the fish habitat was also being annihilated. Economic growth is important, but an ideological commitment to improving people's lives is critical. The farming project in Punjab may very well be good for the country's economic growth, but there's no reason to believe that the average standard of living here in Sindh will improve rather than worsen. To hammer the point home, Pir Shah shared a morbid request. 'You should simply drop the atom bomb on us. We won't complain or scream since neither the humans nor any other form of life will survive.' Despite their inflammatory nature, sentiments such as these are quite common in Keti Bandar. And this alone should be a wakeup call for the country. Zain Haq is a freelance contributor All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author
Indian Express
a day ago
- Indian Express
Tavleen Singh writes: Political poster boys
An unforeseen consequence of Operation Sindoor has been that South Asia's two poster boys of dynastic democracy surfaced and made fools of themselves. I speak of Bilawal Bhutto and Rahul Gandhi. They would not be considered political leaders at all if it were not for their illustrious surnames. As someone who believes dynastic succession should have ended when feudalism did, I watched the performance of these two political princes with real interest. The first performance came from Bilawal Bhutto, who made a speech on the banks of the Indus a day after India decided to suspend the Indus Water Treaty. In this speech, he threatened that either water would flow down the Indus or the 'blood of our enemies'. His Urdu remains bad, so he used melodrama to compensate and, in the manner of a crazed messiah, shrieked 'the Indus has always been ours, is ours, and will be ours'. This one speech was proof that not only was the heir to the mighty Bhutto dynasty linguistically challenged, but that he was politically challenged as well. But Pakistan's military rulers were clearly impressed with his performance and sent him off to Washington to convince people that it was Pakistan that was the victim of terrorism and that India's allegations were lies. It took Shashi Tharoor, who was also in Washington, one minute to demolish the narrative that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's heir was trying to weave. Tharoor said he sympathised with Bilawal because his mother had been killed by jihadi terrorists, but he seemed to have forgotten Hillary Clinton's warning to Pakistan. If you breed vipers in your backyard, you cannot expect that they will only attack your neighbour. Pakistan's terrorists are home-bred. Last week came a performance from the heir to our own storied dynasty. Rahul has, since Operation Sindoor, made statements that have been applauded in Pakistan even by Hafiz Saeed. But last week, he outdid himself. In the manner of a schoolboy discussing a cricket match, and with a sneery grin on his face, he imitated Donald Trump having a conversation with our prime minister on the phone and saying 'Narendra, Surrender'. And then he mimicked Narendra Modi saying 'ji huzoor'. The point the Leader of the Opposition was trying to make was that when his grandmother was prime minister, the Seventh Fleet was sent by Richard Nixon to warn her that breaking up Pakistan would have consequences. And she had courageously remained fixed on the course that she had set. A dangerous analogy to evoke, because Indira Gandhi also ended up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (to use that useful cliché) by signing the Simla Agreement. All the cards were in India's hands. There were more than 90,000 prisoners of war in the custody of the Indian Army, so she could have told Bhutto that there would be no agreement without a signed guarantee that the Kashmir issue would end now. Instead, the agreement has a feeble reference to Kashmir being decided bilaterally. Years later, I happened to learn from a close associate of Bhutto that he boasted afterwards that he had outdone her. What exactly was the point that Indira's grandson was trying to make? Was he trying to prove the debunked falsehood that Modi agreed to a ceasefire because of pressure from Trump? Was he trying to say that the war should have continued indefinitely? Or was he trying to say what Congress spokespersons have said in TV debates, which is that the war should have continued until Pakistan is broken up once more? This was never the objective of Operation Sindoor. It had the limited objective of destroying Pakistan's terrorist infrastructure and from all accounts this objective was achieved. To return, though, to the poster boys of dynastic democracy. Bilawal has lost his relevance in Pakistani politics and is now merely a spokesman for the military men who control the political chessboard. Rahul remains relevant because he is fully in control of our oldest political party. And the only national party, we have other than the BJP. We have no choice but to take what he says seriously, which is why it is worrying that he continues to sound like a schoolboy with a special grudge against Modi for daring to usurp India, which he considers his birthright to rule since his family once did. It is this idea that India remains the private property of the Dynasty that is destroying the Congress Party. If you have been following recent events, you would have noticed that the Congress leaders in the parliamentary delegations have done an extremely good job. The only people who have let the party down are those who constitute the coterie around our own poster boy of dynastic democracy. It could be time for those who want Congress to survive and thrive to come together and urge the Dynasty's heirs to consider playing the role that the Chairman Emeritus plays in companies. If they agree, they can continue to have relevance in the family firm, but can move away from playing an active role. How long does the Congress Party want to pretend that Rahul is its prime minister-in-waiting when he has been unable to win a single Lok Sabha election for the party? One way or another dynastic democracy is a bad idea. And it is abundantly obvious that India's voters saw this before our political leaders have.
