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Hindustan Times
6 days ago
- General
- Hindustan Times
Maharaja Ranjit Singh's summer palace faces monumental neglect
While travelling, I make it a point to explore local museums for an enriching experience. The excitement and curiosity peaks even before one steps in. Last August, as I bought a ticket of the Nobel Peace Centre, dedicated to Alfred Nobel in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, the young receptionist said beaming, 'Today you can also meet the children of Mohammadi Narges, an imprisoned Iranian women's rights advocate, who was the winner of 2023 Peace Prize. They will shortly give a presentation.' Two months later, as I showed my ticket to enter the Titanic museum in Northern Ireland's capital, Belfast, the official alerted me about the guided tour. 'In just three minutes, you can also be part of the free guided tour which will take 45 minutes but you will appreciate the richness of it. Then you are free to explore the museum on your own,' he said. This March, when my elderly uncle and aunt from Chicago stayed with us in Amritsar, my brother and I took them to Maharaja Ranjit Singh's Summer Palace Museum at Ram Bagh, also built by him. It's where the Maharaja resided in summer. Spotting our arrival in the hot afternoon, the museum official, who was sitting under a tree, came to open the door for us and directed us to the ticket counter. Due to the high ceiling, it was quite cool but also dark. We were the only ones inside and expected the lights to be switched on as we proceeded towards the first gallery, but darkness continued to follow us. My aunt suggested: 'It seems there's no electricity at the moment. You can switch on your phone torches.' 'What about the generator,' she asked the official, who replied nonchalantly: 'We don't have one.' My brother requested for a guide and pat came the response, 'There's none either.' We laughed at our helplessness and held up our phones to read the texts with the artefacts. We admired the rich collection from coins to weapons from the Maharaja's reign but the mannequins on display, though looking authentic, were enveloped in dust. When we looked out from the first-floor windows, overgrown grass and weed greeted us in all directions. Many historic structures around were also in a state of neglect. The staircase we took had a loose rope attached for support instead of a fixed railing, which was confusing for the elderly couple. After taking a round of the place, we approached the official about the light and sound show timings and his reply made us laugh again: 'It depends on when the power is back and if there is a sizeable audience for it.' A few days later, as I received an assignment from one of the inflight magazines for the Amritsar tourism column, I discovered news reports that in January 2015, seven daggers of Maharaja Ranjit Singh had been stolen from a nearby panorama dedicated to the founder of the Sikh empire. Such is the state of affairs. Recently, I received a call from my uncle in Chicago and we had a hearty laugh remembering our visit to the museum, particularly the dark welcome. Does the government really care about this museum and its visitors? Small steps can make a big difference. The writer is an Amritsar-based freelance contributor.
14-05-2025
- Politics
Nobel Institute to Hold Event in Tokyo for Nuclear Disarmament
News from Japan World May 14, 2025 11:26 (JST) London, May 13 (Jiji Press)--The Norwegian Nobel Institute plans to hold an event in Japan in July to call for nuclear disarmament, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The institute, the secretariat of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the Nobel Peace Prize, apparently aims to promote nuclear disarmament through the event, expected to take place in Tokyo. The event comes after the committee awarded last year's Nobel Peace Prize to the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, or Nihon Hidankyo, which pushes for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In addition, this year marks the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cities in western Japan, in the closing days of World War II. Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the committee who handed the Peace Prize medal and certificate to representatives of Nihon Hidankyo at last year's award ceremony, may visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to coincide with the event. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Jiji Press
IOL News
29-04-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
The untold story of a young operative in the liberation struggle: Nozizwe Mabaso-Mhlongo's testimony
The NPA has reopened the inquest into the death of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Luthuli. Image: File In a testimony at the Pietermaritzburg High Court, Nozizwe Mabaso-Mhlongo, 62, recounted her extraordinary childhood experiences as an unknowing participant in South Africa's liberation struggle, revealing how she became a secret operative for none other than the legendary Albert Luthuli. Mabaso-Mhlongo, whose parents were closely connected with the Nobel Peace Prize-winning ANC president general, shared her memories during the ongoing inquest into Luthuli's mysterious death She said the struggle icon, her parents, her primary school class teacher, and an Indian shopkeeper were her handlers who used her to transport sensitive and incriminating political documents. She read an affidavit, which she prepared five years ago. Luthuli was killed on July 21, 1967, in Stanger, north coast, in what an inquest presided over by Magistrate CI Boswell held the same year revealed was a goods train accident. Mabaso-Mhlongo joined several witnesses whose testimony since the start of the inquest disputed the findings of Boswell. The Tuesday proceedings were adjourned abruptly when witness Mahomed Manjoo, who followed Mabaso-Mhlongo, became emotional and cried. Manjoo worked at the Stanger Hospital as a patient admission clerk when Luthuli was brought in. He said that when he realised that the person who was sleeping unconsciously on the stretcher was the world-renowned Peace Prize winner, he immediately phoned an ANC office in Stanger. Mabaso-Mhlongo's family relocated from Ladysmith to Stanger before she was born, after her father survived several attempts to kill him by white owners of a farm he worked for. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Her father, Stimela Mabaso, left the farm with the help of a generous white man to secretly ride a goods train to Stanger. Luthuli gave him accommodation in a shack and also employed him as a manager at Luthuli's Nonhlevu general dealers. This was the same shack, which was situated next to Luthuli's shop, where Luthuli and other freedom fighters, including the late IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi, would use as their strategic venue to hold secret political meetings, believing that the apartheid special branch members would not suspect what it was used for. She said her father became part of the meetings, which often took place at night and on rare occasions during the day. She said during the many meetings held, her mother would not only provide meals for the attendees, but she would also be on the lookout for special agents and alert the attendees. She was relating to the court what her mother had told her when she was grown up. 'At one stage, my mother spotted a vehicle approaching, which she thought was police who might have been aware that a meeting was held in the shack. 'She grabbed all the papers that were being discussed and put them in a pack and put them on her back and because I was little, she also put me on her back (to conceal the papers), she picked up a hoe and proceeded to the sugarcane fields to work,' said Mabaso-Mhlongo. Mabaso-Mhlongo said it often happened that when she was a learner at Lloyd Primary School, she would secretly transport minutes of political meetings to Nyuwane shop, which was owned by an Indian businessman she only knew as Mr Goolams. In the morning, her mother would pack her brown school bag and lock it with a padlock and instruct her to take it to school without a key to open it and hand the bag to her class teacher. The class teacher would keep the bag without opening it and give it back to her after school. She would then take a bus to the Stanger CBD to meet Goolam. This was something that Luthuli could not do as he was banned from leaving the Groutville area and was under heavy police surveillance. She said Luthuli would give her a strict instruction not to open the bag and not to tell anyone about the secret meetings. 'After school, I would be told to take the bag to KwaNyuwane shop, which belongs to Mr Goolam, who would buy me fish and chips and give me sweets, and I would be very happy,' he said. The remains of a railway line where Inkosi Albert Luthuli was injured before succumbing to death at Stanger Hospital in 1967. Image: SABC News screenshots Goolam would then hand the locked bag back to her to take to her father. 'This went on until Luthuli passed away,' she said. She said she was very close to Luthuli, who would often make her read the newspapers. She said Luthuli also loved children but would irritate them by stopping them from playing their favourite games to make them read the bible, sing and pray. She said she knew Luthuli as her grandfather and it was only many years later, after Luthuli had died, that she learned that they were not related. She said on return from school on the fateful July 21, she first learn that Luthuli, whom she referred to as Mkhulu or grandfather, had died. She heard her father telling the curious elders that he had been struck by a stick or a steel bar. I heard that people who worked in the sugarcane fields saw him approaching the field along the railway line, but after a goods train had passed, they could not see him. 'They rushed to the spot where they last saw him, only to find him lying there in a pool of blood,' she said. Luthuli died at the Stanger hospital a few hours later after the accident. 'The death of Mkhulu left me traumatised and I stopped going to the railway line because I feared that people who went there would be hit by the boers to death. 'We used to love going to the line to pick up sugarcane, but we stopped after Mkhulu's death,' he said.
Al Jazeera
30-03-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Algeria sentences author Boualem Sansal sentenced to five years in prison
Algeria has sentenced French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal to five years in prison on charges of 'undermining national unity'. A court in Dar El Beida, near Algiers, sentenced the author on Thursday under 'anti-terrorism' laws after he gave an interview to far-right French media outlet Frontieres, in which he questioned the borders dividing Algeria from regional rival Morocco. In the interview, published last October, Sansal argued that France had redrawn Algeria's borders in the latter's favour during the colonial period to include lands that once belonged to Morocco. The following month, he was arrested upon arriving in Algiers. The case has soured relations between Algeria and France, which nosedived last summer when France shifted its position to recognise Morocco's sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara territory, and which were further aggravated when Algeria rejected French attempts to return Algerians slated for deportation. French President Emmanuel Macron appealed on Thursday to the Algerian authorities' 'good sense and humanity', saying he hoped they would 'give him [Sansal] back his freedom and allow him to be treated for the disease he is fighting'. French media have reported the author has cancer. Sansal, winner of the 2011 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, has long been a critic of Algerian authorities, but he has regularly visited the country, and his books have been sold there without restrictions. The author, who rejected court-appointed lawyers and chose to defend himself, denied the remarks violated laws or were meant to harm Algeria, according to Hociane Amine, a lawyer who was in the courtroom. 'Obviously, he has a possibility to appeal. And now that he's been sentenced, the president is within his rights to grant him a pardon because it's a political card in the current crisis with France,' Amine said. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has previously criticised Sansal, who was living in France, calling him an 'imposter'. But some observers have suggested the author might be granted a presidential pardon during upcoming Muslim or national holidays. Sansal's five-year sentence is half of what prosecutors requested and less than the recommended for those charged under Article 87 of Algeria's penal code, the controversial 'anti-terrorism' statute implemented after mass protests convulsed the country last decade. Human rights advocates in Algeria claim the laws have long been used to quash anti-government voices. The author also was fined 500,000 Algerian dinar ($3,735).
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
France outraged by imprisonment of author Boualem Sansal in Algeria
France has reacted with outrage to the sentencing of Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, 80, who was given five years in prison by an Algerian court. Numerous politicians denounced the ruling on Thursday, with former prime minister Gabriel Attal calling it arbitrary and a "parody of justice." French President Emmanuel Macron called on Algerian officials to make a humanitarian decision allowing Sansal's release so he can receive medical treatment. "I know that I can count on both the common sense and the humanity of the Algerian authorities to make such a decision," he said. The French Foreign Ministry has urged a "quick, humane, and dignified solution" to the situation. Sansal, winner of the 2011 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, was arrested upon arriving in Algiers in mid-November. He was later convicted of undermining national unity and security. The charges stem from an interview in which he stated that Morocco's borders had been altered in Algeria's favour during the French colonial era. His remarks touched on a sensitive issue, as Algeria and Morocco remain locked in a long-standing dispute over territorial claims. The German branch of the global writers' association PEN condemned the verdict and demanded Sansal's release, noting that he has long faced harassment and threats for his outspoken criticism of the Algerian government and political Islam. His lawyer has appealed to Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune for a pardon. The case adds to the growing list of disputes between Algeria and France. Last year French President Emmanuel Macron snubbed Algeria when he recognized Morocco's decades-old claim to Western Sahara. Western Sahara was a Spanish colony until 1975. After Spain withdrew, Morocco took control of large parts of the sparsely populated but resource-rich desert area. The Polisario Front is seeking an independent state in Western Sahara and is supported by Algeria.
