Gopal Menon
   HOME
*





Gopal Menon
Gopal Menon (born 29 April 1974) is an Indian documentary film director, producer and cinematographer known for his activism through social action documentaries. He has made films on violence, religious fundamentalism, nationality question, state repression, human rights, environment, caste, gender and sexuality. Gopal Menon's notable works include ''"Hey Ram: Genocide in the Land of Gandhi"'', ''" Naga Story: The Other Side of Silence"'', ''"PAPA 2"'', ''"Resilient Rhythms"'', ''"Marching Towards Freedom"'' and ''"The Unholy War"''. Education He completed his BA in English from University of Calicut, Kerala and holds a Master’s in Business Administration from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore. He hasn't received any formal training in Film making Professional career Gopal started his film career with a documentary on the destruction of tropical evergreen forests in the Nilgiri biosphere. While still a student of Business Administration, he started working with the Pe ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Palakkad
Palakkad (), formerly known as Palghat, historically known as Palakkattussery is a city and municipality in the Indian state of Kerala. It is the administrative headquarters of the Palakkad District. Palakkad is most densely populated municipality and fourth densely populated city in Kerala. It was established before Indian independence under British rule and was known by the name Palghat. Palakkad is famous for the ancient Palakkad Fort, which is situated at the heart of the city and was captured and rebuilt by Hyder Ali in 1766. The city is situated about northeast of the state capital Thiruvananthapuram. The 18th-century Palakkad Fort has sturdy battlements, a moat, and a Hanuman temple on its grounds. North on the Kalpathy River, the 15th-century Viswanatha Swamy Temple is the main venue of the Ratholsavam chariot festival.The river Bharathappuzha flows through Palakkad. Palakkad is located on the northern bank of Bharathappuzha River. Palakkad was included in the South ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

North-East India
, native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , map_alt = Northeast india map.png , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = States , subdivision_name1 = , subdivision_type2 = Largest city , subdivision_name2 = Guwahati , subdivision_type3 = Major cities (2011 Census of India) , subdivision_name3 = [Baidu]  


picture info

Bihar
Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Bengal to the east, and with Jharkhand to the south. The Bihar plain is split by the river Ganges, which flows from west to east. On 15 November 2000, southern Bihar was ceded to form the new state of Jharkhand. Only 20% of the population of Bihar lives in urban areas as of 2021. Additionally, almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, giving Bihar the highest proportion of young people of any Indian state. The official languages are Hindi and Urdu, although other languages are common, including Maithili, Magahi, Bhojpuri and other Languages of Bihar. In Ancient and Classical India, the area that is now Bihar was considered the centre of political and cultural power and as a haven of learning. From Magadha arose India's first empire, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Musahar
Musahar or Mushahar are a Dalit community found in the eastern Gangetic plain and the Terai. They are also known as ''Banbasi''.The other names of the Musahar are Bhuiyan and Rajawar Their name literally means 'rat-eater' due to their main former occupation of catching rats, and there are many who are still forced to do this work due to destitution and poverty. Origins and history In Bihar, the word Musahar is said to be derived from the Bhojpuri ''mūs+ahar'' (literally ''rat eater''), on account of their traditional occupation as rat catchers. According to a local legend, Lord Brahma created man and gave him the horse to ride. The first Musahar decided to dig holes in the belly of the horse to fix his feet as he rode. This offended Lord Brahma, who cursed him and his descendants to be rat-catchers. Herbert Hope Risley, in his 1881 survey of castes and tribes of Bengal, speculated that the Musahars were an offshoot of the hunter-gatherer Bhuiya from the Chota Nagpur Plateau ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bezwada Wilson
Bezwada Wilson (born 1966) is an Indian activist and one of the founders and National Convenor of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), an Indian human rights organization that has been campaigning for the eradication of manual scavenging, the construction, operation and employment of manual scavengers which has been illegal in India since 1993. His work at SKA, a community-driven movement, has been recognized by the Ashoka Foundation which has nominated him a Senior Fellow. On 27 July 2016, he was honoured with the Ramon Magsaysay Award. He is an Ambedkarite. Early life Bezwada was born in 1966 in the Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) in Karnataka in Southern India. He is the youngest child of Bezwada Rachel and Bezwada Yacob, both belonging to the manual scavenging community. His father began working for the township in 1935 as a ''safai karamchari'', also called a manual scavenger, manually removing excreta from dry toilets. He attempted to find other manual labor but was unsucces ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Dalit
Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the Caste system in India, castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold Varna (Hinduism), varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming a avarna, fifth varna, also known by the name of ''Panchama''. Dalits now profess various religious beliefs, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, Islam. Scheduled Castes is the official term for Dalits as per the Constitution of India. History The term ''Dalit'' is a self-applied concept for those called the "untouchables" and others that were outside of the traditional Hindu caste hierarchy. Economist and reformer B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) said that untouchability came into Indian society around 400 CE, due to the struggle for supremacy between Buddhism and Historical Vedic religion, Brahmanism (an ancient term for Brahmanical Hinduism). Some Hindu priests befriended untouchables ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Papa 2
Papa II was an interrogation centre in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, operated by the Border Security Force (BSF) from the start of the Kashmir insurgency in 1989 until it was shut down in 1996. Background Every security force operating in Kashmir had its own interrogation centres in the state which included temporary detention centres at BSF, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and army camps. Detainees were first interrogated by the detaining security force for a period of time which ranged from several hours to several weeks. During this time no person was allowed to meet the detainee and the detainee was not produced before the court. Detainees suspected of being militants were handed over to Counter-Intelligence Kashmir (CIK) and are interrogated at Joint Interrogation Centres (JICs) where detention sometimes lasted for months. Papa II was one of several such centres in Kashmir. Lawyers in Kashmir told Asia Watch in 1993 that they had filed approximately 15,000 peti ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspectives, including the concepts of moral correctness based on ethics, rationality, law, religion, equity and fairness. The state will sometimes endeavor to increase justice by operating courts and enforcing their rulings. Early theories of justice were set out by the Ancient Greek philosophers Plato in his work The Republic, and Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. Advocates of divine command theory have said that justice issues from God. In the 1600s, philosophers such as John Locke said that justice derives from natural law. Social contract theory said that justice is derived from the mutual agreement of everyone. In the 1800s, utilitarian philosophers such as John Stuart Mill said that justice is based on the best outcomes for the gre ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Self-determination
The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It states that peoples, based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity, have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no interference. The concept was first expressed in the 1860s, and spread rapidly thereafter. During and after World War I, the principle was encouraged by both Soviet Premier Vladimir Lenin and United States President Woodrow Wilson. Having announced his Fourteen Points on 8 January 1918, on 11 February 1918 Wilson stated: "National aspirations must be respected; people may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. 'Self determination' is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of action." During World War II, the princip ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

National Identity
National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity may refer to the subjective feeling one shares with a group of people about a nation, regardless of one's legal citizenship status. National identity is viewed in psychological terms as "an awareness of difference", a "feeling and recognition of 'we' and 'they'". National identity also includes the general population and diaspora of multi-ethnic states and societies that have a shared sense of common identity identical to that of a nation while being made up of several component ethnic groups. Hyphenated ethnicities are an example of the confluence of multiple ethnic and national identities within a single person or entity. As a collective phenomenon, national identity can arise as a direct result of the presence of elements from the "c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

South Asia
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian subcontinent and defined largely by the Indian Ocean on the south, and the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Pamir mountains on the north. The Amu Darya, which rises north of the Hindu Kush, forms part of the northwestern border. On land (clockwise), South Asia is bounded by Western Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an economic cooperation organization in the region which was established in 1985 and includes all eight nations comprising South Asia. South Asia covers about , which is 11.71% of the Asian continent or 3.5% of the world's land surface area. The population of South Asia is about 1.9 billion or about one- ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ethnic Nationalism
Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnocratic) approach to various political issues related to national affirmation of a particular ethnic group. The central tenet of ethnic nationalists is that "nations are defined by a shared heritage, which usually includes a common language, a common faith, and a common ethnic ancestry". Those of other ethnicities may be classified as second-class citizens. The Ottoman Empire and United States are examples of polyethnic states in which the nation is defined by its geographical territory. The theorist Anthony D. Smith uses the term "ethnic nationalism" in that sense. Diaspora-studies scholars broaden the concept of "nation" to diasporic communities. The terms ethnonation and ethnonationalism are sometimes used to describe a conceptual collective of dispersed ethnics. De ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]