A Tomb Stone of a Jewish serviceman served in Ceylon

Jewish Footprints and Connections that Shaped Sri Lanka’s History

Today, the Chabad Houses in Colombo and on Sri Lanka's southern coast have attracted considerable attention amid a rise in anti-Semitic incidents and rhetoric. It is noteworthy that Colombo once had an active synagogue, which served as a regular place of worship for British Jewish servicemen World War II

Repositioning India as the Capital of Buddhist Tourism: A Blueprint for a Global Destination

Buddhist tourism as an important tool of India’s soft power. The shared Buddhist heritage can help develop cultural ties with Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Mongolia, South Korea, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, and several other Buddhist-majority nations through cooperation in archaeology, monk-to-monk dialogues, youth programs, academic exchanges, and cultural festivals

Mohenjo-daro’s ‘Dancing Girl’: The Silence Surrounding Women in Public History

Mohenjo-daro offers South Asia an opportunity to look backwards without dividing the past into national possessions, and to recognise that the region’s cultural memory is older and more interconnected than its modern inheritors.

How a Film by a Boston-Based Immigrant is Dismantling the Model-Minority Concept

Jam Boy represents a much-needed question for the South Asia diaspora, about why it takes a third aggressor for us to see the common struggles that we share, and why it is only in these situations that we remember that our ideas of home are the same.

More on Soft Power, Culture and Society

Remembering Guru Dutt in his birth centenary year: A resurrected genius

While a deep and brooding darkness engulfed Guru Dutt in the last few years of his life, a glowing light is now being focused on his amazing body of work – from Baazi (1951) to Baharen Phir Bhi yengi which was incomplete when the filmmaker died and was completed by his team and released in 1966. 

The Bengal(i) Dilemma: Between Hope and Despair

Political parties, of course, have their numerical calculations in place, making ground-level behavioural changes irrelevant. Even in the past, it rarely mattered. Vote-bank politics continues to dominate, leaving the bhadralok—Bengal’s genteel middle class—in a quiet, uneasy dilemma.

Remembering A Musical Legend: Salil Chowdhury Left An Indelible Mark On South Asian Culture

Salilda was 27 when he achieved this break in 1952-53. Till his last day he never looked back. He composed music in 143 films, 75 of them in Hindi, 41 in Bengali and 27 in Malayalam. Besides, he composed music in 13 languages. He was adept at playing flute, piano, esraj and harmonium.  

Seeking Similarities In Otherness: A Pakistani-Origin Writer's Journey Across India

'The myriad stories one has heard about Indians and Pakistanis opening their homes and hearts to strangers from the other side seemed to belong to another age. One has heard many anecdotes of strangers being invited for meals into homes and not being charged for goods and services. For me, the number of such experiences was zero.’

Guru Dutt (1925 - 1964) : Unsung Auteur, Resurrected Genius

The most celebrated films in the Dutt oeuvre -  Pyaasa (1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), explored themes of unfulfilled love, societal alienation and the struggles of the human spirit, making him  the unsung  poet of Indian cinema. TIME magazine included Pyaasa in its ‘100 Best Films of All Time’

Why we sleep and dream?

Thus, to produce happy and productive dreams one needs to be active mentally and physically during waking hours. Whatever memories we make during daytime are reflected in our dreams, including prophetic dreams. Probably solution dreams of great inventors also came because of the very active prepared mind during waking hours.

Bangladeshi Women Fight Back Patriarchal Backlash: Need For Regional Solidarity Stressed

Shireen Huq, chair of the reform commission and founder of Naripokkho, said, “We had an uprising, a regime change, but the culture of misogyny, the brutalisation of women, and the public assertion of male dominance, all remain intact and hegemonic.”

Yoga in the Pacific: A Nautical Saga of Two Indian Navy Veterans, #AndhraPradeshyoga, #Telugus

The cceans, comprising 70 percent of the surface of planet earth, are  a medium of connecting peoples across the world, rather than at times mistakenly being viewed as great natural barriers. Nothing proves this more emphatically than the tiny Tystie's passage across the Indo-Pacific which is aptly relevant to this year's theme for the International Day of Yoga - 'Yoga for One Earth One Health'.

IMF At A Crossroads: Need For More Inclusive And Equitable System Of Financial Governance

To remain relevant, the IMF must undertake comprehensive reforms—revising its governance structure, enhancing decision-making transparency, and moderating its loan conditionalities. By expanding representation and reducing the dominance of a handful of powerful nations, the IMF can empower borrowing countries to shape policies that better reflect their unique economic challenges.    

Nature Of Discovery And The Pursuit Of Knowledge

All seekers of truth, no matter in which field, also tried to understand what makes our world and universe tick. That gave them a feeling of awe and also showed that probably what they thought was an original idea and thought was nothing else but existing knowledge in the knowledge space that was channeled through them.

Key to India’s prosperity lies in inculcating self-discipline in its people

The distribution of free food, freebies and subsidies by political parties has created massive idle energy across the country which breeds indiscipline. People abhor physical work, sell agricultural land and migrate to cities. They prefer to do menial jobs, live on rental income or bank interest than creating their own economic assets.  

Can One Give Up On Peace?: South Asia's Peace Activists Discuss Region's Future

Who does the conflict benefit? This is a question many are asking. The latest conflict has only solidified support for those in power, distracting from the real issues of poverty, unemployment, inequality, and other government incompetencies and failures.

Trump Told Modi: 'He's My Intel Guy'

Yet as I walked in, the president turned to me and shouted, “Kash, have you met my friend Narendra?” He urged me to come over, and soon I was speaking to “India’s Trump” in our native dialect, with the prime minister asking all about my family and background

Are The Values and Ideologies Of 19th And Early 20th Great Bengalis Relevant At Present?

With the deviousness associated with a feudal culture, the highest standards are being set for a system that employs blatant untruths, hypocrisy, double standards, and fake news through large sections of the communication media influenced by the party to form the basis of a totalitarian political system characterised by the extreme Hindu fanaticism of northern India and north-western India, with the rest of India utterly disregarded.

A Call to Healing: Honouring Earth, Mothers and Ourselves

In a world plagued by deepening social, spiritual, and ecological crises—and amid an escalating environmental breakdown marked by climate collapse, deforestation, biodiversity loss, pollution, and the reckless overconsumption of finite resources—the Earth still holds a profound, forgiving strength that sustains life.