Working in the media has not been easy for many journalists around the world in recent years. There are many reasons for this — from political polarisation to online trolling, from some media ou...

Golden yarn Sir — Storytelling is an art that not everyone can master. Deft storytellers often have a rich pool of life experiences to tap into. Perhaps this is why grandparents make the best s...

Human tragedy occurs in its own time, untouched by gyrations on the political trapeze. The deaths caused by this year’s floods in Assam are tragic enough; added to the loss of homes, crops, live...

Global summits are often as much about symbolism and messaging as they are about well-defined outcomes. Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended, virtually, a meeting with leaders of Brazil, R...

In September 2019, a research article crucially important for South Asia was published in Science under the title, “The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia” (Science, ...

Even as the world continues to be focused on the challenges being posed by the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the battle lines in the Indo-Pacific are getting sharply defined. Addressing the Shangri-L...

Temporary relief Sir — The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated a wellknown phenomenon known as ‘emotional spending’. Even before the pandemic, many would splurge on a new article of c...

The Government of India’s Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2020-21 shows that the unemployment rate in the country has fallen from 5.8% in 2018-19 to 4.2% in 2020-21. The workers’ particip...

Double-facedness is not supposed to be a virtue. But the line between virtue and vice no longer holds in New India whose elected political regime thrives on presenting ‘two faces’ to the n...

One of the earliest books of which I still have a vivid memory  is a collection of fairy tales with brilliantly coloured illustrations. I was too young to be able to actually read the book, with ...