Anupam Nath/Associated Press Tribals carrying traditional fishing tools arrive to participate in community fishing as part of Jonbeel festival near Jagiroad, Assam. 
Adnan Abidi/Reuters Rahul Gandhi, vice president of Congress party, speaking at the All India Congress Committee meeting in New Delhi on Friday.NEW DELHI – In an unusually passionate speech at the Indian National Congress’s national meeting on Friday, Rahul Gandhi praised the governing party as the defenders of the people’s will and criticized the main opposition as being undemocratic.
Breaking from his usual calm demeanor, Mr. Gandhi accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of “subverting democratic institutions” and “lighting the fires of communal hatred.”
In an apparent jibe at Narendra Modi, the B.J.P.’s prime ministerial candidate, Mr. Gandhi said, “We do not respond by proposing either that the structures of democracy be handed over to one man or that they be viciously destroyed.” Read more…
KOLKATA, West Bengal — The Bengali actor Suchitra Sen, who was often called India’s Greta Garbo because of her iconic performances and her reclusive ways, died Friday morning at a Kolkata nursing home after a heart attack. She was 82.
The diva of black-and-white Bengali cinema, who has acted in about 60 films in a career spanning 25 years, began her career with “Sesh Kothaay” in 1952. The 1953 hit “Shaarey Chuattor” established Mrs. Sen and her co-star, the late Uttam Kumar, as the leading on-screen couple of the Bengali film industry.
She became known for her powerful acting in memorable films like “Agnipariksha,” “Grihaprabesh,” “Deep JweleJaai,” “Harano Sur” and “Uttar Falguni.” Read more…
“At a major gathering of the Indian National Congress on Friday, Sonia Gandhi announced that her son Rahul would not be nominated for the post of prime minister in upcoming elections, signaling a key decision by the family that has dominated this country’s politics for decades,” Ellen Barry wrote in The New York Times.
“The announcement provoked chants of ‘Rahul PM’ from party loyalists that were so sustained that Mr. Gandhi, the party’s vice president, finally took the podium himself and held his hands in the air, telling the audience to remain calm and promising to share ‘what is in my heart’ in an address later in the day,” Ms. Barry wrote.Read more »
Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Ambati Rayadu, a Mumbai Indians cricketer, playing a shot in an I.P.L. match between Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in New Delhi on April 27, 2012.Last Saturday, Jan. 11, Mumbai’s cricket team lost its final match of the season. The 40,000-seat Wankhede Stadium had several hundred fans in attendance. I imagine that reading this news might befuddle a foreign visitor with an interest in cricket. After all, she might remember, Mumbai’s cricket team won it all last May, in a glitzy final watched by many thousands of screaming fans. What, they’ve already run the course of another season?
Ah, but only a neophyte would even ask this question. That May triumph featured a totally different Mumbai team in a totally different tournament, playing what might even be a totally different game. That was the Mumbai Indians, winning the Indian Premier League. On Jan. 11, it was the Mumbai Ranji Trophy team, playing a five-day match in traditional whites. In fact, only one player, Aditya Tare, played for both Mumbai teams.
What fascinates me here is the contrast between these teams, in the way a cricket-mad country reacts to them. In what they stand for. In how they attract loyalty. Or don’t. Read more…
Himanshu Khagta Summersalt, a folk band from Shillong, Meghalaya, playing in their backyard on Jan. 4.SHILLONG, Meghalaya — There’s no definitive theory on how Shillong, the capital of the northeastern state of Meghalaya, became known as the rock capital of India. Some say the Khasi culture of most Meghalayans has always celebrated music and is simply continuing to do so. Others cite the hymns brought by Welsh missionaries, while some point to the void created by the lack of Hindi cinema in this mostly Khasi-speaking state.
The love of music is evident throughout this city of 350,000, which drapes the verdant Khasi hills like a sprawling picnic blanket. The city’s fervent fan bases draw foreign bands far off their normal circuit, and dozens of local cover bands play everything from ABBA to Zappa. For many here, even truck drivers it seems, music is a way of life. As the faces of Hindu gods do in other parts of India, the dripping gothic font of the American heavy metal band Slipknot’s logo adorned many trucks’ sides in Meghalaya, as did Rastafarian flags and song lyrics. Read more…
“When Nasreen Mohamedi died in 1990, at 53, in India, few people outside a group of artist friends in her home country knew of her,” Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times. “That has changed.”
“A retrospective at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi last year was rapturously received,” Mr. Cotter wrote.
“The show reveals, among other things, how original and personal her art was,” he wrote.Read more »
In the Opinion Pages, readers react to a New York Times editorial (“India-America Relations on Edge”) about Devyani Khobragade, the Indian diplomat accused of mistreating her household help.Read more »
Channi Anand/Associated Press Motorists drive with their headlights on through thick fog on the outskirts of Jammu city, Jammu and Kashmir.
Himanshu Khagta Men sitting around a fire after sunset in Hattigarh, in Assam, on Dec. 29, 2013.NEW DELHI — In Mumbai, where Jahnu Barua makes documentary films, a normal Indian lunchtime of 2 p.m. more or less corresponds to midday, when the sun is highest overhead. But when Mr. Barua goes back to his home state of Assam, especially during the winter months, the afternoon light is waning by the time lunch rolls around, and is completely gone by the time most people get out of work around 5.
“In any time zone, those who live in its western portion get the benefits of more daytime,” said Mr. Barua, who has campaigned for a separate time zone for Assam and India’s other northeastern states for over two decades. Read more…