Journalism

Partition of India was the biggest tragic event in the history of India which gave birth to a new nation “Pakistan” resulting in mass migration, uprooting the people from their lands and homes, causing communal riots and massacres on a large scale, abduction and rape of women, and all the miseries of migration. Many writers and filmmakers have tried to
recapture those tragic happenings and have rendered them in a creative manner. In many cases women are portrayed as a priced possession or an object of desire in films and literary works. The theme of separation inspired many mainstream films like Henna, Veera Zara, Challia, Pinjar, Gadar ek Prem Kahani, Earth, Khamosh Pani, Mammo, etc. These films
directly or indirectly dealt with the partition and the effects of post partition on the lives of women. The present research attempts to look at feminist aspect dealt with in films. The study will explore the issues of identity, displacement, forced conversions, sexual violence and their effects on women.

Violence and atrocities against people from lower castes have brought the discourse of subalterns to the forefront. Cinema is one of the mass media through which the issues of social justice have been projected. The portrayal of subaltern voices in Hindi cinema has been a topic of study. The popular cinema is seen by many as a way of entertainment which provides relief to the people from the harsh realities of life. Even if such an issue is taken up it is over- simplified to avoid the problems in the discourse. The portrayal of Dalits in cinema goes back to as early as 1934 with the release of Chandidas. Afterwards, films like Dharmatma (1935) and Achhut Kannya (1936) brought the issues of caste to the forefront. In the post independence era films like Sujata, Ankur, Nishant, Manthan, Damul, Bawandar, Sadgati, Bandit Queen, Lagaan, Aarakshan, Court, Shudra: The Rising, Chauranga, ManjhiThe Mountain Man, etc have discussed the issues of caste, and the oppression based on it. In our society women are discriminated not only on the basis of their gender but also on the basis of their caste and class. The discrimination and prejudices become harsh if a woman comes from lower caste. The scriptures denied education even to upper caste women. The position of Dalit women was worse. In the nineteenth century, the social reformers like Jyoti Rao Phule opened the first ever school for Dalit girls’ education in 1848 inviting the ire of Brahmins, and along with his wife Shavitri Bai Phule who taught in that school, he had to face expulsion from his home by his father. It culminated in Dr. Ambedkar taking up the cause of women for which he introduced the Hindu Code Bill in parliament which the Hindu orthodoxy prevented from being passed and he resigned from the cabinet in protest. He took up women’s cause in this bill, giving them the right to property and other matrimonial rights, including the right to divorce. The bill was later passed in bits and pieces. Dalit women face
triple suffering, first as Dalits, second as women, and third as class. They face violence, rape, discrimination, denial of education, etc. They are forced to do manual scavenging and become migrant labourers. Some of the films addressed these issues but the focus on their plight as a whole is missing. These films grapple with the problem as the solution to the problem is hard to achieve. The endings of these films are either idealistic or left open ended. Whereas others have simply failed to show the gravity of the issues related to Dalits. This paper tries to analyse the portrayal of Dalit women and the issues related to them in Hindi
cinema.

Introduction
Culture is a much complex term. It not only includes the
fine arts such as painting, drawing, music, dance etc., but
also includes literature, drama, media, science and technology,
knowledge, architecture, religion, philosophy, foods and
clothes etc., everything that is valuable and has been achieved
by mankind through ages. All have their origin in the
activities of man and nature, acting on each other. Man by his
activities transformed nature to suit to his needs. His existence
depends on either whatever is available to him in nature or
whatever he has produced by acting on nature. Therefore, the
process through which he produces his livelihood and which
sustains him is basic to him and the rest of the other things are
the results of this process and his relationship to his fellow
men, and are called as superstructures. Relationship of base
and superstructure in Marxist theory has been much discussed
and debated by various writers. Here, we will first discuss
Marx’s conception of it, its dimensions in various fields i.e.
philosophy, religion, culture, etc., and move on to Gramsci
and Raymond Williams’ analysis of it and their new concepts
regarding hegemony and the material conditions determining
the consciousness explaining the things more clearly rather
than the concepts of base and superstructure and the
clarifications of Engels to the questions raised in his time and
will try to understand that the concepts expressed by Gramsci
and Raymond Williams etc., are not new and we find them in
the writings of Marx and Engels but Marxism is not a static
but a living and evolving concept and these writers have not
denied or contradicted what has been laid down by the
founders of Marxism but further elaborated these concepts in
the more developed and modern situations. We will also try to
understand the workings of the hegemony in the field of
culture, media, literature and theatre both by the ruling classes and the emerging classes and how they have evolved in our
country and what are their effects.

Foreign programming on Indian television was largely dominated by American and British TV programmes until 2014, when a Hindi entertainment channel Zindagi, owned by Zee Entertainment Enterprises, began broadcasting syndicated television content from Pakistan. The channel's tagline Jodey Dilon Ko (uniting hearts) shaped the possibility for peaceful reconciliation between the two political rivals, India and Pakistan, by offering 'sarhad paar ki kahaaniyaan' (stories from across the border) to Indian audiences. The popularity of Pakistani serials in India may be observed against the backdrop of a television industry inundated with formulaic saas-bahu (mother-in-law/daughter-in-law) plotlines over the last decade. While Indian television and films have been a part of Pakistani popular culture for years, Pakistani serials like Humsafar (life partner, 2011) and Zindgai Gulzar Hai (life is a bed of roses, 2012) broadcast on Zindagi gave Indian audiences a peek into their neighbours' socio-cultural environment. These serials dismantled the conventional mediatised image of the distanced 'other' and redefined the former perception of 'foreign' as essentially 'Western' in Indian television programming. Through an analysis of new trajectories of flows between media peripheries that I term 'neo-global' flows, this article argues that Pakistani dramas broadcast on Zindagi between 2014 and 2016 offered a 'mediating space' to Indian audiences by maintaining a balance between Indian tradition and Pakistani modernity.

The relationship between the silver screen and stardom has been the focus of academic work for several decades. Despite the post-globalization expansion in the Indian mediascape, a rapid increase in the number of television channels, an exponential increase in television programming, and a never-ending production of television stars, small-screen stardom, however, has still not received the same kind of academic attention. With the arrival of Ekta Kapoor's Balaji telefilms in the early 2000s, the soap-opera genre on Indian Television introduced the audiences to melodramatic tales in the form of saas-bahu sagas. Kapoor's soaps gave birth to iconic characters like Tulsi, Parvati, Prerna and Jassi whom an average Indian woman adored, identified with and often held on a pedestal higher than that of film stars. Thus, the phenomenon of stardom, once associated with film actors, slowly found its manifestation in television actors. This paper aims to understand the discourse of the star-text that emerges in relation to the small-screen through the 'leading ladies' of the soap opera genre. The paper will explore

The nation-wide lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic has given way to an unprecedented situation that every individual is grappling with. In such uncertain times, television’s role has become significant in keeping the population indoors. This article examines how the re-broadcast of several old television programmes from the 1980s-90s have given a second life to the otherwise redundant television set. The article explores the significance of the re-telecast of TV programmes like Ramayana, Mahabharat and others beyond the political lens and demonstrates how they have challenged digital entertainment and brought back the traditional television viewing habits. The article also goes on to suggest the way forward for both the public broadcaster Doordarshan and private broadcasters post the current crisis.