First posted October 3, 2020 India’s greatest leader had moved to a village called Segaon two years earlier. He had renamed it Sevagram or a village of service. He built an ashram, a commune which was home to “many a fateful decision which affected the destiny of India”. Gandhi had moved in with his wife, Kasturba,… Read More Soutik Biswas: Rare photos of the last ten years of Gandhi’s life
The Christmas truce, 1914 – Steven Johns A short history of the widespread but unofficial truce between British and German troops on the Western front over Christmas, 1914 during World War I. Despite the mass slaughter orchestrated by European governments, rank-and-file soldiers during World War I often attempted to resist the war effort and refuse… Read More The Soldiers’ Christmas Truce 1914 / Armistice Day, November 11, 1918: In Pictures
First posted May 02, 2015 She was described admiringly by Vladimir Lenin’s wife as the “primeval force of the Black Earth”, a revolutionary firebrand with sparkling brown eyes whose natural aroma was of “fresh meadow grasses”. It is no wonder then that the search for an image of Apollinariya Yakubova, considered by some to be… Read More Apollinariya Yakubova: The face of the woman Vladimir Lenin loved most is revealed
First posted October 1, 2012 Even though India’s British rulers considered him a dangerous anarchist and repeatedly put him in jail, Gandhi always proclaimed his friendship for the British people. When he was in London for the Round Table Conference in 1931, he decided to visit the mill areas of Lancashire. He was warned by the police not… Read More Gandhi visits the poor people of England in 1931
By Wolf Gruner, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences The summer of 2022 marked the 80th anniversary of the first Nazi deportation of Jewish families from Germany to Auschwitz. Although the Nazis deported hundreds of thousands of Jewish men and women, for many places where those tragic events happened, no images are known to document… Read More Unknown Holocaust photos – found in Attics and Archives – are helping Researchers recover lost Stories and providing a Tool against Denial
What has most drawn me to Singh’s work are the photographs collected in her books File Room and Museum of Chance. In these, we find black and white images of India’s vast state archives, storerooms and registry offices. As we leaf through these books, we become filled with an idea of poetic decrepitude and a… Read More Orhan Pamuk on Dayanita Singh’s mesmerising photos of India’s disintegrating archives
The years leading up to the declaration of war between the Axis and Allied powers in 1939 were tumultuous times for people across the globe. The Great Depression had started a decade before, leaving much of the world unemployed and desperate. Nationalism was sweeping through Germany, and it chafed against the punitive measures of the… Read More ALAN TAYLOR – Historic photos of World War II: Before the War
The photographer Jim Huylebroek travelled across the country with the international children’s agency Save the Children, from the drought-ravaged plains of the north to the freezing streets of Kabul, capturing the stories of children whose lives have been devastated by the humanitarian crisis, for the series titled: children on the edge of life. The images… Read More Children on the edge of life in Afghanistan
Letter to the Readers, Mainstream Feb 19-26, 2022 Who are We A ‘Union of States’ or a ‘Nation’ | Karli Srinivasulu Remembering 2021 UP Panchayat Election Results | Bharat Dogra Silence Is No Solution To Evil | TJS George Lockdown As A Means of Controling Covid? | Kobad Ghandy Five State Assembly Elections of 2022: Scenario and Consequences | Prem… Read More Special Double number – Mainstream, February 2022 / Om Thanvi: Photos of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara's visit to India
The epic wilderness of Greenland – in pictures. From Inuit hunters to the vast expanses of snow and ice, Danish photographer Carsten Egevang’s images spring from a three-decade fascination with the planet’s least-populated country https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2022/jan/12/freeze-frames-the-wilderness-of-greenland-in-pictures
After the truth-shower 