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NDTV
a day ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Actor Vijay Slams BJP For "Drama" On Cholas, Party Responds
Chennai: Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) chief and actor-politician Vijay has launched a scathing attack on the BJP and the ruling DMK, calling their recent posturing over Tamil pride and the Chola legacy a "coordinated drama" aimed at political gain ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections. Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to Ariyalur to commemorate the 1,000th anniversary of Rajendra Chola I's maritime expedition to Southeast Asia, Vijay accused the BJP of "lecturing Tamil Nadu on its own history" while simultaneously "discriminating" against the state. "Had the DMK government given the Chola emperors the full honour they deserve, the anti-Tamil Union government wouldn't have stepped in to take credit. Instead, the DMK has welcomed PM Modi's visit as a matter of honour - this is not pride, it is surrender," said Vijay in a strongly-worded statement. The actor-politician alleged that the DMK had "mortgaged Tamil pride" to the BJP, describing it as "taking refuge under the very force it claims to oppose." He also pointed to the centre refusing to accept Keezhadi excavation findings, which the state believes establishes the antiquity of Tamil and Iron Age in this region much earlier than present estimates. "After attempting to hide strong evidence of Tamil civilisation and history at Keezhadi, the Centre's sudden talk of Chola pride is pure drama. And the DMK, founded by Annadurai, has compromised itself and surrendered to the anti-Tamil BJP," he charged. Vijay also reminded that it was his party that had last year demanded the setting up of a grand museum in Chennai celebrating the Chera, Chola and Pandya dynasties. He warned that the people of Tamil Nadu would "see through the political theatrics" and deliver a "fitting response in 2026." BJP's Karu Nagarajan responded sharply, accusing Vijay of peddling falsehoods and misrepresenting facts for political mileage. "Has any other Prime Minister embraced and showcased Tamil culture to the world like Narendra Modi? PM Modi has acted as an ambassador of Tamil pride," he said. He also dismissed Vijay's charges on Keezhadi, saying the central government had been fully supportive of archaeological excavations and discoveries in Tamil Nadu from the beginning. "It is unclear what Vijay is trying to achieve by linking the BJP and DMK. People are not fools," the BJP leader said. Though officially positioned as a cultural and historical event, Prime Minister Modi's visit to Ariyalur is being widely seen as part of the BJP's broader outreach to Tamil Nadu - a state where the party currently has little presence. With the 2026 Assembly elections on the horizon, both the BJP and emerging parties like Vijay's TVK are recalibrating their strategies. While Dravidian parties tread carefully, celebrating the Chola dynasty in a limited way, mindful of what they call "the severe caste discrimination and dominance of Aryan traditions" during the reign, the BJP is trying to capitalise on this.
India.com
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- India.com
Who is Ramya? actress who is getting death and rape threats for filing FIR against…
Home Entertainment Who is Ramya? actress who is getting death and rape threats for filing FIR against… Who is Ramya? actress who is getting death and rape threats for filing FIR against… South actress Ramya has been a victim of social media trolling, but this time popular Kannada actors fans have gone way to far. A prominent actress from the southern film industry, Ramya, celebrated for both her cinematic talent and political voice, is now facing an alarming wave of online abuse. Known for her outspoken nature, she has often found herself at odds with certain fan communities. But this time, things have escalated dangerously. Vicious threats, both violent and degrading, have been hurled at her, crossing every boundary of decency. Whose fan army is threatening Ramya? The actor we are talking about is Kannada actor Darshan Thoogudeepa, whose fans are threatening to kill and rape Ramya on social media. This whole case is also connected to the Renukaswamy murder case, in which actor Darshan is the prime accused. What has Ramya said in her statement? On July 28, Ramya filed a police complaint against those misbehaving online. The actress said that Kannada actor Darshan's fans are trolling her on social media and threatening rape and murder. Recently, Ramya had commented on the Renukaswamy murder case, in which Darshan is the accused. Since then, Darshan's fans have been threatening her. She said, 'Being a celebrity, I am used to trolling, but I have not faced it to this extent.' Ramya gave this statement on July 24. She had shared a report on Supreme Court proceedings in the Renukaswamy murder case, demanding justice for the victim's family. Ramya further said, 'The Supreme Court had questioned the bail granted to actor Darshan by the Karnataka High Court. I had said on the coverage of this news that the Supreme Court is a ray of hope for the common people of India and I hope that Renukaswamy will get justice. It was only after this that Darshan's fans started trolling me and started sending me extremely obscene messages and threatening to kill and rape me.' Who is Kannada actress Ramya? Ramya, also known as Divya Spandana, is a popular Kannada actress and former Member of Parliament. She made her acting debut with the film Abhi and went on to star in several hit Kannada films like Amrithadhare, Aryan, and Sanju Weds Geetha. Apart from her successful film career, she is known for her political role as a Congress MP from Mandya. Ramya is also known for her bold opinions on social issues and active presence on social media. For breaking news and live news updates, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Read more on Latest Entertainment News on
Scroll.in
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
‘Parting' by Sebastian Haffner: A forgotten German novel of the early 1930s that became a bestseller
Abschied (Parting) by Sebastian Haffner (1907–1999) is dominating the bestseller charts in Germany. It has been published posthumously, over 25 years after his death, after the manuscript was found in a drawer. The novel is a love story between Raimund, a young non-Jewish German student of law from Berlin, and Teddy, a young Jewish woman from Vienna. Raimund and Teddy meet on August 31, 1930, in Berlin and the novel covers the time they spend in Berlin and Paris together. Abschied was written between October 18 and November 23, 1932, just before the Nazi takeover. It reads in the breathless, immediate manner in which it was clearly conceived. It also gives a personal insight into the zeitgeist of the final months of the Weimar Republic. Haffner was born Raimund Pretzel in Berlin, where he trained as a lawyer. He disagreed with the Nazi regime and emigrated to London in 1938. There, in order to protect his family in Germany from potential Nazi retribution he changed his name. It is estimated that around 80,000 German-speaking refugees from Nazism lived in the UK by September 1939. Most of these refugees were Jewish, but there was also a sizeable number who, like Haffner, had fled for political reasons. Many politically committed exiles arrived soon after 1933 but this was not the case for Haffner. In the 1930s he was busy being a young man in Berlin, training as a lawyer and enjoying himself. Haffner's father was an educationalist who had a library with 10,000 volumes. As a young man Haffner liked reading, and toyed with the idea of becoming a writer and journalist, but his father advised him to study law and aim for a career in the civil service. Political developments in Germany made this option increasingly unpalatable. Initially, Haffner found it difficult to see a way out. As he wrote in Defying Hitler: 'Daily life […] made it difficult to see the situation clearly.' In the book, he also describes how he and other Germans acquiesced to the new regime. Haffner was disgusted with his own reaction to the SA (the Nazi party's private army) entering the library of the court building where he was a pupil, asking those present whether they were Aryan and throwing out Jewish members of the court. When questioned by an SA man, Haffner replied that he was indeed Aryan and felt immediately ashamed: 'A moment too late I felt the shame, the defeat. I had said, 'Yes'. […] What a humiliation to have answered the unjustified question whether I was Aryan so easily, even if the fact was of no importance to me.' Haffner never really took up his career as a lawyer, because it would have meant upholding Nazi laws and Nazi justice. Instead, he started working as a journalist and writer, first in Germany and after his escape in 1938 in the UK. Life in the UK Soon after his arrival in the UK, Haffner finished a book titled Defying Hitler (1939). The memoir was both autobiographical and a political history of the period – but after the outbreak of the Second World War it was considered not polemical enough, and was dismissed as an unsuitable explanation for the rise of Nazism at the time. But the intermingling of private and public history is of great interest to readers in the 21st century. Defying Hitler was published posthumously in German (2000) and in English (2003) and became a bestseller in both languages. After Defying Hitler, Haffner turned to writing another book, Germany: Jekyll and Hyde (1940). It was more clearly anti-Nazi and focused on his journalism – during the war, he worked for the Foreign Office on anti-Nazi propaganda and he was later employed by The Observer as a political journalist. The book was a success, and Winston Churchill is said to have told his cabinet to read it. The German critic Volker Weidemann who wrote the epilogue to Parting toys with the idea that it was never published because its focus on the love story was considered a bit too trivial for such a great writer. Thanks to his work for The Observer after 1941, Haffner was a well-regarded political journalist and historical biographer. He became the paper's German correspondent in 1954, and was well known for his column in West Germany's Stern magazine and for his biographies, including one on Churchill (1967). The perspective of a young non-Jewish German living a relatively ordinary life in the early 1930s makes Abschied a fascinating read. Academics have been exploring everyday life under Nazi rule for nearly half a century now, but it seems that modern readers are still keen to learn about it today. Perhaps the novel resonates with so many German readers because we live in a time where many struggle with the inevitable continuation of everyday life while politics is becoming ever more extraordinary. Andrea Hammel is Professor of German, Aberystwyth University.
Express Tribune
15-07-2025
- Climate
- Express Tribune
Flood fears mount in twin cities
The monsoon flood season is set to reach its critical phase in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad starting today (Wednesday). Historical data spanning the last 71 years reveals that all major floods in the region have occurred between July 17 and July 27. The first 15 days of the traditional Sawan season, beginning July 16, are considered the most perilous in terms of flood risk. By the start of August, the likelihood of catastrophic flooding typically declines. Between July 16 and July 31, every intense downpour poses a serious threat of urban flooding in low-lying neighborhoods, streets, and roadways. With the onset of Sawan, residents living along the 22-kilometer-long Nullah Leh and the banks of 15 rain-fed tributaries — winding through the city like serpents — have already begun precautionary evacuations. Residents from approximately 19 vulnerable communities have either relocated entirely or transferred only their valuable belongings to safer locations, leaving behind basic necessities. When water levels rise, these families move swiftly to higher ground and return as soon as the water subsides — often within a few hours — to begin cleaning and restoring their homes. Historically, Nullah Leh was a pristine stream fed by natural springs and rainwater flowing from the Margalla Hills of Islamabad. It entered Rawalpindi near New Katarian and eventually emptied into the River Soan. The area was originally settled by the Aryan community, drawn by the clean water and dense forests. To this day, their legacy remains in names such as Arya Mohalla, located near Liaquat Bagh Chowk. Until 1925, the stream's waters were crystal clear — used for ablution, drinking, washing clothes, and Hindu religious rituals. Cremated remains were also immersed in its waters. According to local elders, the stream was once home to fish, which the Aryans would catch. However, following the Partition in 1947, this once-pristine waterway began to deteriorate. With Rawalpindi's industrialization and the rapid development of Islamabad as the federal capital, the stream steadily turned into a polluted drain. Today, Nullah Lai and its tributaries function as open sewage channels, overflowing and causing destruction with each monsoon season. Nullah Lai spans 22 kilometers, with a width ranging from 500 to 1,000 feet. Of its total length, 11 kilometers run through urban Rawalpindi, with the remainder passing through cantonment areas. The deadliest flood in its history occurred on July 23, 2001, when surging waters claimed 65 lives and 300 domestic animals. Commercial sectors suffered losses estimated at Rs. 7 billion. Many traders who were millionaires the day before found themselves destitute overnight — and some families have yet to recover, even 24 years later. The first recorded flood in Nullah Lai occurred in 1967 during General Ayub Khan's era. The second followed in 1969 under General Yahya Khan, resulting in three fatalities. The third struck in 1972 during Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's government, taking 10 lives. Further floods occurred in 1975, 1982, and 1986, after which monsoon flooding became a nearly annual crisis.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why the Nazis stole a fragment of the Bayeux tapestry
There was great excitement at the news this month that the Bayeux tapestry – the 11th-century embroidered epic depicting the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066 – will go on display at the British Museum in 2026. However, the tapestry had already been in the news earlier this year, admittedly to much less fanfare. In March, it was reported that a fragment of the Bayeux tapestry had been discovered in Germany in the Schleswig-Holstein state archives. To understand how it ended up there, we must turn to a troubling and little-known episode in the tapestry's history: Sonderauftrag Bayeux (Special Operation Bayeux), a project operated by the Nazi Ahnenerbe, the SS regime's heritage research group. Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here. It has often been observed that art seems to have been of disproportionate concern to the Nazis. However, their manipulation of visual and material culture should be understood as central to – not separate from – Hitler's genocidal regime and its efforts towards global domination. The Ahnenerbe, under the ultimate authority of Heinrich Himmler, was established to develop and disseminate histories in support of that mythology central to the Nazi regime: the supremacy of the Aryan race. To this end, the Ahnenerbe oversaw research that claimed to use unassailable scientific methods. However, it has long been acknowledged that their projects consciously manipulated historical evidence to construct fabricated histories that would support racist ideologies. To achieve this, numerous research projects were conducted. These projects saw scholars travel across the globe in the pursuit of objects that could act as monuments to the mythologies of Aryan supremacy. Sonderauftrag Bayeux was one such project. Nazi interest in the Bayeux tapestry may seem surprising to British people, where the tapestry is considered a symbol of a singularly significant moment in Britain's history. However, just as politicians in modern Britain have found it tempting to reference the tapestry in the advancement of their political agendas, so too did the Ahnenerbe. Sonderauftrag Bayeux aimed to produce a multi-volume study of the tapestry that would assert its inherently Scandinavian character. The objective was to present the tapestry as proof of the supremacy of the early medieval Norman people, whom the Ahnenerbe claimed as the ancestors of modern German Aryans and descendants of 'Viking' northern Europeans. By June 1941, work on Sonderauftrag Bayeux had begun in earnest. Among the team sent to Normandy to study the tapestry first hand was Karl Schlabow, a textile expert and head of the Germanic Costume Institute at Neumünster in Germany. Schlabow spent a fortnight in Bayeux, and it was he who removed a fragment of the tapestry's backing fabric and brought it back to Germany when his research visit was complete. Though initial reports suggested that Schlabow removed this fragment when the embroidery was later transferred by the Nazis to Paris, it is more likely that he did so during June 1941, when he and his fellow members of Sonderauftrag Bayeux were stationed in Bayeux. In a sketch by Herbert Jeschke – the artist commissioned to create a painted reproduction of the tapestry – during this visit, Jeschke depicted himself with Schlabow and Herbert Jankuhn (the director of the project) hunched over the tapestry. The sketch is accompanied by the emphatic title, 'Die Tappiserie!', an expression of delight at their privileged viewing of this medieval masterpiece. To join the Ahnenerbe, Schlabow, like others involved in the Sonderauftrag Bayeux, was inducted into the SS. He held the rank of SS-Unterscharführer (roughly the equivalent of a sergeant in today's British army). After the second world war many members of the Ahnenerbe denied having sympathy for Nazi policies. However, documents seized by US intelligence officers at the end of the second world war reveal that some were denied entry to the Ahnenerbe if they, for instance, had had Jewish friends or expressed sympathy towards communist ideas. They therefore had to (at least outwardly) appear sympathetic to Nazism to be inducted into its ranks. Details of what exactly the Ahnenerbe project uncovered, or even hoped to uncover, from this study of the tapestry are opaque. It appears that, to a large extent, the act of producing an illustrated study and dispatching researchers to the original textile was enough to claim the object as a monument to Germanic Aryan supremacy. It is clear that perceived Scandinavian influence within the tapestry's designs was to be central to the study's conclusions, but the project was not completed before Germany's defeat at the end of the war. Like many other members of the Ahnenerbe, Schlabow returned to research after the war, working at the Schleswig-Holstein State Museum in Gottorf Castle. The discovery of even the tiniest fragment of this remarkable medieval object is cause for much excitement. However, its recovery should be framed firmly in the context in which it was removed. It should come as no surprise that Schlabow felt empowered to steal this piece of the tapestry; the regime for which he worked claimed the object as a piece of his heritage, his birthright as an Aryan German. This find is a timely reminder that the past is closer than we realise and that there is still much work to be done to explore the long shadows cast by previous practices in the histories we inherit. The recovered fragment is currently on display in Schleswig-Holstein, but will return to the Musée la Tapisserie de Bayeux in Normandy in time for the museum's re-opening in 2027 when the two elements will be reunited for the first time since 1941. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Millie Horton-Insch receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust.
