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The Jashn-e-Rekhta conundrum: Can a cultural festival scale without losing its soul

December 27, 2025 6:04 pm

Tiered tickets, elite access, and the debate over Jashn-e-Rekhta's soul.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah

From the Urdu Press: 'Congress should factor in Tharoor for Kerala bid', 'Siddaramaiah govt must address hate Bill concerns'

December 17, 2025 2:38 pm

“If the Opposition INDIA bloc joins the Congress’s campaign against vote chori, it may turn into a countrywide stir posing a formidable challenge to the BJP,” writes Urdu Times

Jashn-e-Rekhta, Urdu legacy, cultural gathering, Orchestral Qawwali Project,

As Jashn-e-Rekhta turns 10, festival continues to celebrate Urdu and its cultural legacy

December 05, 2025 9:54 pm

The festival that opened with a conversation with veteran poet Gulzar will feature conversations with Javed Akhtar, mushairas, concerts — even a qawwali featuring a western symphonic orchestra.

He also called for deeper literary engagement and a broader, revitalised Urdu ecosystem beyond poetry.

‘There is much more to Urdu than ghazals’ says author Khalid Jawed

November 14, 2025 10:43 pm

JCB award-winning Urdu author Khalid Jawed will discuss his latest book in city today

What Arfa Sayeda Zehra taught us about Urdu, ethics and grace

November 14, 2025 3:52 pm

Through her career, she showed that speech without compassion and ethics empties both language and faith of meaning

Why the Hindi vs Urdu debate is inaccurate

September 23, 2025 9:13 am

Urdu is known to have originated in the armed forces of the Mughal Empire, and was in no way tied to religion.

In not standing for Javed Akhtar’s right to free speech, what West Bengal government reveals about itself

September 03, 2025 2:19 pm

Intellectual freedom is never a given. It is always precarious, always contested, and therefore always worth defending against those who would prefer silence to questioning

In, 'Whose Urdu Is It Anyway?' Rakhshanda Jalil reclaims a shared language beyond religion, tracing its many voices from India’s past to its contested present.

‘Urdu is as Indian as anybody or anything can be regarded as Indian’: Rakhshanda Jalil

August 29, 2025 7:52 pm

Once India’s common language, Urdu is now boxed as Muslim identity. Dr Rakhshanda Jalil’s anthology reclaims it as India’s shared, many-voiced, culturally composite inheritance.

The true story of how Hindi emerged — and how it was politicised

August 12, 2025 5:30 pm

Colonial-era missionaries did not “create” Hindi. They did, however, wittingly or unwittingly, play a key role in aligning language with religion, a move that continues to reverberate in modern India’s linguistic and communal politics