pohoomull Courtesy:
8 February 2024

The Bombay-Cairo connect

When the 154-year-old man-made Suez Canal became operational, it reduced the voyage between Europe and India from four months to 30 days. It made Egypt the centre for the development of modern tourism in the mid-19th century, attracting entrepreneurs from across empires. A brisk business grew with the Sindhis from the Bombay Presidency, who made the Egyptian free ports and Cairo as their first overseas bases.

bene-israel-india-mumbai-1348x900 Courtesy: NewsDrum
16 November 2023

Port of Bombay and its Jewish Communities

Eighteenth century Bombay was home to two Jewish communities: Marathi-speaking Bene-Israel Jews and Judeo-Arabic-speaking Baghdadi Jews. The city was a a major hub for employment, business, religious, community, and cultural life. These activities were formerly dispersed among many hubs across the Middle-East for the Baghdadi Jews, and among the villages of the North Konkan for the Bene-Israel.

PTI06_24_2023_000252B Courtesy: India TV News
28 September 2023

Indians in Egypt: Reviving Connectivity

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Cairo on 24-25 June en route home after a successful state visit to the U.S., has highlighted the presence of the small but flourishing Indian community in Egypt. Comprising just 4,300 today, these Indians built businesses over the decades when Egypt was a British Protectorate, and after, and are important to the current upswing in the bilateral

ANI-20230705152949 Courtesy: ANI
10 August 2023

Bombay’s historic ties to Zanzibar

On a recent visit to Tanzania, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar announced the establishment of the first overseas campus of the premier Indian Institute of Technology Madras on its islands of Zanzibar in Africa. The choice of Zanzibar is significant: 180 years ago, it was the very first interface between Indian merchants and the East African mainland.

Banganga tank Courtesy: Gateway House
30 March 2023

Restoring Banganga

The Banganga Tank in Mumbai’s Walkeshwar is one of the city’s oldest sites of worship. Its location on the main island of Bombay is evidence of the city’s roots in Hindu mythology and folk tradition. Recent efforts to restore and culturally revive it offer a blueprint for incorporating Mumbai’s pre-colonial heritage sites within its contemporary cityscape.

Vol 1 no 01 Courtesy: The Marg Foundation
3 March 2023

Marg @ 75: recasting India’s cultural identity

India’s famous cultural icon, Marg magazine, has turned 75 along with the nation. It has republished some of its path-breaking articles, adding an introduction with a contemporary rethink. The outcome is an intellectual inquiry, with clues on how a confident 21st-century India must shape its global and regional positioning.

Vank Cathedral Courtesy: Rasool Abassi/Wikimedia Commons
27 October 2022

India in the global Armenian network

The 18th century wave of Armenian immigrants to India were at the forefront of reinforcing a national identity for the Armenian people who lived dispersed across the world and without an independent country. The English colonial city of Madras was an important Armenian trading hub soon became home to an Armenian liberation movement

Armenian's in Bombay Courtesy: Zabel Joshi
25 August 2022

Bombay’s Armenian legacy

Bombay was once an important Armenian settlement in the 18th and 19th centuries, as the English East India Company was keen to relocate the successful Armenian merchants of Surat to the Company’s new outpost of Bombay. Today, no Armenians from Bombay’s historic community remain, but their church and cemetery survive, the subject of study for Armenian expatriates keen to rediscover their history.

mODI DIASPORA 1 Courtesy: PTI
17 August 2022

The pravasi in India’s independence struggle

The return of the pravasi Mahatma Gandhi on 9 January 1915 to India from South Africa, marked a turning point in India’s freedom struggle. The contribution of such overseas Indians was significant. Often, they had a galvanizing effect on existing movements within India. On this 75th anniversary of independence, the sacrifices of these pravasis remind Indians of a shared history and ties with their overseas kin.

5-things-to-know-about-Indias-youngest-billionaire-king-Maharaja-Padmanabh-Singh Courtesy: Instagram
11 August 2022

Is ‘Pukka’ Dead?

The old world order and the manners and values that went with it, have come to an end. Many of its aspects and aesthetics are outdated, but some remain – like the word ‘pukka’ which implies a certain sensibility, now with a new interpretation. Will its meaning hold in the new world order that has yet to emerge?