Avay Shukla

I am a happy man these days, or at least as happy as anyone can be in this Ram rajya where even 1600 CTVs and 400 security guards could not prevent His abode from being looted by His own bhakts. To be clear, however: I am not happy because Mr. Pradhan has resigned as Education […]

T.S. Eliot had dubbed April as “the cruelest month” in one of his poems; I am sure he had his reasons for doing so, but it does reveal that he was not one of the 40 million odd Indian taxpayers. For, had he been one, he would have vehemently disagreed- in India, the cruelest month

It has been my experience that every District Collectorate is usually haunted by its own resident lunatic, somewhat like ancient mansions possessing their resident spectres who do not look kindly on new arrivals. These benignly deranged persons are usually quite harmless, and in them the spirit of violence is replaced by the litigatious and bureaucratic

Biodiversity is perhaps the most unacknowledged component of the natural environment, and the attention of policy makers rarely goes beyond trees and animals, if even that. But biodiversity is much more than just trees and animals. It is the building block of nature, without which there would be no nature, or an inhabitable planet. Biodiversity

INDONESIA – THE BEAUTIFUL ARCHIPELAGO BY AFTAB SETH PUBLISHED BY BIRCH BOOKS, 2026. There are two types of diplomats, as Mani Shankar Aiyar points out in the review appended to the book. The first are the wolf warriors, of the type so ably represented by Mr Sibi George of the recent press-conference-in- Denmark fame, who

[It was reported by the Satya Hindi news channel, and reiterated by a Congress spokesperson, that after the declaration of the West Bengal results, the CEC Gyanesh Kumar told a group of reporters: “Tiger abhi zinda hai !”] My faith in the Chief Deletion Commissioner, Mr Gyanesh Kumar (may his tribe decrease), has been fully

Since these are tricky times, let us begin this week with a trick question: what do the following events have in common with each other ? : * The huge, and sometimes violent,  protests in NOIDA last month by factory workers and domestic help over increase in minimum wages. * The refusal of a High

Civilisations are created by poets, writers, painters, architects, but are destroyed by politicians and their armies. We would do well to remember this truth at a time when an existential civilisational war is taking place almost on our borders, in West Asia. Make no mistake, the illegal assaults on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran are

[Published by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. 2025] Before we get into this thought provoking book two things need to be said about it. One, it reaffirms that courageous journalism and writing still breathes in India, notwithstanding the utter capitulation of most of the shameful media to power and commerce. Second, the book raises troubling questions about