Main Vaapas Aunga

When Poison Enters the System: Impunity, Vigilantism and South Asia’s Internal Security Failure

Across South Asia, the difference between prejudice and collapse is not the existence of hate. Every society has it in varying shades.  The difference is whether the majoritarian state internalizes hate against the ‘other’,  whether FIRs get diluted, trials get delayed, mobs get garlanded  and impunity driven violence against minorities becomes low-cost. When that happens, the poison is not outside the system. It becomes the system.

In the Quiet Spaces Between Strangers, Sonia Bahl’s Eighteen Inches Apart

And perhaps this is precisely what many readers, particularly South Asian readers navigating fractured contemporary lives, have been missing without fully realising it: fiction willing to slow down long enough to notice the fragile, passing intimacies through which people continue surviving one another.

Robert A.F. Thurman, an academic with a Buddhist monk’s soul

Thurman said that Tibet was not an individual nation-state question but something that goes far beyond that. “It is not about a people yearning for freedom from an invading state. It is about a very valuable society struggling to keep its centuries-old tradition of intellectual evolution alive.” He said that while he was hopeful that the problem would be resolved soon, “and during His Holiness’ lifetime,” it was hard to put a timeframe to it.

A White Strip Exposes New Political Faultlines in Cosmopolitan Mumbai

The perceived push from a political leadership that has roots in Gujarat, the split in the locally rooted Shiv Sena that was engineered, the resentment it brewed among ordinary citizens and the history of Maharashtra -- which was born on May 1, 1960 after a bitter struggle that split the erstwhile Bombay State into two distinct linguistic states of Maharashtra and Gujarat -- are all complex and contributory factors to the evolving political unrest in middle-class Mumbai. 

More on Culture and Society

Google doodle marks Munier Chowdhury's 95th birth anniversary

Search giant Google has created a new doodle on its homepage in Bangladesh, celebrating the life of Bangladeshi playwright Munier Chowdhury to mark the 95th anniversary of his birth

A Maldives getaway for Bollywood stars

The Maldives has become the new haunt of Bollywood actors. From Katrina Kaif, Disha Patani, Tiger Shroff, Tara Sutaria, Aadar Jain, Varun Dhawan, Tapsee Pannu to Rakul Preet Singh, Angad Bedi and Neha Dhupia, Sonakshi Sinha, well the list is endless, all have visited the Indian Ocean paradise recently

Kashmir's Tibet Baqaal family says they are tortured for keeping Sufi tradition alive

Aadil Tibet Baqaal, 40, teaches music in the Kashmir University's Institute of Music and Fine Arts, keeping up the tradition of his legendary grandfather, Mohammad Abdullah Tibet Baqaal whose voice still continues to stir hearts and minds of Kashmiris cutting across religious barriers

Rajasthan's Champa Ram beats all odds to get into IIT Madras

Resident of a remote village in Rajasthan's Jodhpur district, Champa Ram recently secured admission in IIT Madras - Civil Engineering department after beating all odds, including losing his mother and father while he was preparing for the IIT

OTT wave takes flavors of India into global showbiz space

Slowly but surely, India and Indianness are foraying the world of showbiz in the West, and much of it has to do with the country's growing presence in the OTT space

Former Nepal cricket captain Khadka nominated for ICC’s associate player of decade

Former Nepalese cricket team captain Paras Khadka was nominated by the International Cricket Council for the ICC men’s Associate Player of the decade on Tuesday

'Delhi Crime' wins International Emmy for Best Drama Series

The acclaimed Indian web series "Delhi Crime" has won the Best Drama Series award at the 48th International Emmy Awards, held virtually this year owing to the ongoing Covid pandemic

British social worker braves dengue, Covid, Cobra-bite in Rajasthan

A Briton social worker who has been coming to India to help local artisans through his charity organisation combated dengue, malaria and corona but came out of all the challenges unscathed

Nepal's museums reopen after eight months

Since March, Nepal’s museum curators have been in deep despair due to the extended Covid-19 lockdown, and the ban on public gatherings

Religious fellow feeling at Chhat: When a Muslim man helped in a Hindu festival

The Chhat festival is largely celebrated in Bihar, in eastern India, where women pay tributes to the sun god in thanksgiving for the bounty of nature

'Hyderabad's Nizam never discriminated against people on basis of religion'

Seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last ruler of erstwhile Hyderabad State and the architect of THE modern city of Hyderabad, was a visionary who never discriminated against people on the basis of religion, says his grandson Nawab Mir Najaf Ali Khan

Theatres have reopened in India but trade looks for 'one pan-India film' to change fortunes

Ever since cinemas reopened in parts of India as part of the unlock process, a few new releases -- including Hollywood films -- have hit the big screen. Trade experts say regular Hollywood popcorn flicks will not help bring the crowds back to theatres, nor will small Bollywood releases

Spreading the message of Sufism through Urdu hip hop

Hip hop and Urdu may make strange bedfellows as also hip hop and Sufism, but an Urdu hip-hop band has come out with an album with a strange fusion of rap music with a Sufi message and mostly Urdu lyrics

At minus 7 degrees, Gulmarg's ski slopes beckon winter sports lovers

Clocking minus 7 degrees Celsius as its minimum temperature on Friday, the world-famous ski resort of Gulmarg in Jammu and Kashmir is all bedecked with snow to welcome winter sports lovers this season

Biggest ever Indian Soccer League (ISL): Football takes centre-tage in new-normal India

When ATK took on Chennaiyin FC in the last Indian Super League (ISL) season's final, the COVID-19 pandemic was just starting to become a frightening reality across the country