TWENTY Six years have elapsed since Safdar Hashmi was felled, while in performance, to the blows of the assassins. The play being performed was Halla Bol, in support of workers' demand of minimum wages. JANAM (Jana Natya Manch) came back to the site of the attack to complete the performance of the play on January 4 that year. On January 1, 1990, Janam performed a play here Natak Jari Hai, The play is going on. Indeed the show must go on, the show is going on.

Below are the excerpts of the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Lecture delivered by Sitaram Yechury on November 22, 2014. The memorial lecture was organised by the Jana Natya Manch.

VI

This hegemony of the `ideas' of ruling classes, as Gramsci explains, is not enforced merely by the State.The State is only the "outer ditch" behind which stands a powerful system of "fortresses and earth works", a network of cultural institutions and values which buttress the rule and domination of the ruling classes.

TO mark the 125TH birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT), in association with India International Centre, has organised a series of lectures by eminent personalities on the theme ‘Indian Modern and Nehru’. The first of these talks was held on 22 November 2014. The talk was delivered by eminent historian Professor Irfan Habib. He spoke on ‘Jawaharlal Nehru and Indian National Movement’. The talk, which was chaired Professor Mushirul Hasan, was attended by a large number of people from various walks of life.

THE South African Nobel-prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer, one of the most powerful voices against apartheid, died at the age of 90 on July 13, 2014 at her Johannesburg home.