I am writing this letter because I have so many Jewish friends, those are wonderfully humane people as are most of my Muslim friends and others. As you all know that I am Sikh from India, where after sixty years, my family still talks about the over a million people massacred on both sides, Sikhs and Muslims during the partition of the Panjab. There has been several wars between India and Pakistan, those all fought on Panjabi soil. On the other hand, Sikhs have no neighborly dispute with Israel.

In the aftermath of 3 days of tragic drama in Mumbai, politician and media commentators trying to put the pieces together, and Indian people are asking many questions and demanding answers from their leaders and the security forces.

Historically US Dollar enjoyed the benefits of world Trading Currency, as it was considered a stable hard currency. Recently it has been falling in its value as result OPEC country finding it difficult to fix the price of barrel of liquid.

The events of 9-11 are seared into the collective psyche of this generation. We have all been affected by the catastrophes of that fateful day, but what really happened on 9-11?

Many people all over the world positively hope and intensely imagine that this magical time will make this world a better place to live.

James Robinson wonder in the Media page of the Observer 12.10.2008 (p 11) ‘Why didn’t the City journalists see the financial crisis coming?’; except a lone voice of Gilian Tett of the FT. One would expect that papers like FT, who has the resources, envy of many others, would have someone who is not involved in the day to day manufacturing of the NEWS, but who sits back and just takes long term view of the markets and the system as a whole, where it is coming from and where it is heading to?

Keynote Paper read by Avtarjeet Dhanjal for the Seminar
'Shaping Histories - Imagining Futures'
At UNESCO Conference on Culture & Development
March 31, 1998, Stockholm

Today we are gathered here in this room and I, as an artist, will invite you to join me in extending and expanding the boundaries of this room beyond it's four walls. We artists have the power of imagination to expand this space as far as we intend, enough even to accommodate the whole planet and beyond. That is the prerogative of creative artists.

At one time on this planet, there were only fish, animals, birds, and insects. There were also those animals that looked like humans but they were not different from the others either. They were all fighting, killing and eating each other. That made God very unhappy.

Even the ‘Sunday’ a supposed to be religious program does not want to left behind in condemning the Chinese human rights record and inspiring others how to disrupt the games. What an opportunistic move?

08 August 2007

Thanks to New Statesman for commissioning special features for the issue. India has many problems, just name the few: