The ancient Iranian festival of Mehregan was celebrated with pride in Iran, as officials and tourism professionals gathered at Persepolis on 19th October, 2025 to unveil a plaque marking its inclusion on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The event, held at the Persepolis World Heritage Site in Fars province, drew nearly 200 tourism guides and […]
One of Peshawar’s oldest (over a century) Parsi graveyards, has been desecrated and turned into a parking lot, causing widespread outrage among Zoroastrian communities and heritage conservationists worldwide. Once the final resting place of members of Peshawar’s thriving Parsi community during British India, the site stood as a testament to the community’s significant contributions to […]
As of 6th December, 2023, the United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, has listed the Sadeh celebrations as a global form of intangible heritage, based on a case submitted by Iran and Tajikistan. Dating back to the Achaemenid Empire, Sadeh is a mid-winter festival celebrated by the Zoroastrian community in Iran and other countries, meant to […]
The restoration work to restore the Atashkadeh Siah Gol, a Sassanid era (224–651) fire temple in Western Iran, has commenced. Located in Eyvan county, of Ilam province, the property is registered on the national list for cultural heritage. One of the most well-preserved fire temples constructed during the Sassanid era, the Siah Gol Atashkadeh, which […]
Ardakan, the capital city of Ardakan County, and second major city in Iran’s Yazd Province, has applied for membership and been nominated in the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities. Two other Iranian cities – namely Hamedan and Kelardasht, have also been nominated alongside Ardakan. The historic city of Ardakan, located 60 kms from Yazd, is one […]
Twenty years ago, UNESCO requested me to create a programme on the Parsi Zoroastrians, as they realized that this community was facing demographic extinction. With the loss of culture, the world loses a part of its wisdom and UNESCO’s mandate was for us to record this culture. Even as a student and teacher of the […]
Edited by Firoza Punthakey Mistree and Cashmira Vatcha Bengalli Ten years ago, at the Golden Jubilee of the Delhi Parsi Anjuman, in a conference attended by priests and scholars from India and abroad, each drew upon Vada Dasturji Firoze Kotwal’s research at some point in their study of Zoroastrianism. However, when I asked him […]
“If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother and the teacher.” No words hold truer or more relevant than these today, as expressed by India’s most-loved statesman, the […]
On 9th July, 2017, the World Heritage Committee voted the historical city of ‘Yazd’, formerly known as ‘Yezd’ in central Iran, as the country’s 22nd World Heritage Site, ranking first in the Middle East and eleventh, worldwide. Announced during the Committee’s 41st session in Krakow (Poland), Yazd is the only UNESCO-listed Iranian city where people […]
Harvard literary scholar and cultural theorist, and Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language, Homi K. Bhabha was recently awarded the Humboldt Research Prize for his contributions to the field of academics. The award is usually granted to a researcher in recognition of his life’s achievements to academics. Bhabha received this […]