Rajdeep Sardesai, Editor-in-Chief of CNN – IBN & IBN 7 will deliver the eighth Kamala Saikia memorial lecture in Guwahati on August 9 (Sunday). The programme will begin at 4 pm in the auditorium of Vivekananda Kendra at Uzan Bazar of the city.
Organised by the Journalist Kamala Saikia Memorial Trust in association with Guwahati Press Club, the function will witness the felicitation to two veteran Assamese journalists DN Bezboruah (former editor of The Sentinel) and Radhika Mohan Bhagawati (editor of Dainik Batori).
Presently the president of Editors’ Guild of India, Sardesai is an Oxford University passed out and he was honoured with a number of national and international awards including Sanskriti and Padmashree Award. Son of a former India Test batsman Dilip Sardesai, Rajdeep has special interest on cricket, media and politics.
The JKSM trust, formed in the memory of journalist and freedom fighter Kamala Saikia-who was killed by the militants belonged to United Liberation Front of Assam on August 9, 1991-has been organizing the programme, where some of the outstanding editor-journalists of South Asia were invited to deliver the lecture primarily on the media and society.
Writing a piece on Dr Bhupen Hazarika, widely addressed as Bhupen-da by billions of his fans and well wishers around the music world, appears to be a difficult job always. A genius of our time, who shaped the Assamese music and film industry for decades, Bhupen-da is known for his creations, performances and visibility whenever there was crisis in our society. A divine singer and an outstanding orator who nurtured poems while addressing the audience, Bhupen-da made the music lover across Eastern India, Bangladesh and Nepal astonished with his crisp voice, enlightened lyrics and sweet interactions with the common people. A recent release titled Bhupen-da...
After months of uncertainties, the Press Council of India (PCI) recently got its chairman, but the space of 13 working journalists remains vacant till date. Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, who served as the PCI chairman from 17 June 2022 to 16 December 2025, assumed the charge on 24 April 2026 once again. The retired judge of the Supreme Court of India was nominated for another term of three years. But the quotas for working journalists remain vacant as seven members, to be represented by professional scribes (other than editors) and six members, to be represented by journalist-editors, are yet to be picked up to complete the 15th council (https://presscouncil.nic.in/CurrentMemberPCI.aspx...
After Assam, Keralam and Puducherry (union territory), the State legislative assembly elections are knocking at the doors of Tamil Nadu and West Bengal in the second half of April 2026. Meanwhile, the millions of voters have shown an extraordinary commitment to electoral politics as they participated in the largely peaceful single-phase assembly polls on 9 April recording a high voters’ turnout. Assam recorded 85.96% voter participation in 126 assembly seats, where Puducherry showcased over 90% voting in 30 constituencies followed by Keralam (140 seats) with nearly 80% turnout.
Assam’s 2.50 crore electorates (including 1.25 crore female voters and 6.4 lakh first-timers...
As Assam goes to the single-phase polling tomorrow (9 April 2026), nearly 2.49 crore registered voters (including 5.75 lakh young/first time voters) will exercise their franchise to elect 126 representatives for the State legislative assembly. Under the guidelines of Election Commission of India, all types of campaigning had already came to a halt at 5 pm on Tuesday (48 hours prior to voting) where the authority urged all candidates, political parties, and media outlets to strictly follow the guidelines. The same timeline is made applicable for Kerala and Pondicherry as well, whereas Tamil Nadu will vote on 23 April, and West Bengal going for polling on 23 and 29 April next....
Landlocked Himalayan nation Nepal prepares for its ninth national election on 5 March, which was necessitated with the collapse of its government in Kathmandu during September last year following an anti-corruption mass uprising, which was initiated by the young people and resulted in the killing of dozens of agitators and injuring hundreds other. The south Asian country of around 30.55 million people, sandwiched between two giants India and Tibet/China, has readied all necessary arrangements for the single day polling through ballot papers under the protection of nearly 3,50,000 security personnel (with additional armed forces kept ready for an unwanted emergency situation...
Even all political parties, not to speak of millions of fans and well-wishers of Assam’s revered cultural icon Zubeen Garg, continue preaching for sparing the maverick singer’s name in doing politics, his mysterious death last year in a foreign land may dominate the electoral politics in the forthcoming legislative polls. Indications surface that Assam assembly elections (scheduled for March-April 2026 along with West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry) will observe a high voltage campaigning on Zubeen’s unexplained demise in Singapore on 19 September 2025 and subsequent investigation and judicial processes. Even after five months of his final departure, Zubeen continues...
As Bangladesh has constituted a new government under the leadership of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) after a largely fair & peaceful national election on 12 February 2026, the people of eastern India (the region virtually embraces the poverty stricken country except a few kilometers in Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal) hope for a progressive regime in Dhaka enjoying political stability and pursuing economic developments to over 170 million people in the south Asian nation. The Muslim majority country continues to grow as a headache for the north-eastern states, more precisely Assam, for at least two reasons namely unabated influx of migrants and regional security...
Amid high security arrangements across the country, polling begins this morning at 7:30 am for the highly projected 13th Jatiya Sansad election in Bangladesh, where over 2000 candidates representing 50 political parties along with many independent contestants are in the fray. The Muslim majority nation has over 12.77 crore registered voters including 6.27 crore women and 1,232 third-genders, who are voting for electing 299 representatives (out of 300 seats in the national assembly). Over 42,000 polling centres will facilitate the electorates to exercise their franchise (through ballots in person) till 4:30 pm (on 12 February 2026). The election will be conducted...
As Bangladesh heads for 13th Parliamentary election and the referendum on July National Charter simultaneously on Thursday (12 February 2026), the interim government chief Professor Muhammad Yunus urged all participating candidates to rise above personal and party interests to prioritize greater interest of the Muslim majority nation regardless of the poll-outcomes. Addressing the nation of over 170 million people ahead of the much watched electoral exercises, Nobel peace laureate Dr Yunus commented that victory as well as defeat is an integral part of democracy and hence after the election, they should dedicate themselves to build a new, just, democratic, and inclusive...
Is it possible to have a quasi-judicial body like the Press Council of India to survive for weeks without its chairperson? Should the largest democracy on Earth put such an example where its government recognized autonomous media watchdog faces an existential crisis as the 15th council of PCI still devoid of a functioning head and 13 seats? How come a press council runs its business without filling these 13 seats, meant for millions of media professionals, for more than a year now, whereas the term of a council is limited to three years only? Many such pertinent questions emerge among media professionals in the south Asian nation, as the regular three-year term (as well as...
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