Tag: Prabha Khaitan Foundation

Union Minister, Shri Nitin Gadkari,
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Union Minister Nitin Gadkari e-launches Prabha Khaitan Foundation website

Dec 18, 2020 by Neel Achary 0 Comments #Communication and Branding Chief, #Manisha Jain, #Prabha Khaitan Foundation, #Shri Nitin Gadkari, #Union Minister

Union Minister, Shri Nitin Gadkari, today formally launched Prabha Khaitan Foundation’s website (https://pkfoundation.org) in a virtual function attended by which guests across India and abroad. Prabha Khaitan Foundation (PKF), a Kolkata-based registered public charitable trust, was set up by Late Dr Prabha Khaitan – a litterateur, entrepreneur and social worker – who worked relentlessly for the emancipation of women.

Commending the legacy of Late Dr Prabha Khaitan, Mr Gadkari said, “Karm hi jeevan (work is life) was the mission of Late Dr Prabha Khaitan who showed social sensitivity and responsibility towards the poor and disadvantaged and espoused the cause of women empowerment in the spheres of art, literature, culture, education and social work by helping them hone up their hidden talents. She instilled in them confidence and self reliance. I am glad that Prabha Khaitan Foundation is carrying forward the good work and legacy of Late Dr Prabha Khaitan.”

“We want to make such an Atmanirbhar Bharat where there should be no discrimination on the basis of caste, ideology, religion, language and sex. Organisations like Prabha Khaitan Foundation will bring about changes in the society. I believe we will achieve the goal one day,”Mr Gadkari said.

Currently, PKF is one of India’s leading social welfare organisations engaged in various social welfare causes for women, children and the elderly. PKF is also one of the leading private organisations to promote Indian art, culture, literature, and folk heritage within and outside the country, often in collaboration with like-minded Indian and foreign organisations.

Prabha Khaitan Foundation is inspired and guided by the life and works of Late Prabha Khaitan – a Over the past few decades, PKF has created a lot of cultural capital by building up a strong network of conscientious talented individuals and organisations across the globe for socio-cultural causes

“Prabha Khaitan Foundation is an innovator of various boutique literary events to promote literature, writings, art, wildlife conservation and culture. We undertake collaborative literature and cultural activity and projects with many Universities and like-minded people across the globe. The Foundation’s women initiative Ehsaas Women is a conglomeration of women from all walks of life who act as galvanising agents. We feel that culture is at the heart of development policy and it constitutes an essential investment in the world’s future. Late Dr Prabha Khaitan’s vision for a better tomorrow guides us,”said Ms Apra Kuchhal, Ehsaas Woman and honorary convener, Rajasthan and central India affairs of Prabha Khaitan Foundation.

“The Prabha Khaitan Foundation website highlights our effort to uphold the cultural capital of the country and promote Indian culture and literature in India and overseas. Literature, culture and heritage, basic education, women empowerment and social welfare are the five pillars of inspiration for the Foundation. Nearly 1000 initiatives spanning 35 cities in the world are listed on the website. It also hosts the monthly newsletters which are interactive and gives the visitor access to our events and articles by noteworthy names,” Manisha Jain, Communication and Branding Chief, Prabha Khaitan Foundation.

Recounting his life’s experience, Mr Gadkari said, “Those who do good work for the poor get their gratitude and blessings. I had an accident in 2004 near Nagpur and the vehicle with a red beacon was crushed. All who saw it felt no one could survive the accident. However, I, my wife, daughter, son, personal assistant and the driver survived. I tell people that I have helped thousands of heart patients in getting medical support and others get artificial limbs. I feel it was the force of their collective blessings that we survived.”

PKF also has branded boutique literary and social events like An Author’s Afternoon, Kitab, The Write Circle, EkMulakat, Lafz, Tete-a-Tea, Kalam etc., in over 35 cities, including London, New York and Dubai, thus providing a platform to the eminent and aspiring writers, artists and performers.

1. Pic 1 Battle of Belonging
News

Kitab launches Shashi Tharoor’s book “The Battle of Belonging”; literary bigwigs, politicians attend online event hosted by Prabha Khaitan Foundation

Nov 24, 2020 by Gouri Achary 0 Comments #David Davidar, #Farooque Abdullah, #Kitab, #Makarand Paranjape, #Mr Hamid Ansari, #Ms Apra Kuchhal, #Pavan K Varma, #Prabha Khaitan Foundation, #Shashi Tharoor, #The Battle of Belonging

Politician-author Shashi Tharoor’s latest book “The Battle of Belonging” was formally launched at the Prabha Khaitan Foundation’s signature event Kitab by Chief Guest Mr Hamid Ansari, former Vice-President of India, Farooque Abdullah, Chairman J&K National Conference, David Davidar, novelist and publisher, Pavan K Varma, former Rajya Sabha MP and diplomat, Makarand Paranjape, Director IIAS. Author Shashi Tharoor shared details of his inspiration for writing “The Battle of Belonging” and made a passionate plea to read this deeply-researched work.

The online event, organized by Prabha Khaitan Foundation in association with Aleph Book Company, was flagged off by Ms Apra Kuchhal of Ehsaas Women and moderated by journalist Karan Thapar. Guests from the country and abroad joined in at the web event for a stimulating discussion and critical appraisal of Shashi Tharoor’s 22nd book which delves into current social, political and cultural issues confronting India.

All the guests lauded Shashi Tharoor’s latest book and its potential to trigger a serious debate on many issues pertaining to India but did not shy away from contesting some of the core concepts like nationalism, patriotism, civic nationalism, the idea of India and others elaborated in the book.

Mr Hamid Ansari opened up the lively discussions saying, “This is a passionate plea for an idea of India that was taken for granted and is now seemingly endangered by ideologies that seek to segment it on imagined criteria of us and them. Shashi Tharoor has dilated on the essential ingredients of Indianness as understood in the freedom struggle and in the subsequent seven decades of the Republic of India. I found the essays on identity and patriotism particularly enlightening. The book’s analysis is comprehensive, yet it stops short of suggesting a doable recipe for correcting the shortfalls.”

David Davidar of Aleph Book Company, publisher of the book, said, “I hope every Indian will read the book. It is a remarkably learned, even-handed and lucid study of foundational ideas and concepts and national values. This book falls in the rarest-of-rare `Indispensable’ category – books you cannot do without. I hope people will be reading and discussing “The Battle of Belonging” fifty years from now.”

Describing the reasons for penning this book, Shashi Tharoor said, “This book is the culmination of a lifetime’s thoughts, readings and arguments on issues of nationalism and patriotism which are not just theoretical or academic but intensely personal too. The book was prompted by the rise of a fundamental challenge to the very essence of Indian nationalism. The book offers one observer’s note towards an understanding of nationalism in the world against specificity in India today. India’s own anti-colonial nationalism converted itself into a `civic nationalism’ encoded in a democratic Constitution and then the conflict over contemporary attempts to convert that into a religious-cultural nationalism. That is the battle of belonging to India and having India belong to you. Those are the principal themes in the book.”

The author feels the nationalism being promoted in India today is a totalising vision that excludes citizens, those who do not subscribe to it, on the basis of identity or immutable markers like ethnicity, religion, language and so on. In contrast, civic nationalism, he thinks, is anchored in institutions and constitutions. Civic nationalism derives from the consent of citizens to participate in a free and democratic society and best safeguards individual rights and hence must be promoted and protected above all.

In his book, Tharoor says patriotism and nationalism are different. A patriot is ready to die for his country; a nationalist is ready to kill for his country. Some of the live panellists at Kitab did not agree with this distinction with Pavan K Varma calling it an “intellectual quibble”.

Responding to a question from Karan Thapar, Farooque Abdullah said, “Today we are being divided on religion, caste, creed and language. Are we making a strong India or killing the very essence of it! Shashi has done a great job writing this book. I must tell you one thing, tyrants may come and go but nations continue to survive. We have to fight against forces that divide us on the basis of religion, caste creed and language.”

Paranjape Marakand, poet and novelist, disagreeing with the author on many topics, said, “The idea of India is highly and hotly contested today and the Nehruvian consensus with which many of us grew up has now probably crumbled to dust. This is one of Shashi’s books and should open up serious debates but I don’t think India is a country which practices `civic nationalism’. I think ours is `civilisational nationalism’ and is always plural. Shashi has considered the Indian Constitution almost like a sacred text which cant be changed. But it has been changed 103 times. The 42nd Amendment pushed through during the Emergency, Sovereign Democratic Republic of India suddenly became a Socialist and Secular in addition. Who believes in the common property. We are not socialists. We are living a lie, hypocrisy. Let us not kid ourselves as all our politics are based on caste calculations, linguistic calculus, religion and caste.”

Pavan K Varma called it an important book in which Shashi has invested his cerebral energy to project and propagate a point of view which is very relevant. On a dissenting note, Mr Varma said, “All religious extremes are bad, including Islamic fundamentalism, which I notice you don’t speak about in your book at all. And if there are sanctuaries for it in any parts of India, I think, they should equally be the focus of your attack so that the book does not appear to be one-sided. I really cannot understand what is a `civic nationalism’ for a country which goes back to the dawn of time and whose civilisational legacy is something we find very difficult to ignore and contributed to any idea of India that we may have recently formed. Why do we need to devise this sanitised notion called civil nationalism which privileges a recent Constitution as it should be but posits it against any unwarranted cultural infusions as though that was the intention of the constitution-makers.”

Pavan K Varma highlighted the distortions of secularism in practice in India and the backlash. He said, “There are many Indians today who are taking elements of what constitutes the idea of India and examining them again by questioning – Why did Mahatma Gandhi support the Khilafat movement? Why did Nehru write to Dr Rajendra Prasad not to attend the inauguration of the renovated Somnath temple? Why were personal laws of only Hindus changed? Why was the Shah Bano case judgement overruled by an ordinance? These are questions we are familiar with. We are not excavating the past for creating present-day acrimony. For a long time, these questions were never raised and so the idea of India remained uncontested. They are being raised now and we need to answer them. Mahatma Gandhi’s intentions were always good but we need to see what its consequences were.”

Kitab is a signature event of Prabha Khaitan Foundation of Kolkata conceptualised by Mr Sundeep Bhutoria which provides a forum for writers, poets, intellectuals and thinkers to launch their books and share their thoughts and views on varied topics leading to thought-provoking and stimulating intellectual discourses and discussions.

Cherie Blair and Mohini Kent
Business World

Prabha Khaitan Foundation unveils “Dear Mama” by Mohini Kent; Cherie Blair launches the book

Nov 11, 2020 by Gouri Achary 0 Comments #Abraham Lincoln, #Cherie Blair, #Dear Mama, #Einstein, #Mahatma Gandhi, #Mohini Kent, #Prabha Khaitan Foundation, #Sundeep Bhutoria

Dear MamaThe Prabha Khaitan Foundation, Kolkata, today announced the online launch of “Dear Mama”–a collection of intimate letters to their mothers – written by billionaires, spiritual gurus, members of the British House of Lords, political leaders, members of royal families, actors, entrepreneurs, journalists, photographers and doctors.

The book was formally launched by Cherie Blair, British barrister, writer and women’s rights activist, also the wife of former UK prime minister Tony Blair, at the Kitab online event presented by Shree Cement and joined in by hundreds of invitees from across the globe. Cherie Blair was in conversation with Mohini Kent, author and founder-chairperson of LILY Against Human Trafficking – a charitable organisation which works against the trade in human beings and child trafficking. The event was conducted by Swati Agarwal on behalf of Prabha Khaitan Foundation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, His Highness The Dalai Lama, Cherie Blair, Sir Cliff Richard, G P Hinduja, Sri M, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Arshad Warsi, Dr Karan Singh, Sir Mark Tully, Sharmila Tagore, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Sundeep Bhutoria, Lord Parekh, K P Singh, and other eminent personalities, as well as common citizens, have written very personal letters to their mothers, especially for Mohini Kent’s book.

“It is a great honour for Prabha Khaitan Foundation to host the unveiling of `Dear Mama’ which is a stupendous collection of letters to one’s mothers and which evokes deep feelings of love, emotion, compassion and inspiration. The formal launch was slated for March 2020 at an event in London but had to be postponed due to the Covid pandemic. It was a very touching experience for me to write a letter to my late mother for the book,” said Sundeep Bhutoria, Trustee, Prabha Khaitan Foundation.

Mother is the first guru and guide of the children. Mahatma Gandhi, Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, the Buddha and others owed a debt to their mothers. Even HRH Prince Charles publicly addressed the Queen as ‘Mummy’ at Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. But some mothers betrayed their daughters, who were sold as slaves. The letters of those girls in this book speak of heartbreak, trauma, loss and betrayal.

Mohini Kent has written the book in aid of her charity, Lily Against Human Trafficking. The books is available online on Flipkart and Amazon India and all the proceeds would go to LILY Against Human Trafficking

Cherie Blair, the human rights lawyer, is the Chancellor of the Asian University for Women; Governor of the London School of Economics; a founding member of Omnia Strategy LLP; and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women supports women entrepreneurs in developing countries. She lives in London with her husband, Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the UK.

Lady Mohini Kent Noon is an author, film-maker, charity worker and journalist. She is the Founder Chairperson of Lily Against Human Trafficking. And Global Envoy in the UK of the International Buddhist Confederation. She is the author of several books, including Black Taj, a novel, and Nagarjuna: The Second Buddha. She has written and directed feature films, documentaries, and worked with Sir Ben Kingsley. Her stage plays include Rumi: Unveil the Sun. She also hosts spiritual teaching tours in the UK.

Excerpts from the book “Dear Mama”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “Mother is the ever-flourishing spring of inspiration and our strength to overcome all the challenges.”

HH the Dalai Lama: “My mother was my first teacher of compassion. Those who receive affection from their mothers as children have much greater inner peace in their adult lives.”

Cherie Blair: “When I was called to the Bar in 1976, you were the only parent entitled to be part of my achievement. I wanted you to be acknowledged.:

Sir Cliff Richard: “Death is never fair. You gave us life – me, Donna, Jacqui and then Joan – and death took yours. But… he couldn’t take our memories.”

G.P. Hinduja: “It is said that God created mothers because He could not be everywhere.”

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw: “Not many daughters can boast of the fact that their mother is a successful entrepreneur at the age of 87. This fiery independent streak is what I have inherited from you. You have been a pillar of great strength and inspiration to me.”

Sharmila Tagore: “I have taken you for granted. I never told you how much I appreciated your cooking (and) your talent with jokes.”

Yogi Sri M: “I beg forgiveness (from my mother) when her beloved son ran away to the Himalayas and was given up for dead. (She) welcomed me after years when I came back as a wandering yogi. Only a mother can do that.”

Rakesh Omprakash Mehra: “Like an ocean, she had the capacity to receive the rivers of pain, purify it, and rain it back on us like love. They say you passed away, but in my daughter, I feel you come back, in my wife I feel your loving and caring. For me, LILY is an ode to every mother.”

Arshad Warsi: “The first thing I need to do, in fact, every son and daughter needs to do, is apologising for not being able to match up to the unconditional love mothers have for their children.”

Shonali Bose: “All of my films – Amu, Margarita with a Straw, The Sky is Pink -have been about the mother-daughter relationship and death. That’s because you were so central to my life till your shocking death when I was 21.”

Milkha Singh: “Our home was in Multan. Then we heard India was going to be partitioned. A Muslim mob came for us with their guns. Father shouted: ‘Bhaag Milkha! Don’t look back!’ When it was quiet, I went back, but they had killed you, everyone. My last memory of you is lying on your body and weeping.”

Khalid Mohamed: “You lost your only child Zubeida in an air crash. We only found mangled parts of her body on the site. When my mother Zubeida perished, you were my protector and live-giver. Fayazi Ma, it’s your 25thdeath anniversary, and I assure you I am OK.”

Dr Karan Singh: “She was highly compassionate and caring, and I learnt a great deal from her. I learnt the beautiful Dogra-Pahari folk songs that she used to sing on festive occasions. In our culture, the mother has a very special place. There are our physical mothers, but at a deeper level in Hinduism, the mother goddess appears in many forms.”

Raghu Rai: “When the partition took place, I was just five. Little did I understand what it meant for my mother to look after ten children without any help. My mother wove a magic thread to keep a large family happy and united at a low cost.”

Vijay Khattar: “Though you were deaf and mute since birth, you remain the most expressive person I’ve known. I wondered what it must be like. I feared the weight of silence. When the political trouble started in Kashmir were forced to leave because of the killings. You made this difficult and uncertain time easier for the family.”

Puri, and shiv kumar
News

“I was guided by some divine force all my life,” reveals santoor maestro Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma

Sep 26, 2020 by Gouri Achary 0 Comments #Ek Mulakat, #Osho Ashram, #Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, #Prabha Khaitan Foundation

“Some divine force has guided me all through my life and my whole focus was on santoor. Concerts or no concerts, music is here in the heart and mind and goes on all the time,” said India’s octogenarian santoor legend Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma at a scintillating online session of Ek Mulakat Visesh presented by Shree Cement and organized by Prabha Khaitan Foundation of Kolkata. He was in conversation with the author, biographer and art curator, Ina Puri, while connected to hundreds of music lovers and fans from the big and small towns of India.

Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma single-handedly catapulted santoor – an unknown 100-stringed (shatatantri veena) musical instrument – to the hallowed portals of classical Indian musical instruments and music. “My father (Uma Dutt Sharma) was a great knowledgeable musician from the Banaras Gharana. It was his idea to bring santoor into classical music. He had the vision to do so at a time when it was unthinkable as classical instruments like sarod, veena, sitar and others held sway. He did the initial research work and it was a long struggle but was destined to happen,” said santoor maestro Pt Sharma who started his life’s early musical journey as a vocalist and tabla player.

Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma gave santoor an identity and contributed to its global popularity. He was also the first to introduce santoor to Indian films. “I was at a concert in Mumbai in 1955 and film director V Shantaram’s daughter Madhura Ji came up to me and introduced me to her father. Later, I played santoor for the first time in my life for his film Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje and santoor came into Indian films,” said Pt Sharma who has composed many musical hits for films like Silsila, Lamhe, Chandni, Faasle and others as Shiv-Hari duo in collaboration with ace flautist Hari Prasad Chaurasia.

Pandit ji holds an open-minded approach towards music but never compromises on the purity of music. He had forged deep lifelong relationships with other artists like Late Pandit Jasraj and Hari Prasad Chaurasia and enriched the traditional Indian music through collaborations.

The maestro reminisced how the legendary singer Kishore Kumar, aware of Pandit Ji’s classical music background, had initially refused to sing for the film Silsila – whose music he was composing – saying that he wasn’t a trained classical singer. “We taped the songs and sent it to him and after hearing it he readily agreed,” Pt Sharma said.

Responding to a question about how the audience has changed over the years, Pt Sharma said, “Audience and reaction of people changes according to the changes in the society. Till the 50s we used to play for long duration as people had more time and the tickets were not so expensive. Over time, the changing of the workplace and other things put together, we had to change our presentation accordingly. I remember I used to travel in America and play for four hours with a half-an-hour break. And now, even in India, the concert’s duration is one or one-and-half hours due to many factors. I would not say the quality has changed but the quantity has changed.”

Pandit ji’s advice for aspiring artists – hard work, total focus and dedication – are the key factors. Luck cannot replace it, without hard work there is no luck. Pandit ji while accepting virtual concerts as the need of the hour felt that it could never create the kind of feeling which concerts have.

Replying to a question – How important is it to have a Bollywood connection for success? – Pt Sharma said that he doesn’t think it is important to have a film industry connection to be successful as there are many musicians who have never been connected to the film industry.

The maestro who is into meditation, recounted one of his many spiritual experiences in life while playing santoor. “I played santoor at the Osho Ashram in Pune for an hour. In the end, there was no clapping. All the people sat on with closed eyes. I left without disturbing them,” he said.

Reflecting on the life under COVID, Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma said that it was a great time for looking inward and to realise who you are. Suddenly we are face to face with a reality that brings in a different kind of realisation and we learn many things about life and nature.

The Ek Mulakat series of webinars and events are organized by Kolkata-based Prabha Khaitan Foundation connecting artistes, achievers, cultural aficionados, thinkers and authors with people across India and other continents.