SRK with Jawan movie poster

King Khan opens up a bold new space for Bollywood

The industry prefers a winning formula to creative exploration, particularly in big-budget films populated by rocking stars with fancy fees. Will that change from hereon with the success of ‘Jawan’? We have on offer a new path for Bollywood, a path that can use its huge and unrivalled soft power to drive home some significant messages of the kind and in a way it has rarely attempted in a big-budget extravaganza.

When the music died: Afghanistan’s performing arts fall silent under Taliban rule

The famed Afghanistan National Institute of Music, the country’s only music school, had to shut down its campus in Kabul after the Taliban's crackdown. It has temporarily relocated to Lisbon, Portugal, where 273 students, faculty members and staff have been granted asylum.

Audacity to play: The remarkable story of women’s cricket in Pakistan

That the writer is Indian and male makes this book all the more remarkable. Puthran has captured not just the state of the sport in Pakistan but also the social, political, religious and administrative challenges women cricketers here face at every step. 

Empowering youth for carbon neutrality: Making campuses living laboratories for Net Zero

India's pledge to attain Net-Zero carbon emissions by 2070, articulated by PM Modi at COP26 in Glasgow, UK  underscores the nation's determination to combat climate change. In this context, higher education institutions take center stage for moulding future-ready policymakers.

More on Medley

A Bollywood film and a tragic tale: Poor road safety awareness remains region's blight

In India alone, some 150,000 people lose their lives to road crashes every year, with more than five times that number injured or maimed for life. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have equally dismal or worse statistics in the matter of road safety.

Mantra of happiness: Live in the moment

Too much planning brings misery because we cannot predict the forces of the future and hence have no control over them. This obviously leads us to worry about the outcome. We should therefore follow the American maxim; “We will cross the bridge when we come to it”.

“Oppenheimer” and the Bhagavad Gita: How the Hindu scripture became the American physicist's moral compass

There was something profoundly moving to note that a deep philosophical insight given by Krishna Dvaipayana better known as Ved-Vyasa, the creator of the Gita and the Mahabharat, many millennia ago, should come to underpin the most defining event of the 20th century and beyond.

When folk culture gets commercialised, the visual language of nature gets lost

What we see in the problematic use of folk culture in Modern Indian art is the way the celebration of nature has been privatised and turned into a consumer item that becomes a part of the art industry. 

Partition stories and intertwined histories: Beyond religious hatred and political rivalries

The nation-states of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh categorise their citizens by nationality alone, with no room for emotion or relationship. People are separated from each other through violent narratives and intractable borders.

Why India's federal system holds over Pakistan's

The elite in Pakistan was not committed to pre-independence reorganization, and the lack of this linguistic federal adjustment created tensions that India survived.

Was Oppenheimer's Gita quote accurate?

In Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32) Lord Krishna says that “I am the "Kal" (Mighty Time) – destroyer of the world”.  Oppenheimer said “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”, and this is extensively quoted.

Is reading your mind now going to be a reality? Breakthrough device by Indian American student

The creation of the device has opened exciting possibilities in the field of brain-computer interface technology.

Cinema that defies norms and transcends borders in South Asia

The discussion highlighted how Pakistani movie and theatregoers lament the banning of Indian films in Pakistan and Indian audiences clamour for Pakistani dramas. Commonalities of language, music and culture developed over thousands of years cannot be erased, as elements in both countries are trying to do, rewriting history and marginalising ‘the other’.

Nine South Asian languages are now on Google’s AI chatbot Bard

The languages are Bengali (spoken in Bangladesh and India), Gujarati, Hindi (spoken in India and Nepal), Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil (spoken in India and Sri Lanka), Telugu and Urdu (spoken in India and Pakistan).

India gets back more stolen antiquities from the US

The operation targeting Kapoor began around 2011 after a tipoff from Indian officials and discovered a web of crime spanning India  Afghanistan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Remembering W. Khan and his love affair with the harmonium

This 12 July marked the 100th birthday of an airline executive who died young – an accomplished Urdu poet and, above all, “an amazing practitioner of Indian classical music” who elevated the humble harmonium to a solo instrument

Dramatizing an ancient Sindhi folk tale with South Asian relevance

The River’s Daughter addresses urgent contemporary concerns about environmental destruction caused by the unethical practices of developers and extractive industries – issues that are relevant not just to Pakistan but all of South Asia.

Will NMACC speak truth to power through the arts?

Will the cultural centre established by the Ambani’s support dissent and debate, and encourage freedom of expression, as is expected of a world-class arts and culture institute? Will it open its nine-star doors to Dalits and Adivasis, other than to put them on “display” as folk artists?

Yoga is a way of life, it should be free from commercialisation: Modi in New York

“Yoga comes from India and it has a very old tradition”, Modi said, "but like all ancient Indian traditions, it is also living, dynamic”.

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