West Bengal has done it again. The state-run Urdu Academy cancelled a literary event after the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, joined by the Wahyain Foundation, objected to one of the invitees – none other than Javed Akhtar, poet, film writer, and permanent panelist on primetime debates. His alleged crime? Speaking against Islam. His punishment? Erasure. One would…
Peter Navarro, Donald Trump’s trade enforcer, has suddenly moonlighted as an Indian sociologist. On Fox News, between explaining why Russian oil barrels are bad for democracy and why tariffs are good for Trump’s re-election, he declared that India’s Brahmin elite are ‘profiteering at the expense of the Indian people’. Next stop, I presume, his next…
Hyderabad has always prided itself on thinking big. We built a Cyberabad without silicon, a film city without real stars, and a metro rail that has more hoardings than passengers. Now, the city is preparing for a sea change in tourism and aqua sports, without bothering to have a sea. Yes, by December, an artificial…
Advertising has always been shaped by technology. The painted hoardings of the 1950s gave way to photography, and later, stock image libraries transformed the way agencies sourced visuals. Now, artificial intelligence is set to disrupt the very model those libraries were built on. With AI tools capable of generating images on demand – tailored to…
I am not a great fan of takeaway foods or ordering food online or from cloud kitchens. For that matter, I maintain a respectable distance from junk food. Once in a while, indulgence is okay if it is unavoidable. But it is a different story with the younger generation and among young working couples. For…
It is rare for an American political scientist to achieve instant brand recall in India – without ever contesting an election, chairing a panel on Times Now, or being spotted at an Ambani wedding. But Christine Fair has managed it with a single word. And what a word! A word that has travelled from Hyderabad…
I never believed in meditation. The very idea seemed absurd – how can one sit still and ‘empty the mind’ when that very mind is globe-trotting without passport, visa, or ticket? So when my son vanished for about 12 days, and even his wife was clueless, I was genuinely concerned. He resurfaced, calm and smiling,…
For weeks, the Congress party has been blowing the trumpet on vote chori, accusing the BJP – and by implication, its silent partner, the Election Commission – of rigging democracy itself. It even launched a web portal for citizens to register their protest against this alleged grand heist. And then, in a plot twist worthy…
Fifty years ago, our sleepy little town of Bolarum was not very different from RK Narayan’s Malgudi – the kind of place where people recognised you by your walk, your cough, or your bicycle bell. As I mentioned in an earlier article, our cinematic universe then had just three planets – Sri Sai Talkies and…
A long-buried BBC interview with Dr B.R. Ambedkar has come up for air again, and it is doing what Ambedkar usually does when allowed to speak freely – spoiling the mood at the Gandhi-Godse nostalgia party. In this remarkable 1955 exchange with broadcaster Lionel Fielden, Ambedkar slices through the Mahatma’s saintly packaging with surgical disdain….
