Representational Photo

He Taught India How to Laugh at Itself: Reflections on Johnny Walker's Birth Centenary

Impressed by Kazi’s mimicry and raw acting skills, Dutt took a gamble on the bus conductor, cast him, and renamed him after his favourite Scotch — Johnny Walker.

Empowering Grandmothers in India and Africa: Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy, a Life of Relentless Rural Empowerment

Between 2005 and 2011, 140 African women, most of them grandmothers, traveled to Tilonia from villages in Africa to be trained as solar engineers. None of the women could read or write, nor could speak Hindi. So, they were taught using sign language and colour codes during their six-month-long training. By the time they finished the course and returned to their African villages they were qualified to install, maintain, and operate household, solar-powered lighting systems

Monetizing Folklore in Bangladesh's Modern Cultural Economy

Today, Bangladesh's young game designers and animators are going back to their roots. They are creating immersive gaming worlds that are based upon the mud, magic and monsoon of the Bengal Delta. By transforming their oral storytelling traditions into structured digital intellectual property rights, these studios are developing cross-media franchises. 

Revisiting a Bend in the Ganges: Ancient Indian City Offers an Eternal Lesson

Eventually, Kashi became a civilisational capital of India. Poets, saints, scholars, musicians, artisans, and even ordinary citizens helped shape the city. For millennia, seekers and scholars travelled from far and wide in search of knowledge, learning, and even emancipation. Its modern institutions carry that legacy forward. 

More on Culture, Literature, Society and Gender

Romance of Innovation: How to Live a Meaningful Life in Rural India

It is a matter of shame for all of us that 78 years after independence we still have a major portion of our rural population living in primitive conditions. They lack electricity, clean cooking fuel, potable water and toilets in their homes. Somehow modern technology has not touched their lives.

Snowfall in Kashmir: Beauty, Burden And The Test Of Our Humanity

The biggest victims of heavy snowfall are often invisible in public conversations.They are the daily wage workers. laborers, construction workers, street vendors, load carriers, and small service providers who depend on daily earnings to feed their families.When snow blocks roads and markets shut down, their income stops immediately. There is no work from home for a daily wager. No paid leave. No savings cushion for many. Each snowbound day means an empty kitchen, anxious parents, and children who may go to bed hungry. Winter for them is not scenic; it is a season of survival.

India’s 77th Republic Day Parade: Blend Of Tradition And Modernisation

Breaking from the tradition of only marching columns, the Indian Army showcased a "phased battle array" for the first time, mirroring real combat-zone deployment. This included a sequence of new military, technological, and specialized units, highlighting the country's defence self-reliance and modernization. 

Capturing The South Asian Reality: The Shelter And Storm Of Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary’

In a world that often tries to simplify what’s complicated, Mother Mary Comes to Me captures the South Asian reality where a woman’s power is often carved out of the very detachment that causes pain. Arundhati Roy’s latest work maps a difficult legacy where a mother’s refusal to be a vessel for others, however costly to those around her, unwittingly clears the path for a daughter to reclaim herself. 

Ikkis: An Ode To A Valiant Indian Soldier

The story of Arun’s role in the Battle of Basantar did not end on that day, or even after the cease fire of this two weeks war, resulting in the demise of East Pakistan and the announcement of the newly liberated Bangladesh. Major Khwaja  Mohammad Nasir, then a Squadron Commander of 13th Lancers, the regiment pitched against Poona Horse, who came bandaged the next day to collect the dead bodies of his fallen comrades, wanted to know more about “ the officer, who stood like an insurmountable rock” and whose troop of three British World War II vintage Centurion tanks  was responsible for decimation of his entire squadron of  fourteen American Patton tanks.

Stop Suffocating Childhood In The Name of Education

Education must be age-appropriate, climate-sensitive, and child-centred.A child rubbing sleepy eyes in the freezing dawn, dragged toward a coaching centre, is not a symbol of discipline. It is a warning. When homework and early classes steal rest and play, education stops nurturing and starts impacting childhood.lets remember that childhood is not a race to be won early. It is a foundation to be built carefully.

Ring Out ABC From Life, To Ring In XYZ In Life

In an age of constant noise and hurry, we can reclaim balance by cultivating positive habits. Dropping ABC can help us in developing an attitude of serenity, contentment, letting go, and gratitude. With this mind, quality time with nature, or other soul-uplifting activities, can heal us. All this, in turn, can create a sanctuary of tranquility, peace, and happiness within us.

The Untold Story Of Sweet Sorghum: Needs To Be Promoted As Food And Fodder Source

Sweet sorghum is also an excellent fodder crop, and we feel that leafy and high-sugar yielding varieties like Madhura-2 can be very suitable for this purpose. India has a serious green fodder production deficit. What is needed is good R&D to evaluate and market sweet sorghum in this segment. This may  help position sweet sorghum as an industrial crop and may provide the necessary incentive to grow it. The Indian government has to make a policy decision on promoting sweet sorghum as an excellent food and fodder source. It is already promoting millet as a healthy food and with better support price, sweet sorghum can flourish.

When The West Lost Face - And Afghanistan Collapsed Like A House of Cards

Afghanistan had become an example of what an ever-increasing number of Americans were referring to as endless wars. The Taliban - not the US and NATO - would come to represent the strongest military might in Afghanistan, Stoltenberg said in a candid admission. In a phone conversation  with Stoltenberg after the withdrawal announcement then Afghan President Asraf Ghani expressed his  disappointment and gave the phone to his vice-president  Amrullah Saleh  who thundered that “We have been abandoned. Jihad has defeated NATO.”

Ancient Indian Philosophers Understood Primacy Of Time Like Modern Physicists

In Bhagwad Gita also the primacy of time is shown when Lord Kishna shows Arjun his Virat form and utters the famous words “I have become the Mighty Time - the creator and destroyer of the worlds”. Interestingly, this shloka was misinterpreted by Robert Oppenheimer after the atomic bomb blast in 1945 when he quoted Gita stating “I have become Death”, instead of "I have become the Mighty Time".

Remembering Dr. Richard Cash: A Heroic Figure Whose Legacy Pioneered A Road Safety Model In Bangladesh

The evolution of this grassroots initiative in Bangladesh offers a model for other nations seeking to better address the crisis of road traffic injuries. It also provides insights into the vital importance of the collaborative process in creating broad support for the development and sustenance of such national programmes. While technology is often seen as the remedy for all our problems, the success of such community-based programmes is an important reminder to focus first on people, using technology as a tool, not as an end in itself.

JNU: A Bastion Of Resistance Against Ideological Conformity

JNU has stood against authoritarianism, market-driven education policies, and ideological conformity for decades, serving as a defiant emblem of resistance. The JNUSU election results last week by virtue of scale and impact on student and larger national politics may be deemed as extraneous. However, in spatial understanding of power dynamics, it metaphorically stands as a symbol of resistance at the heart of the nation’s capital.

Cultural Reflection: Celebrating the aesthetics of everyday Indian images

Even coffee-table books, despite their visual focus, rarely abandon text altogether. They rely on commentary to contextualize the images. Goyal takes the opposite approach. Her photographs, painstakingly gathered from her travels across India, are not documentation but an invitation to look, to remember, to imagine. The result is a deeply personal journey for each reader, or rather, viewer.

The Art Of Living: How To Live A Good And Meaningful Life

Spirituality is not religion.  It is the state of mind that makes it understand that the truth is beyond the barriers of worldliness, religion, caste, creed, race, or geographical boundaries.  It connects us to marvels of nature in a deep way, and subsequently to Universal Consciousness or the mind of God.

Unraveling The Threads of Grief, Love, And Womanhood: Complexities Of Daughter-Father Relationships In South Asian Contexts

By the end of the book, what lingers is not just sorrow, but a quiet insistence that women’s inner worlds deserve to be witnessed. Mohua invites her readers, especially women, to stop apologizing for their contradictions, to speak even when their voices tremble.  

Newsletter Subscription

The subscriber's email address.
Stay informed - subscribe to our newsletter.