MELANMAI Ponnusamy, a doyen among the progressive writers in Tamil Nadu and a Sahitya Akademi awardee, passed away in Chennai on October 30 after a brief illness. He was the founder of the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artistes Association (TNPWAA) in the 1970s.Hailing from Melanmarai Nadu of Virudhunagar district, Ponnusamy studied up to Class V and thereafter along with his younger brother Karikalan went to Thanjavur where the duo supplied sweetmeats to shops. After some time, they went back to their native village where they opened a grocery.

JANA Natya Manch, Delhi organised an all India meeting of street theatre activists from August 13-15. There were 28 street theatre activists from 12 states who participated in the three-day meeting that was held at Studio Safdar, Shadi Khampur. The agenda of the meeting was to share stories about each other’s work and discuss strategies to counter the rising Hindutva forces through cultural resistance.Each day was divided in three broad sessions.

One daythe apoliticalintellectualsof my countrywill be interrogatedby the simplestof our people. They will be askedwhat they didwhen their nation died outslowly,like a sweet firesmall and alone. SOME of us may be familiar with these verses from a poem titled “Apolitical Intellectuals” by Otto Rene Castillo. Fifty years ago, in March 1967, when he had barely crossed thirty years of age, this Guatemalan poet, a revolutionary and a guerilla fighter, was ambushed and captured along with another member of the guerrilla group, Nora Paiz and 13 local campesinos.

IT was as if we were watching a recap of the year.The first play to be performed at Dr Ambedkar Park, Jhandapur, Sahibabad – the place where Safdar Hashmi and Ram Bahadur were killed 28 years ago – was on demonetisation. It was done by a group of school girls from NOIDA, and they spoke about a number of issues around the central theme, including unemployment.Following this, young actors from Jan Sanskriti, Delhi, did a hard hitting piece about the cultural appropriation by the Hindutva forces.

THE constitution of India under Article 14 guarantees each and every individual irrespective of any caste, class or gender differentiation the right to equality. Unfortunately, under the aegis of the current ruling dispensation there have been repeated attempts to curtail this fundamental right in case of certain groups including dalits and other marginalised sections of the society. To bring to light the everyday violation of this right as perceived by the dalits an evening of protest songs and music was held on September 15, 2016 at Mavalankar Hall, New Delhi.