Taliban suicide bombing

When the Machinery of Terror Becomes Television Spectacle: Taliban's War Museum Reporting Needs Broader Contextualisation

The Taliban may curate the museum. The newsroom must curate the context. Without that context, international television risks giving an extremist movement something it has always sought, not necessarily agreement, but attention; not necessarily legitimacy, but spectacle. 

Three Young Karachi Rappers: And a Working-Class Neighborhood Becomes its Own Historian

 

For an Indian audience, the most meaningful response to W.R.A.P. is not the comforting declaration that Indians and Pakistanis are identical. Such a claim can erase real histories and differences as readily as nationalism exaggerates them. 

Erasing Colonial Symbols Won't Feed India's Families: A Call for Economic Pragmatism

But tearing down a clubhouse will not lower a family's grocery bill or write a line of exportable code. India's chance to close the gap with the economies that outran it will not wait for a hearing date in September, and neither should the country's attention.

Taslima Nasrin’s Return and the Politics of Selective Protection

Taslima Nasrin’s homecoming deserves to be welcomed. A writer should be able to return to a city she considers home without fearing violence. The harder test will come when the symbolism fades. Will the government protect her if her criticism becomes inconvenient to the people now celebrating her return?

More on Soft Power, Culture and Society

Women to the fore: Over 177,000 women apply for admission into India's National Defence Academy

More than 177,000 applications from women candidates were received for entry into India's National Defence Academy (NDA), the government informed Parliament on Monday

Word of the day: Shashi Tharoor takes swipe at India's ruling BJP

India's opposition Congress party MP Shashi Tharoor, known for his mastery of the English language and his use of big words whose meanings are not commonly understood, took aim at the ruling BJP for allegedly charging people with sedition as “its leadership suffers from allodoxaphobia.”

Miss India is Miss Universe 2021 - after 21 years

"I believed in myself and that is why I am standing here today." With this winning answer,  Harnaaz Sandhu, 21, representing India at the 70th Miss Universe 2021, held in Eilat, Israel, became Miss Universe 2021, 21 years after a Miss India won the last Miss Universe title in 2000

Indian doctors do 'breathing lung transplant' in Hyderabad

India has become one of a handful of nations where a "breathing lung transplant" can be conducted

World’s largest sapphire found in Sri Lanka; owner ready to sell

The world’s largest single natural blue sapphire has been found in Sri Lanka, according to the National Gem and Jewellery Authority

One-minute Bhutanese film on climate change wins Best Documentary Award

A one-minute Bhutanese film “Snow Lion and The Glaciologist”  has won the Best Documentary Award at the International Mobile Film Festival during the awards ceremony on World Climate Day in Paris on December 8

Much ado over a water bottle: Pakistan opposition politician Bilawal Bhutto under fire for not opening bottle himself

Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has come under fire from the public for asking Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani, a man much senior to him in politics, to open a water bottle for him at a press conference

College principal among 40 people indicted in Pakistan over 'objectionable gesture and vulgar dance'

At least 40 people in Pakistan, including a college principal, have been indicted over 'objectionable gesture and vulgar dance' at a college festival after video clips of these events went viral on social media

Malala urges US for more support to Afghan women; says Afghanistan will suffer if girls don’t learn

The United States should do more to support Afghan women and their right to education and work, Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize awardee and human rights activist Malala Yousafzai told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken

First transgender elected as rural council head in Bangladesh

In a sign of changing times, a transgender person, Nazrul Islam Ritu, has been elected as the chairperson of the Union Parishad - a rural council - of Trilochanpur Union of Kaliganj in Jhenaidha district of Bangladesh

Australia India Film Council to build on 'dosti' between the two countries

An Australia India Film Council has been formed to forge greater cultural, economic and creative collaboration between the two countries that are deepening and diversifying their "strategic partnership" across all areas

Women take on rightwing bullies at Christian prayer hall in India

Rightwing activists from the Hindu ultranationalist Bajrang Dal allegedly barged into a Christian prayer hall in Belur city in Karnataka in south India on Sunday, accused the group of conversion and pushed around the faithful before the women in the congregation forced them to leave

Sikhs protest over Pakistani fashion model posing bareheaded in front of Kartarpur Gurdwara: Pakistani minister seeks apology from designer, model

Angry protests by Sikhs and others in India over a fashion model posing bareheaded and with her back to the revered Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara in Pakistan forced the Pakistani fashion brand Mannat to apologise for posting the pictures, while Pakistan Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry demanded that the model tender an apology for the disrespect

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai now graduates from Oxford University

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who survived an attack in 2012 from a Taliban gunman in her native Pakistan while returning home from school,  has graduated from Oxford University with a philosophy, politics and economics degree

'Afghan girl', the face of Afghanistan's conflict and suffering, gets refuge in Italy

Sharbat Gula, the famous green-eyed “Afghan Girl” whose iconic photo in 1985 by a National Geographic photographer became the face of the Afghan conflict, has been given asylum by Italy,  Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s office said