Pandemics and Politics: Some Lessons from a Bengali Short Story
Reading Time: 9 minutes Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay’s Bengali short story Shada prithibi (1946) or ‘The White World’ begins on an ominously theatrical note. The scene is...
Category : Society
Only Sirens Puncture New York City’s Grudging Silence
Reading Time: 8 minutes Washington Heights in Northern Manhattan has been our home for more than a decade now. Friends had said that this neighbourhood...
Activists Urge Govt to Roll Back Suspension of Rules Under Act that Bans Sex Determination
Reading Time: 3 minutes New Delhi: The All India Democratic Women’s Association has released a statement demanding the withdrawal of the suspension of rules under...
Ground Report: The Sudden Lockdown Has Dried Up Sex Workers’ Incomes Overnight
Reading Time: 10 minutes New Delhi: On a usual day in a kotha (brothel) on GB Road, in Delhi, 20-year-old Anita* begins her daily routine...
As Students and Teachers Panic, Jamia Withdraws Notice Disbanding Two Departments
Reading Time: 5 minutes New Delhi: Soon after Jamia Millia Islamia said it was disbanding two departments – the Sarojini Naidu Centre for Women’s Studies...
What a Comparison of Great Central Vistas Tells Us About Modi’s Plans for New Delhi
Reading Time: 15 minutes The project architect selected by the Narendra Modi government for the forthcoming redevelopment of the Central Vista of New Delhi has...
The Deep, Unsettling Impact of ‘Alone in Berlin’
Reading Time: 5 minutes If a film can trigger unexpected emotions and sensations that connect us to our surroundings, it would have done its job....
Ayodhya Verdict: The Poems that Could Have Changed History
Reading Time: 20 minutes On March 25, 2020, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Ajay Singh Bisht alias Yogi Adityanath, performed a pre-dawn puja to...
Remembering Historian Arjun Dev, Who Spearheaded the Effort to Create Modern Textbooks
Reading Time: 10 minutes It is painful to write the obituary of a close friend and colleague whom one has respected and admired for his...
Coronavirus and Anti-Asian Racism: How the Language of Disease Produces Hate and Violence
Reading Time: 6 minutes Self-isolation. Quaratine. Lockdown. The outbreak of COVID-19 and its subsequent dissemination across the globe has left a shock wave of disbelief...