Producer of radio documentaries. Passionate about radio, passionate about storytelling. Author of 'ONCE THERE WAS A RANI'. Tea-addict. Northeast calling...
New Delhi, India
Joined June 2015
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Basudha Banerji retweeted
This literally gave me chills.
The testimony of a detainee who was taken by the police to a community centre in Pandwalan Khurd.
This is Horrific.
Basudha Banerji retweeted
A Delhi Policeman makes a carefully preplanned attempt to fondle Ms.Neha Bora's breasts during the Delhi Protest. He aims for her breasts with his palms, squeezes them, & pretends as if it was accidental. If this happens to a national leader with crores of followers with all major TV cameras recording, what protection does a young Indian lady have while entering public spaces/transport?
Basudha Banerji retweeted
Instagram has restricted this cartoon in India.
I am posting the cartoon again, along with the notice I received from Instagram.
According to the notice, access has been restricted in India “pursuant to a notice from the Government of India / Law Enforcement” and based on local laws.
The cartoon is still visible outside India.
A cartoon about the Election Commission has been stopped from being seen by Indians. When satire gets censored, perhaps the cartoon has made its point. 🇮🇳
#Censorship #FreeSpeech #Satire #PoliticalCartoon #FreedomOfExpression #ElectionCommission #MANJULtoons
Paying tribute through this 2016 feature of mine to #KanaklataBarua on her martyrdom day today. A story of intense patriotism, extreme courage and unswerving determination. #QuitIndiaMovement
youtu.be/69tnLrYCroE?si=CqL8…
The first time i recorded #DrBhupenHazarika for an @AkashvaniAIR programme was in 2005. You may tune in to find him just beyond the 15th minute
youtu.be/1LuUVOqhqr0?si=CHeQ…
#BhupenHazarikaCentenary
Basudha Banerji retweeted
Which freedom fighter suffered the longest incarceration during the colonial era?
Trailokya Nath Chakravarty was jailed for a total of 30 years. This included Mandalay jail in Burma with Subhas Bose and Cellular Jail in Port Blair with Savarkar.
As @chandrachurg and I write in our book "Conundrum: Subhas Bose's life after death", in 1939, at the behest of Subhas Bose, Trailokyanath met his old friends — Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, Pandit Paramanand, Veer Savarkar and his younger brother Ganesh in an attempt to organise an upsurge across the country. Didn't work out and Bose was soon out of India.
In 1963, Trailokya received secret message from a fellow revolutionary and very close aide of Bose that Subhas was alive and in UP at that time.
youtube.com/watch?v=UEvo7O64…
Do tune in to this @AkashvaniAIR radio feature to hear that rare recording of the Jana Gana Mana being played on 11 September 1942 at the Hotel Atlantic, Hamburg.
Five years before Independence!
#IndependenceDay
Basudha Banerji retweeted
Before you upload your selfie to Har Ghar Tiranga this Independence Day, know the risks.
Your photo goes into a public gallery, visible to anyone against your name, alongside a certificate. To upload it, you hand over your mobile number & OTP, on a site reportedly built by a private company and hosted on AWS, with a privacy policy that falls seriously short.
The state gets goodwill. You carry the risk of a breach. We're filing an RTI and writing to the Ministry of Culture. Share this so others know before they participate.
#HarGharTiranga #DigitalRights
Thank you @indigo for this service with a smile! Smart, dynamic staff Nitesh assisted me with check-in. Asked (by typing) whether i needed a wheelchair when he noticed my walking stick. Wearing a special badge that reads "I cannot hear or speak, but I will be happy to assist".
Basudha Banerji retweeted
The ultimate farce! While the nation demands accountability for exam scams & paper leaks, Govt appoints Naresh Pal Gangwar as the new Higher Education Secretary!
This is the same IAS officer whose mother, wife & son collectively received over ₹1.16 crore in government subsidies under the National Horticulture Board scheme for “encouraging commercial crops” (cucumber cultivation). This the way PM ensuring accountability..
Basudha Banerji retweeted
This Is Truly Heartwarming : ❤️
Specially-abled students at the CJP protest at Jantar Mantar are sharing their voices through sign language.👇
Basudha Banerji retweeted
An Open Letter to the Jantar Mantar protestors:
My dear young friends,
I address you today not as a politician or an MP, but as someone deeply troubled by what is happening to your generation of young Indians.
This is personal for me. I was born to a middle-class family: my father was a salaried newspaper employee, my mother a homemaker, with three children to educate on one income. For a family like ours, merit was not a slogan. Scholarships, fair examinations, honest results — these were the only way one salary could carry three children's dreams.
I went to school in Mumbai and Kolkata, to college here in Delhi, topped the University and earned admission into IIM — and chose instead to follow my passion for international affairs, in America, on a scholarship. Nothing was inherited; everything was earned by hard work and yes, Exams.
So I know that a fair, merit-based system is the only ladder for young people from lower and middle-income families to climb up. When that ladder is broken — papers leaked, examinations cancelled, trust destroyed — the children of the rich and powerful do not suffer. They have other ladders. It is your dreams, and your families' sacrifices (and tragically, in some homes, young lives themselves) that are betrayed.
To the young people gathered at Jantar Mantar, and those raising your voices peacefully across India: this country hears you. Your anger is not indiscipline — it is the anguish of a generation that did everything right and was still betrayed . You are not alone.
And to the millions of young Indians watching quietly: your generation is not a problem to be managed. You are the answer to India's future. Do not lose hope. This ladder will be rebuilt — by you, and by every Indian who stands with you.
To Shri Sonam Wangchuk-ji, my heartfelt appeal: please end your fast. You have awakened the conscience of the nation; that is what a fast is meant to do. India needs your voice for the long road ahead.
With Parliament in session again from Monday, we will have an opportunity to raise the students’ issues in the highest forum of our democracy. That’s where the problem should be addressed, not by fasting unto death. Please heed my plea.
And finally, to the Government: I respectfully urge you to reach out and engage in the dialogue our democracy owes its young citizens. That is not weakness; that is statesmanship.
Today is the 90th anniversary of the name #AllIndiaRadio being adopted. Sadly, the name was scrapped in 2023. Yet the day was observed with much fanfare as 90 years of #Akashvani (a name adopted in 1957). Perplexing to say the least
@prasoonjoshi_ @GauravDwivedi95
Happy to look back at this 2015 radio documentary tracing #Tagore's footsteps in Shillong. So grateful @anubhasen could be my partner in this dream project.
#RabindranathTagore
#RabindraJayanti youtu.be/n3bR2P9YrII?si=jAM1…
Basudha Banerji retweeted
My exit poll! As I leave #Bengal, it would be a disservice not to say this: I have come to deeply admire the way women inhabit space here. There is a quiet, almost subconscious elevation of women as independent beings . something that stands in stark contrast to the entrenched misogyny that still finds resonance across much of northern India. Perhaps it stems from a cultural understanding of shakti. A form of empowerment that manifests here in ways both subtle and profound, unlike anywhere else in the country, even in the south.
Any woman journalist who has covered political rallies across India will recognize the difference immediately. Other states, a crowd is not just a logistical challenge, it carries risk. the inevitability of wandering hands, the violation masked by chaos. Here, the crowds are no less dense, the air no less heavy with sweat and alcohol—but the hands, for the most part, do not grope. Men step aside to make way. When contact happens, as it inevitably does in chaos, there is visible embarrassment rather than entitlement. What you encounter is not chivalry, but something far rarer: equality. And equality feels far more meaningful. Was never a fan of chivalry in any case :)
There is more. Women politicians across party lines campaign with a striking freedom, aggressive, sharp, unapologetically irreverent, often using what would elsewhere be labelled as ‘masculine’ rhetoric. In most states, such behaviour would invite judgment, even censure. Here, it is met with acceptance, applause. What feels liberating to an outsider is, in Bengal, simply normal. What we frame as empowerment here is a cultural undercurrent.
I have covered four elections in this state, and each time I have returned with the same sense of awe. Bengal, meanwhile, ambles on with a certain bemusement, as if unaware of what sets it apart. But it is a big deal. And perhaps the most remarkable part is that Bengal does not think so.
Governments will come and go. One can only hope that this constant endures, not just how Bengal sees its women, but how, in many ways, it doesn’t. ♥️♥️♥️