Max Pearson presents a compilation of stories marking 75 years since India's Partition. We'll hear the stories of people from both sides of the divide and find out about partition’s effect on the subcontinent’s diaspora. Also, the daughter of the last British Viceroy in India, Lord Mountbatten, remembers the transfer of power in 1947.  Plus, we'll hear about the death of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and how one of India’s greatest poets known as the ‘Bard of Bengal’, Rabindranath Tagore, became the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. (Photo: Wrecked buildings after communal riots in Amritsar, Punjab, during the Partition of British India, March 1947.
Credit: Getty Images)

Seventy-five years since India's Partition

A compilation of the latest Witness History programmes.

Personal Journals

Society & Culture

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. This week, we hear how nuclear testing changed politics in French Polynesia. Plus, the story of how the FBI caught Ana Montes, the spy known as the ‘Queen of Cuba’. We also talk to Jewish and Palestinian people about the moment the state of Israel was proclaimed in 1948. Finally, we tell the unlikely story of how a heavy metal rock band emerged during the violent years of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Contributors: 
Antony Géros - President of the Assembly of French Polynesia
KDee Aimiti Ma'ia'i – doctoral candidate at University of Oxford
Pete Lapp – former FBI agent
Hasan Hammami
Arieh Handler
Zipporah Porath
Firas Al-Lateef – bass player (Photo: Antony Géros. Credit: Getty Images)

Independence in French Polynesia and the 'Queen of Cuba'

This week, how more than one billion people living in India were given a unique digital ID during the world's largest biometric project. The Aadhaar scheme was launched in 2009 but it wasn't without controversy. Our guest, digital identity expert Dr Edgar Whitley, tells us about the history of ID schemes around the world. Plus, the Spanish doctor whose pioneering surgery helped millions of people to get rid of their glasses and see more clearly. And why East Germany's thirst for caffeine in the 1980s led to an unusual collaboration with Vietnam.  Also, the story behind one of the most famous royal photographs ever taken – Princess Diana sitting alone on a bench in front of the Taj Mahal in 1992. The man who took the image tells us more. And finally, how a Ghanaian athlete, Alice Annum, earned the nickname ‘Baby Jet’ after her medal-winning success in the 1970 Commonwealth Games. Contributors:
Nandan Nilekani  - former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India
Dr Edgar Whitley - digital identity expert at the London School of Economics
Dr Carmen Barraquer Coll – daughter of ophthalmologist Jose Ignacio Barraquer Moner
Siegfried Kaulfuß – East German official in charge of coffee production in Vietnam
Anwar Hussein – royal photographer
Alice Annum – retired Ghanaian athlete (Photo: Scanning fingerprints for Aadhaar registration. Credit: David Talukdar/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

India’s ambitious ID scheme and the iconic Princess Diana photo

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.  This week we hear the story of Rogelio Goiburu, who has dedicated his life to finding the victims of Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship in Paraguay, including the remains of his own father. Our expert Dr Francesca Lessa talks about other enforced disappearances in South America. Plus, we hear about how, in February 2014, ordinary people got to see inside Mezhyhirya, the extraordinarily extravagant home of Ukraine's former president. Also, a shocking psychological experiment from the 1960s. Just to warn you, this includes original recordings of the experiments which listeners may find disturbing. The programme also includes the breakthrough moment when the Channel Tunnel was finally completed linking England and France beneath the sea and, finally, the story behind one of the world's most popular self-help books. Contributors:
Rogelio Goiburu - dedicated to finding the victims of Stroessner's Paraguay
Dr Francesca Lessa - Associate Professor in International Relations of the Americas at University College London (UCL)
Denys Tarakhkotelyk - from the Mezhyhirya estate
Graham Fagg  - the Englishman who broke through the Channel Tunnel
Donna Dale Carnegie -  daughter of Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People
(Photo: Alfredo Stroessner. Credit: STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Paraguay’s ‘disappeared’ and the history of the Channel Tunnel

It’s been thirty years since the first fully democratic elections in South Africa, which saw the African National Congress take power in 1994. But two years before that historic moment, white South Africans had to vote in a referendum that would decide whether or not to usher in a multi-racial government. We hear from President FW de Klerk’s then communications officer about how they helped “close the book on apartheid.” Then we journey back to 1976 and hear about the Soweto Uprising, a student led protest against the enforced study of Afrikaans. Bongi Mkhabela who helped organise the peaceful march, tells us how it came to a bloody and tragic end. Plus we take a look at the pivotal role played by women and girls in the lead up to the 1994 elections. Journalist and researcher Shanthini Naidoo tells us why women’s work and activism in the ANC is so often overlooked. We hear from Oliver Tambo’s son about his father’s return to South Africa after 30 years in exile. We also hear about the long overdue return of Sarah Baartman’s remains to South Africa, after over 190 years being kept in Europe, where she suffered horrific abuse while she was alive. This programme contains discriminatory language.  And finally, we learn about one of South Africa’s biggest popstars Brenda Fassie, from her friend, rival and admirer Yvonne Chaka Chaka. Contributors: 
David Stewards – President FW de Klerk’s former communications advisor
Bongi Mkhabela- Student organiser of the Soweto uprising 
Shanthini Naidoo- Journalist and researcher on women during apartheid 
Dali Tambo- Son of Oliver Tambo 
Diana Ferrus – Poet who helped bring Sarah Baartman home
Yvonne Chaka Chaka- South African popstar (Photo: Nelson Mandela after winning the election in 1994. Credit: Getty Images)

Thirty years since the first free elections in South Africa

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. It’s 10 years since the world’s deadliest outbreak of Ebola started in West Africa. We hear from a survivor and discuss the legacy of the epidemic with the BBC's global health reporter Tulip Mazumdar.  Plus, the first World War Two battalion to be led by an African-American woman. Major Charity Adams’ son tells her story.  We hear about the group of men arrested in Egypt in 2001 at a gay nightclub who became known as the Cairo 52. We also hear about the avalanche on Mount Everest which killed 16 sherpas carrying supplies 10 years ago.  Finally, the train service between India and Bangladesh that lay dormant for 43 years which rumbled back into life in 2008. Contributors:  Yusuf Kabba – an Ebola survivor from Sierra Leone
Tulip Mazumdar -  the BBC's Global Heath reporter. 
Stanley Earley – son of Major Charity Adams
Omer (a pseudonym) - arrested and imprisoned at a gay club in Cairo
Lakpa Rita Sherpa -  helped recover bodies after the avalanche on Mount Everest in 2014
Dr Azad Chowdhury – on the inaugural Friendship Express (Photo: Liberian Health Minister Burnice Dahn washes her hands at a holding centre for Ebola patients in 2014. Credit: Getty Images)

Seventy-five years since India's Partition

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