Cerys Matthews - Tauseef Akhtar & Rachel Dwyer: Poetry, Playback and the Magic of Hindi Cinema - BBC Sounds A journey into Bollywood’s poetic voices, live ghazals and the craft of playback song.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Now on BBC Radio Six, Professor Emeritus @racheldwyer.bsky.social is talking about Bollywood cinema!!

Asha Bhosle Live 'In Aankhon Ki Masti' at BBC Studio YouTube video by Prateek Luthra

RIP Asha Bhosle
▶️ youtu.be/Irv2cnM_63Y

Mayflower hero was secretly sold into slavery, hidden files reveal Crumbling documents discovered in a Malaga archive expose how an English merchant used a legal fiction to sell Squanto and other indigenous captives in 1614

First Nations Mayflower hero was sold into slavery, files in Malaga Archives reveal

www.thetimes.com/article/1306...

Artemis II crew blast into orbit with historic moon launch Four astronauts buckle in for a journey to space that will take them to parts of the moon never seen before — and could help chart a future to Mars

Oh good, they found some fuel.

Artemis II crew blast into orbit with historic moon launch
www.thetimes.com/article/0a36...

Here are a few close-ups from the image above, showing a nautch at Delhi in 1838, hosted by Colonel James Skinner (British Library, Add.Or.2598). Spot the opera glasses!!

Three dancing girls on a terrace accompanied by five musicians. Behind them is a marble pavilion draped with textiles. Women sit watching the performers on either side. By a Delhi artist, c.1838. The drawing is inscribed, "A Nautch at Col. Skinner's given to me by himself 1838." British Library, Add.Or.2598.

Pleased to be sharing this open access article, authored by Radha Kapuria (Durham), Shweta Sachdeva Jha (Delhi) and myself. It's the intro for a JRAS volume we co-edited on "The Travelling Female Performer in South Asia". www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Congratulations on publishing this important paper!!!

Last princess of Punjab who saved families from the Holocaust Catherine Duleep Singh helped people flee Nazi Germany. She and her sisters, including a prominent suffragette, are the subject of a Kensington Palace exhibition

Exhibition at Kensington palace on the daughters of Duleep Singh, the Maharaja of the Sikh Empire. Last princess of Punjab who saved families from the Holocaust

www.thetimes.com/article/e6d7...

Museum shrouds slave trader portrait to ‘reclaim Caribbean history’ London Museum Docklands partially concealed the portrait of Beeston Long, a former governor of the Bank of England, as part of its exhibition

Museum of London Docklands shrouds portrait of slave trader Beeston Long to ‘reclaim Caribbean history’

www.thetimes.com/article/4d3e...

DrJennifer Howes. "Madras to London: East India Company Artworks in the 18th Century". Mar 7, 2026 YouTube video by Tamil Heritage Trust

“From Madras to London: East India Company artworks in the 18th century.” My lecture, hosted by the Tamil Heritage Trust… www.youtube.com/live/LzVhkb5...

Photograph showing an unexploded missile half-buried nose-down in a Syrian field with a small boy climbing it, barely reaching to the high bottom rim. In the background are a flock of sheep on the left and a couple distant figures on the right, one on a motorcycle. The colors are vividly reddish-brown and green, apart from the black missile and grey sky. Everything’s in relatively sharp focus except the back right, where the flat fields meet the horizon the earth/buildings/sky blur slightly like an oil painting can.

This image from Baderkhan Ahmed for the AP can be used to make a lot of valid political and biosafety points, and I assume Banksy will appropriate it, but my goodness what a brilliant photograph. Alt text. www.instagram.com/p/DVewWwyiOR...

I don’t discuss preferred alternatives in the article! I just describe the antiquarian usages of the sculptures. Some of them are pretty odd!

An ancient Buddhist sculpture from Amaravati showing a horse walking through a gateway. The sculpture became part of the British Museum's collections in 1880. Before that, it was used in the construction of a marketplace monument at Machilipatna, sent to the Madras Government Museum, and shipped to the India Museum in London.

For a limited time, you can download a free e-copy of my article, "Decolonising the Rescue Archive: Antiquarian usage of Amaravati sculptures in the British Museum". The article will be published in South Asian Studies journal later this year. Link on my website's homepage www.jenniferhowes.com

Happy Holi! Painting by an artist from Vellore, 1820s. @britishlibrary.bsky.social Add.Or.66, full page and detail showing women.

I’m giving an on-line lecture on Saturday March 7th about East India Company artworks! Joining instructions below.

Decolonising Western museums Last year, I attended a major conference on museums in Europe. Decolonisation was the big topic, and every session had debates about repatriation, provenance research

Great article on “Decolonising Western Museums” by Ganga Rajnee Dissanayaka www.themorning.lk/articles/QjO...

Decolonising the Rescue Narrative: Antiquarian Usage of Amaravati Sculptures in the British Museum Amaravati Stupa was the first Buddhist site in India to be systematically excavated by the British. Its first colonial excavation in 1816–17 led to 51 sculptures being removed from the site by amat...

My new article on Buddhist sculpture from Amaravati has now been published on-line! It will appear in print later this summer, in a special journal issue on “South Asian Collections in European Museums”. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I don't think it is only our job to teach students how to read long novels; it may also be our jobs to teach them how to live without an online surveillance state. To learn without intrusive apps. To swap notes. To write in a book's margins. To exist in their communities in slow, clunky, human ways.

Nizam II on a Hunting Expedition - Rai Venkatachallam - Google Arts & Culture Framed painting in Deccani style with Rai Venkatachallam, the court artist, also the painter of this scene. A royal procession of Asaf Jahi ruler Nizam Ali...

Late 18th Century painting of a royal hunting scene in the planes of Golconda, led by Nizam Ali Khan of Hyderabad. In the painting's top right hand corner, the famous female poet and performer, Mah Laqa Bai Chanda, observes the scene from her palanquin.
g.co/arts/E8r3oEH...

I took this photo of Rajpath, New Delhi, in 1997. It is digitised from a 35 mm slide.

I took this photo or Rajpath, New Delhi, on Tuesday 27 January 2026 (the day after Republic Day) with my phone.

Delhi Rajpath, 1990s and 2026.

Bronze statue of Queen Victoria by George Frampton. Completed in 1901, installed in the gardens in front of Kolkata’s Victoria Memorial Hall.

Bronze statue of Queen Victoria by George Frampton. Completed in 1901, installed in the gardens in front of Kolkata’s Victoria Memorial Hall.

In Kolkata, before Republic Day, Queen Victoria has a bath whether she needs it or not.

Yes! Find out what the statue means to them!!

Statue of Robert Clive by John Tweed, in the Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata. Sculpted in London along with an identical bronze statue of Clive that was installed on the “Clive Steps” in Whitehall, next to the old India Office building.

Statue of Robert Clive by John Tweed, in the Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata. Sculpted in London along with an identical bronze statue of Clive that was installed on the “Clive Steps” in Whitehall, next to the old India Office building.

This marble statue of Robert Clive, the notorious East India Company soldier and crook, has become a favourite place to take photos in the Victoria Memorial Hall Kolkata.

Intermission, Raj Mandir Cinema, Jaipur

Rajasthani puppets moving in procession over a sea of people, Jaipur Lit Fest 2026.

“Sleep Over”. Gilbert & George dressed in matching tweed suits, sleeping on a bed of bones. Great shoes.

Bye-bye, 2025!

A little pug with a pint of lager in a traditional English pub.

Merry Christmas!!!

Yes! Weird, isn’t it?!

Founded in the 1670s. Here’s a map of the territory it covered.