26th March 2018 Kolkata, India
The pile of bricks was sitting just outside the entrance to the site. The humble brick has been used for the construction of buildings for longer than recorded history. The myth of a ‘mother earth’ or ‘earth goddess’ is as old. Many ancient civilisations worshiped a female deity who represented the fertility of the soil. […]
5th October 2017 Kolkata, India
I can’t think of anything to compare with the festival of Durga Puja. It is not just a religious festival with its own rituals. It is also a celebration of life. It is a time of renewal and forgiving. And probably many more things – it’s not an easy task for an outsider to get […]
3rd July 2017 Kolkata, India
We now have the ability to surround ourselves with images that we record on our mobile phones. But the best images remain in your head. The monsoon rains have arrived in Kolkata. I was in my official car travelling through the city in the middle of a heavy storm last week. We passed an old […]
16th June 2017 Kolkata, India
Sometimes a name sticks. We’ve just had elections in Britain. As a general rule, British government officials should not show bias to any political party, because we serve our political leaders when they hold government office, and not in their political party role. In the period between the announcement of elections and when they are […]
13th April 2017 Kolkata, India
There are many ways of gaining an education. Apart from the usual places like school, college and university, I’m a fan of travel and seeing new places (which partly explains why I became a diplomat). Meeting people who have very different lives can teach you a lot. And for a lucky few, there is all […]
31st March 2017 Kolkata, India
The cross over point is arriving soon, at some point early in 2021. This is when India becomes the world’s most populous country, according to population projections produced by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, of the United Nations. As of 2015, those in the cohort aged 25-29 years in China were the last […]
24th March 2017 Kolkata, India
I can’t find a good explanation for why they are called gardens. However, I’ve just seen a tea plantation or estate, as we tend to call them in Britain, and can understand why they are called tea gardens in India. Last weekend, I visited a tea garden in Assam, one of the main tea production […]
1st March 2017 Delhi, India
Earlier this month, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organised a seminar on the value of industrial designs, in collaboration with the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) in New Delhi. The seminar was part of CII’s Annual Knowledge Expo, and was therefore able to see participation from several representatives from the industry and academia. […]
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3rd February 2017 Kolkata, India
One of the clearest memories from my youth is of standing on a cricket field in early evening. The sun was relatively low in the sky but still high enough above the trees so as not to cast a shadow. There was a light breeze and the sunlight was reflected off the ground, which appeared […]
2nd December 2016 Kolkata, India
There are about 123 million cattle in India, so the Kolkata based Telegraph newspaper informed me recently. The paper was citing India’s 2012 national cow census. That’s a lot of cattle, or roughly one for every ten Indians. The equivalent number in Britain is 1.9 million. This is the size of the total dairy herd […]