URB Scribbles

Image Courtesy: Pakistan Today (Published in The Assam Tribune, July 29, 2016)  At a time when the construction of economic corridors has come up as an effective means to strengthen regional cooperation and promote development, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has been making headlines of late in the South Asian context. After the considerable success of such corridors in the neighbourhood – the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) – CPEC is a significant attempt to accelerate economic growth in South Asia by linking remote and less developed places. The idea is to connect Kashgar in China’s Xingjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the Gwadar port in Southwest Pakistan through a network of expressways, rail networks and pipelines. The initial proposal for a CPEC was floated in May 2013 during Chinese premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Pakistan. Pakistan welcomed the proposal with great enthusiasm and the two sides signed a MoU to cooperate on a ‘long-term’ plan. During the...

Prior to the expansion of the capitalist mode of production and the capitalist society which has fuelled up the processes of urbanization and so called modernization to the extent that we see today, Bihu predominantly used to be a harvest festival. But today, claiming it so will perhaps not be correct in entirety. The idea of Bihu, being a harvest festival and the three Bihus ( bhogali ,  rongali  and  kongali ) being in some way or the other attached to crops, fields and the granaries has almost faded from our consciousness. In the wake of rapid urbanization and modernization in Assam, Bihu today is fast detaching itself from the rural to become a commercialized urban festival. Although to claim that the festival is no more celebrated in the villages would be an exaggeration, but the fact cannot be denied that the rapid urbanization has given Bihu a new décor. With the increasing commercialization of the festival, Bihu seems to be moving more towards the realm of...