Columns

For the last two weeks now the otherwise tranquil state of Himachal has been roiled in a vortex of Islamophobia, despicable politics, violence and opportunistic silence by those who should be speaking out. Right wing inspired crowds have been flooding the streets of Shimla, Mandi, Solan, Hamirpur and elsewhere, protesting against illegal mosques and “outsiders”(which […]

Introduction Democracy requires good governance, which in turn, requires high quality policies and institutions which serve as important checks and balances. What matters most for the quality of a democracy, however, is good leadership with vision, wisdom, foresight, ethics, morals, values and principles. If these attributes are either missing or in serious deficit, both policies

India is going through another great Renaissance, as ordained by a gentleman whose own educational qualifications are shrouded in doubt and about which RTI questions will never be answered. All our learnings of the past two thousand years have to be discarded and a new learning, as enshrined in the NEP (New Education Policy) and

In the reasoning of most right thinking people who are alarmed at the direction in which the BJP is taking the country the primary validity and defendability of the TMC govt. in West Bengal stems from its proven ability to keep the BJP at bay in that state. Mamata Banerjee has done this for the

A genre-bending portrayal of family dynamics, societal wealth distribution and caste politics in postcolonial India. It is 1950 and Mewar is reeling from the aftereffects of Partition and the departure of the British. On the day of Makar Sankranti, teenaged beauty Sanaz, the esteemed Dada Bhai’s daughter, is found dead. To add perplexity to the

Kangana Runout is all over the news these days like a bad rash , there’s just no getting away from her interviews, statements and tweets. I find her very refreshing in these morbid days of rapes, lynchings, bridge collapses, encounters, defections and states going bankrupt. What is enlivening in her utterings is the novel perspective

Himachal Pradesh should regulate trekking to make it safe and eco-friendly, writes Avay Shukla On the night of 17 July, about 120 trekkers were stranded below the 14,000-foot high Hampta Pass in Himachal, without adequate shelter, clothing or food, in very adverse weather conditions, torrential rain and almost sub-zero temperatures. They were members of three

by Mikael Gislen of My path was vastly different before I embraced the adventure defining my life. I grew up in a small village in Sweden and, in the summers, I worked on the neighbour’s farm to get some pocket money. I was lucky to get into IT early and had a short career in