Opinion

The commotion that accompanied the release of the film, The Kashmir Files, is a signifier that the past never leaves the present. While being fully sympathetic to the tragic migration from the Valley,...

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus harboured by bats crossed over to humans. The trigger for every viral pandemic in this century, including HIV, the influenza pandemic of 1918, and now Covid-19, has been a &...

Turn back time Sir — Time travel makes regular appearances in popular culture. But time travel violates the second law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy or randomness must always inc...

The ban on single-use plastic, which was notified in August 2021 by the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change, has now come into force. Plastic cutlery items, sweet boxes, invitati...

At a time when unity is endangered, an understanding of the Constitution becomes more relevant than ever. Although this is not what the Chief Justice of India, N.V. Ramana, said recently in San Franci...

Ancient music Sir — Rock paintings are considered to be the most ancient form of visual art. Recent archaeoacoustic research focuses on bringing to life sounds made by people living in the past...

Child artists, it can be argued, are often the unacknowledged victims of child labour. India may have been proactive in its efforts to curtail the exploitation of children but these attempts have been...

Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party love to project themselves as the primary custodians of the nation’s interests. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s stinging rebuke of Nupur Sha...

The celebrations of Raja Rammohan Roy’s 250th  birth anniversary have highlighted his social and religious reforms. But his focus on English education could be more pertinent, giv...

My old teacher Arun Kumar Das Gupta turned ninety last month. I went to see him on the occasion. There were several celebrated teachers of English at Calcutta’s Presidency College in the 1960s. ...