- Fire-related violence against women in India rings alarm
How an ordinary element of domestic life became entangled with one of the most disturbing forms of violence against women.
- Gen Z’s political awakening: From reels to revolution
Once dismissed as distracted and apolitical, Gen Z is now questioning governments from Kenya to Indonesia. A political science student looks at India’s NEET-UG protests, the role of the internet and broken promises, and asks whether anger can become lasting democratic change. - Modi’s Vishwaguru illusion runs dry in 2026
A prime minister who urged citizens to buy less gold and skip foreign trips marked the end of a carefully staged image of strength. This piece traces how energy policy, television and a young protest movement left Modi’s Vishwaguru illusion exposed. - Rare earth elements in South Asia: closing gap
Control of rare earth elements now shapes the energy transition and defence supply chains. This analysis sets South Asia’s geology against its processing capacity, examines India’s Rs 72.8bn magnet scheme and sets out three foundations for a regional role. - Turning Asia’s economic growth into prosperity
Asia remains a centre of economic growth, but the IMF expects the region to slow from 5.0% in 2025 to 4.4% in 2027. With household debt, living costs and weak consumer confidence in play, the test is whether growth lifts real incomes, savings and purchasing power. - UPI MDR has a blind spot – mid-sized businesses
A Rs 300 cap means the biggest UPI payments pay the smallest share. The new MDR squeezes slim-margin shops, risks pushing them back to cash and sets back Digital India, and offers three changes to make the UPI fee fairer for small businesses.
- Fire-related violence against women in India rings alarm
- Beyond binary: India recognises gender diversity, but do its institutions?
- From a caste symbol to a national icon: why more young women are discovering Ambedkar
- All Muslims are terrorists: Children fall prey to bigotry
- Cauliflower returns to haunt Bihar, but whom exactly?
- Evicting hawkers or cleansing cities for ‘Corporate India’?
The BJP government in West Bengal claims its eviction drive against hawkers is about reclaiming public land. Yet millions of Indians depend on informal markets for affordable goods and livelihoods. As corporate power expands, the informal economy increasingly finds itself under sustained attack. - Bangladesh: Mob rule burns democracy
The interim government talks of reform. The streets tell a different story. - The Zionist Israeli attack on Palestine has dug the grave for the West in the Middle East
Did the West just dig its own grave in the Middle East and in the Global South by supporting the Zionist Israeli attack on Palestine? - On Eid, Indian Muslims must be thankful enough
It’s Eid; and beneath the typical happy photos, the pain, agony and tears of Indian Muslims, especially of West Bengal will remain hidden. - Anti-Muslim violence during Ram Navami celebration: new normal in Modi’s New India
The recent surge in anti-Muslim violence during Ram Navami celebrations across different states exhibit Modified India’s disastrous journey.
- What Ambedkar saw in demand for Pakistan?
Ambedkar approached the Pakistan issue with realism and intellectual honesty. Unlike the Muslim League, he refused to treat communal disturbances as the main cause of partition. - AI and inequality: a reply to Arundhati Roy
A reader who needed ChatGPT to follow Arundhati Roy’s essay on artificial intelligence (AI) argues that its benefits and harms are not shared equally. - India’s festival season drives economic life
Behind every garland, plate of snacks and handmade toy in the festival season is a small trader who bought stock before knowing how many customers would come. The author looks at the risks, rewards and fair conditions that small businesses and street vendors need across India’s festival markets. - India can’t wait until 2047 to build ‘Viksit Bharat’
Training ten million Indians in AI sounds impressive, but scale isn’t the same as capability. This piece argues that Viksit Bharat by 2047 depends on decisions India makes now — not in the years just before the deadline. - Cage called freedom: Who is really free?
Nobody stands over you with a whip, yet the alarm still rings, the notifications still pull, the metrics still judge. Drawing on Max Weber’s “iron cage,” this essay asks whether today’s freedom is really freedom at all — or just a cage with better lighting.
- Ideal victim stereotype in sexual violence cases
A survivor who knew the accused, showed no injuries or delayed reporting may face suspicion in court. This article examines the ideal victim stereotype, what Indian evidence law and Supreme Court rulings say about it, and why impartial adjudication need not mean disbelief or presumed guilt. - India’s aluminium value chain: the producer’s paradox
India is the world’s second-largest producer of primary aluminium, yet it exports raw metal and imports finished goods. Import-parity pricing, inverted duties and scrap rules raise costs for manufacturers. A reform agenda would help India capture more of the value that aluminium creates. - Live-in relationships in India: legal rights, statutory frameworks and social realities
Live-in relationships in India have no single law, yet courts have built protections through Article 21 and the domestic violence act. Legal researchers Navjot Kaur and Ritu Malik trace the key Supreme Court rulings, maintenance and adoption rules, Uttarakhand’s mandatory 30-day registration and the social friction that couples still face. - What Claude and ChatGPT reveal about AI’s future?
The debate isn’t really Claude versus ChatGPT, and it isn’t even fundamentally about intelligence. It is about philosophy. - Elements in human body trace back to stars
Water, oxygen, carbon and the iron in blood all have cosmic roots. Hydrogen dates to the Big Bang about 13.8bn years ago; the heavier elements in the human body were forged in stars and scattered by supernovae, long before the Earth formed and life began.
- Fire-related violence against women in India rings alarmHow an ordinary element of domestic life became entangled with one of the most disturbing forms of violence against women.
- Politics of female body in art: India’s Dancing Girl to canvas
In June 2026 a government textbook covered the torso of the 4,500-year-old Dancing Girl. Kashish Raj Sharma, a painter and anthropologist, traces how art has treated the female body, from Indian goddesses to the French Revolution, and why that matters for classrooms, violence statistics and women’s autonomy in India today. - Beyond binary: India recognises gender diversity, but do its institutions?Questions remain about India’s bureaucracy’s approach to fairly implementing laws protecting India’s gender diversity.
- Nana Patekar’s films and legacy: the voice that refused to be ordinary
Menace in Parinda, public anger in Krantiveer, an ageing actor’s sorrow in Natsamrat and laughter in Welcome: Nana Patekar, who died at 75, refused to be confined to one image. - From a caste symbol to a national icon: why more young women are discovering AmbedkarFor decades, Ambedkar’s legacy was read almost entirely through caste. Now, young women across caste lines are finding another Ambedkar — the one who fought for the Hindu Code Bill and women’s legal equality. This piece asks what that discovery means, and where it can go wrong.
- Psychological safety in education: why diversity is hollow without voice
Psychological safety decides whether diverse students are heard. In a US survey, 83% of those facing bias called it subtle. - From student voice to political instrument: CJP’s changing face
CJP turned student anger over paper leaks and exam irregularities into one of India’s most visible youth movements. But as political flags and old party links surface, a harder question emerges: is CJP still a platform for students, or has it become a tool for someone else’s politics? - Secondary education can’t remain secondary in India
India’s push to expand elementary education has worked — but secondary schooling tells a different story. With government schools scarce, especially in states like UP, private unaided schools are filling the gap, often without matching learning outcomes. A look at what that means for India’s youngest generation. - Are Jammu & Kashmir’s higher education institutions future-ready?
Enrolment in Jammu and Kashmir’s colleges and universities has grown steadily, but access alone no longer defines success. This piece asks whether the region’s higher education institutions have the faculty, research culture and infrastructure to meet the demands of the years ahead.
