Main Vaapas Aunga

When Poison Enters the System: Impunity, Vigilantism and South Asia’s Internal Security Failure

Across South Asia, the difference between prejudice and collapse is not the existence of hate. Every society has it in varying shades.  The difference is whether the majoritarian state internalizes hate against the ‘other’,  whether FIRs get diluted, trials get delayed, mobs get garlanded  and impunity driven violence against minorities becomes low-cost. When that happens, the poison is not outside the system. It becomes the system.

In the Quiet Spaces Between Strangers, Sonia Bahl’s Eighteen Inches Apart

And perhaps this is precisely what many readers, particularly South Asian readers navigating fractured contemporary lives, have been missing without fully realising it: fiction willing to slow down long enough to notice the fragile, passing intimacies through which people continue surviving one another.

Robert A.F. Thurman, an academic with a Buddhist monk’s soul

Thurman said that Tibet was not an individual nation-state question but something that goes far beyond that. “It is not about a people yearning for freedom from an invading state. It is about a very valuable society struggling to keep its centuries-old tradition of intellectual evolution alive.” He said that while he was hopeful that the problem would be resolved soon, “and during His Holiness’ lifetime,” it was hard to put a timeframe to it.

A White Strip Exposes New Political Faultlines in Cosmopolitan Mumbai

The perceived push from a political leadership that has roots in Gujarat, the split in the locally rooted Shiv Sena that was engineered, the resentment it brewed among ordinary citizens and the history of Maharashtra -- which was born on May 1, 1960 after a bitter struggle that split the erstwhile Bombay State into two distinct linguistic states of Maharashtra and Gujarat -- are all complex and contributory factors to the evolving political unrest in middle-class Mumbai. 

More on Culture and Society

First international Holi conference in Trinidad

The National Council of Indian Culture (NCIC) will host its first international virtual Phagwa or Holi conference in Trinidad on March 13 and 14

Preserving India's world-famous Ajanta Cave art for posterity

Images of the rock sculptures and restored paintings of the Ajanta Caves,  30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments dating from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 CE in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in western India,  is being digitized and restored for future generations

Manipur's 500-year-old all-women's market reopens after eleven months

Ima Keithal or Mother's Market,  dubbed as the world's largest all-women-run market located in the Manipur state capital Imphal, was formally reopened on Monday after 11 months, bringing smiles on the faces of over 3,600 women traders

Pakistan’s continued love, hate for all things Bollywood

Pakistan’s entertainment industry, going by media reports, is increasingly conscious that political relations with India are unlikely to improve anytime soon, lengthening any prospects of collaborating with Bollywood

Celebrated Pakistani designer highlights anti-dowry campaign through fashion

Celebrated Pakistani designer Ali Xeeshan, in a powerful fashion campaign, highlighted the age-old tradition of dowry practiced mostly in South Asia and rampant in Pakistan. The fashion campaign was supported by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women Pakistan

New dates for Kathmandu Triennale

Kathmandu Triennale has announced new dates for the fourth edition which will now take place from October 27 to November 27, 2021

Indian woman, P Sameera Khan, with Himalayan ambitions

A cyclist and mountaineer, she is out to prove to the world that girls are capable of doing anything without family support

Kolkata Book Fair to be dedicated to Bangabandhu

The 45th edition of the International Kolkata Book Fair, to be held in July this year, will be dedicated to Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Bangladesh will be the country-in-focus of the event, said the organisers

Sri Lanka sets up Technical Advisory Committee for cricket development

A new Technical Advisory Committee for cricket has been appointed by Sri Lanka's Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa, the local media reported

Breaking down barriers; Bangladeshi transgenders to pursue higher studies

For the first time in the country, two Bangladeshi transgender women have been nominated to study at an international platform at Brac James P Grant School of Public Health (JPGSPH), Brac University, a private research university in Bangladesh

Remembering Ritwik Ghatak on his 45th death anniversary: A filmmaker’s filmmaker

In 2018, noted filmmakers Kumar Shahani and Saeed Akhtar Mirza met in Delhi for a very special event

Once beggars, they are now picking up vocational skills in a reformed life

An elegant heritage building in Jaipur is playing host to 33 destitute who were left to begging on the streets and who are picking life skills thanks to an innovative Rajasthan state government initiative

Couple tie knot, exchanges garlands underwater in Bay of Bengal

A couple in Tamil Nadu tied the knot 60 feet underwater in the Bay of Bengal near the coast off Neelankarai in the south of Chennai

Nepal bans two Indian mountaineers for 10 years

Nepal's Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has imposed a 10-year ban on two Indian mountaineers, restricting them from climbing any peak in Nepal after they produced fake documents to say that they had climbed the Mount Everest in May 2016

Modi gives new life to Arunachal's local art

A type of paper called 'Mon Shugu', which has been made in the hilly regions of Arunachal Pradesh for centuries, got special mention in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's monthly radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat' on Sunday