Bangladesh on a New Journey: Moving Beyond the Regional Identity

Bangladesh's future will depend in many ways on the foreign policy choices it makes

Attention must also be paid to the changing structural dynamics within South Asia where countries (including Bangladesh) are increasingly working with each other, moving away from a primarily India-driven engagement within the neighbourhood.

Unraveling "Gandi Baat": Popular Bollywood culture needs to embrace responsible storytelling, eschew misogyny

"Gandi Baat" serves as a microcosm of a larger issue within popular culture, normalizing the silencing of female voices and perpetuating harmful behaviors. 

What the Jamnagar 'pre-wedding' gala tells us about Indian society

The postcards from Jamnagar frame some other stories that have emerged as a theme in the 'New India'. These are stories of unrivalled pomp and power, of material riches beyond compare, of an elite space where forces work differently from the way they work elsewhere on the planet.

A Sri Lanka-Pakistan people-to-people journey: An island man’s mountain quest with a larger cause

Everywhere I went I was greeted with great warmth and hospitality. It is a symbol of the decades-long ‘Enduring Friendship’ between the peoples of Pakistan and Sri Lanka. 

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The amazing adventures of a Lithuanian scholar in the Indian subcontinent

The re-connection with Poska, in many ways, underlines the deep-rooted connectivity between the Indian sub-continent and Eurasia along with the eastern and central parts of Europe, much of which remains forgotten or ignored.

Humorous ghost stories in Bengali literature: Connecting oral literature tradition to the modern digital age

Over the years, these relate to representations of various regions of eastern India and, at times, the extended and larger region of erstwhile Bengal, including the present country of Bangladesh. Many of these stories also help to understand how identities are constructed across time and space in folklore and in written literature.

Bollywood’s first faltering steps abroad: The challenges of shooting of Africa mein Hind(1939-1940)

Seth Govind Das invited Basu to direct a movie based on Indian connectivity with Africa.

A light-hearted film with pan-South Asian resonance

Though these themes are presented to us in an Indian setting, they resonate with the larger South Asian context where middle-class women often find themselves similarly weighed down within domesticity, doing unacknowledged and unpaid physical and emotional work in their homes.

Rare cross-border bonding: Indian, Pakistani journalists in Nepal break misinformation barriers

“The most important legacy of the gathering is the lifelong relationships formed by journalists from Pakistan and India. Those relationships will translate into fact-based reporting on issues important to the future of both countries.”

Indian cricket star Virat Kohli makes a specially-abled Pakistani fan's day in Dubai

Noor’s patience paid off as Kohli, after he got to know about her, came to see her after India’s training session got over. Kohil met Noor and her family and clicked pictures with them

Nepal’s honey hunters find traditional livelihood under threat from 'development'

Overharvesting is not the only threat to the Himalayan giant honeybee. Across the Nepal Himalayas, earth-blasting and the construction of roads and dams is impacting the fragile mountain ecosystem

Tiger, tiger burning bright in Nepal; tiger numbers tripled as PM Deuba commends human-tiger coexistence

"The latest tiger population in Nepal is nearly three times compared to figures we had in 2009-2010, which is nothing short of historical," said Chiranjibi P. Pokharel, a tiger expert at the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC)

Scientists in Pakistan develop low-cost anti-bacterial fabric with multiple uses

Speaking on the motivation behind the development, Majeed said the pandemic disrupted many imports, including medical supplies; so his team started exploring medical fabric with a focus on anti-bacterial material which could be sourced locally

In a first for Bangladesh, women outnumber men; literacy rate jumps

Significantly, the literacy rate jumped to 74.66 per cent— 81.28 per cent in the urban areas and 71.56 per cent in the rural areas—against 51.77 per cent recorded in the 2011 census

Scaling the world’s 14 highest peak twice, Nepali sherpa sets a new record

Sanu Sherpa came to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, in 2015 to make a simple living. Little did he know at the time that seventeen years later he would break a world record, scaling the world’s 14 highest peaks twice

Cheetahs to make a comeback to India after seven decades

The cheetahs will be relocated to Kuno, a wildlife sanctuary in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, spread across 133 sq miles. Forests in the sanctuary had earlier been home to hundreds of these Asiatic cheetahs before their extinction in India

Taliban’s new insidious plan to replace female government employees

However, replacement by men isn’t possible for every job, especially in cases where women hold higher professional skills and qualifications

Bangladesh cracks down on health officials who conducted fake Covid tests

A district court in Bangladesh has sentenced eight health officials to eleven years of rigorous imprisonment for issuing fake Covid-19 test reports

Courageous Afghan girls defy Taliban’s ban to study in secret schools

One of these secret schools is operated by a 21-year-old girl Nazanin from a house on the outskirts of Kabul. Her students, around ten in number, are almost of the same age as her.