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 legendary Indian songwriter, a daughter married in Pakistan - and a family torn apart

Before moving to Pakistan, Kishwar often accompanied her father to recordings after school hours in Mumbai. After marriage, with relations between the two countries deteriorating, she found herself progressively isolated from her family and the world. 

Salman Rushdie returns, vibrating with literary energy

If there ever were a perfect literary candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, it would be Salman Rushdie this year.

Filial piety and elderly-children relationships: Common narratives in regional folklore and popular culture

Several folktales from across the Indian sub-continent also speak about respect and honour of one’s elderly parents. The concept is also seen in Theravada Buddhism, often referred as 'the doctrine of the elders' (of the senior Buddhist monks). Thus, reverberations of the concept of filial piety are seen in spiritualism and folklore of South, Southeast and East Asia.

‘Serendipity’ and its travelling tale - across Persia, Sri Lanka and India

This story is often said to have encouraged the introduction of the word ‘serendip’ into the English dictionary, marking January 28 to be remembered as the day when the word entered the dictionary. 

Rediscovering Suchitra Sen in Bangladesh: Tracing the portrait of a glamorous actress on an easel of the past

As busy evenings of youngsters flock over to Roopkawthar Kabbo, the narrative of the legend from yesteryears reverberates through each cup served and, for the uninitiated, these cups are the connecting dots of time when an answer comes with the query of “Who is this?”.

The poet who never gave up: Is Tagore relevant today?

And yet, it is perhaps the reminder of these unfulfilled dreams, a never-ending quest, that is most relevant today, as we struggle through challenges that are at once global and personal, intricately and inextricably intertwined.

Music without borders: Dama Dam Mast Qalandar and a qawwali night at Boston

“Between the first Pakistani win at the Grammys, the first Pakistani film to be selected at the Cannes Film Festival, a Pakistani song topping the most-searched list on Google, local actors featured in international series, and the highest-grossing film in the history of Pakistani cinema, 2022 has been a banner year for Pakistani art,’ observes Surbhi Gupta, South Asia Editor at New Lines magazine.

Traditional Chinese medicine demand fuels illegal orchid trade in Nepal

According to a policy brief prepared by the Kathmandu-based NGO Greenhood Nepal, which is spearheading a project focused on illegal trade and sustainable use of medicinal orchids in Nepal, the decline in their numbers has been attributed to unsustainable harvesting and international trade of the plants used in ayurvedic as well as traditional Chinese medicine.

Literary festivals are flourishing in Pakistan; interest in native literature waning

Pakistani writers are not only writing about love and romance, but also on feminism, religion, culture, socio-political, ethnic, and identity issues.

Hockey, friendship, Partition, and the pangs of separation: Old Lahore remembered through a documentary

Every scene in this intimately filmed documentary tugs at the heartstrings. The pain of separation felt so palpable to me that I wept with the characters.

Millets in gastronomic glory at five-course UN luncheon to promote 'humble foodgrain'

Jaishankar told reporters before the luncheon that he hoped to “familiarise the members of the Security Council” with “all the virtues of millets”.

Illuminating forgotten pasts: English translations of Ghalib’s Chirag-e-Dair

The rediscovery of Ghalib in the English translation of Chirag-e-Dair as a modern cosmopolitan man who can appreciate the port town of Calcutta, find spirituality in the Hindu temple town of Banaras, and firmly situate himself in Persianate traditions of West Asia opens up a history of cultural exchange to the contemporary South Asian reader

India, Bangladesh bolstering ties through Silchar-Sylhet Festival

The Silchar-Sylhet festival aimed at strengthening the longstanding bonds of friendship between the two neighboring nations, which share a wide range of complementary traditions, cultures, and other things.  The festival once again demonstrated the closeness between India and Bangladesh, and improved mutual understanding.

Colombo's iconic Lighthouse Clock Tower is a silent sentinel of time

This is the story of the beginning of the oldest clock tower in Asia and the only lighthouse clock tower in the world.

'Made like a Gun':Romancing the Royal Enfield Bullet in the service of the Indian Armed Forces

The record-breaking Tornadoes display team of the Army Service Corps was formed in 1982, debuting at the 9th Asian Games in New Delhi. It has since participated in more than 1,000 major international and national events, always riding Royal Enfield Bullets. 

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