Pochampally: Pera Kamalana sits in a small room of her house, spinning the dyed yarn that will bring alive beautiful ikat designs on the nine-yard silk sari Pochampally is famous for. Wearing a polyester sari herself, Kamalana's life is, however, an irony and hardly as exotic as the timeless creations her loom gives birth to. "I can't afford to wear a Pochampally silk sari," Kamalana told IANS, when asked if she had any special creation in her wardrobe. She, however, admitted that she did own a cotton sari she had herself woven. "But I mostly wear polyester saris. They're cheaper".
For weavers of the famed Pochampally sari in the Bhoodan Pochampally village of Andhra Pradesh, life is as complicated as the warp and weft of the fabric they weave. For the skilled work they do, their wages are low and therefore survival is a struggle. Kamalana and her family members are among the dwindling number of weavers of the village who have not yet given up the skilful craft passed down through generations.
But unlike them, there are many who have moved away from the craft for more viable means of livelihood. "I get Rs 3,500 a month for weaving saris," Kamalana's 20-year-old son Shiv Shankar told IANS while working on a purple and pink sari on the loom. "I take about three days to weave one silk sari, but the whole process of making a Pochampally sari is much longer. There is the dyeing process. The
10:04 AM, Nov 19, 2012
New Delhi: Bhagat Singh was born on September 28, 1907, in Banga village of Jaranwala Tehsil in the Lyallpur district of Punjab province of undivided India. His birthplace today falls in Pakistan. Bhagat Singh was a revolutionary freedom fighter and one of the major inspirational figures of the Indian Independence movement. Though briefly affiliated to MK Gandhi's movement of non-violent struggle, Singh later became disillusioned with Gandhi's philosophy. Brutality of...
01:39 PM, Sep 28, 2012
The Quit India Movement or the August Movement was a civil disobedience movement launched By MK Gandhi and the Indian National Congress in August 1942. The call for determined but passive resistance was issued on August 8 in Bombay when the Congress adopted the historic 'Quit India Resolution' which declared among other things that the immediate ending of the British rule in India was an urgent necessity. Gandhiji declared: "Let...
04:30 PM, Aug 09, 2012
Hyderabad: Is PCC chief Botcha Satyanarayana trying to utilise every opportunity to corner chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy? Is the rift between the two widening with each passing day? It appears so given the PCC chief's public display of "displeasure" over the ongoing power crisis in the State and his comments attributing shortage of natural gas supplies to power plants to the lackadaisical attitude of the present and past...
03:06 PM, Aug 08, 2012
London: 'Alice in Wonderland' star Mia Wasikowska says she found working in the film difficult because of the extensive use of green screen. The 21-year-old Australian actress took on the titular role in the Tim Burton-directed film, but the use of green screen technology on the movie - which has grossed over USD 1 billion at the international box office - meant she often felt lost, reported Total Film magazine....
07:13 PM, Oct 02, 2011
Tokyo: Jokes about creaky knees, thinning hair and spreading -- or vanishing -- waistlines have long been an inevitable, if unwelcome, part of watching the birthdays pile up. But it shouldn't be that way, argues Wendy Lustbader, who maintains that youth, with all its insecurities and confusion, is more of a burden than the golden age society says it is, with ageing far from a gloomy decline. "I'm so disgusted...
05:42 PM, Aug 29, 2011
Vijayawada: After the AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi was arrested in Uttar Pradesh for supporting farmers' agitation in Bhatta Parsaul, TDP President N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday invited him to Andhra Pradesh to support farmers' agitation against land acquisition for SEZ's by the state government. Naidu said this during his visit to Veeravalli, Hanuman Junction and Nuziveed villages in Krishna district to interact with farmers. "Instead of agitating at Noida...
05:12 PM, May 13, 2011
New Delhi: The latest biography on Mahatma Gandhi, 'Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle with India' is not even available here yet, but Gujarat and Maharashtra are banning it. The central government is deciding not to, after some consideration. The Pulitzer Prize winning author and former New York Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld has trashed media reports that have stirred up a controversy, also saying that a ban reflects...
10:13 AM, Apr 01, 2011
The book, 'Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India', by Joseph Lelyveld has found itself in a pool of controversy with state governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra banning it while the author himself is defending his book, saying that he never called the Mahatma a racist and a bi-sexual. ...
10:45 AM, Mar 31, 2011
The word bisexual never appears in the book, said Joseph Lelyveld in an interview. ...
10:07 AM, Mar 31, 2011
Gandhinagar: A controversial book on Mahatma Gandhi was banned in his home state of Gujarat on Wednesday. A resolution to ban the book, 'Great Soul', was moved in the state assembly by Chief Minister Narendra Modi and passed unanimously. The book, 'Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India', by Pulitzer winning writer Joseph Lelyveld created a controversy after reviewers said it suggested that the icon of non-violence was...
03:39 PM, Mar 30, 2011
London: A controversial new biography on Mahatma Gandhi has claimed that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the man who led India into independence, was bisexual and racist. These startling claims in the book titled "Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his struggles with India", which has been penned by Joseph Lelyveld, former executive editor of the New York Times. According to reports, the book also claims that Gandhi had an affair with German-Jewish...
10:01 AM, Mar 29, 2011
Book also claims that Gandhi had an affair with German-Jewish architect & bodybuilder Hermann Kallenbach. ...
09:27 AM, Mar 29, 2011
Travel with CNN-IBN to the places where the spirit of freedom was born. Revisit the historic places where India's freedom struggle played out. ...
09:36 PM, Aug 14, 2010
Shingara Singh, witness to killing of unarmed protesters, was 113. ...
06:57 PM, Jun 29, 2009
Satyawati Devi, 104, shares her experience of the freedom struggle. ...
06:59 PM, Mar 29, 2009
In Bollywood luck is really about being in the right place at the right time. ...
12:36 PM, Feb 16, 2009
Is talent and hard work overpowered by lady luck in Bollywood? ...
12:33 AM, Feb 08, 2009
Hariz Imtiaz Khan is a 10-year old child artist who is inspired by the Mahatma ...
06:19 PM, Oct 01, 2008
