28-02-202627 STORIES

In this issue

Cricket boycotts are just the opening overs in South Asia’s deepening politics of exclusion

The subcontinent’s borders are dangerously hardening as old fault lines are excavated anew.

Saba Naqvi

FRONTLINE CONVERSATIONS

SIR has made more than 6.5 crore voters disappear from the rolls: O.P. Rawat

The former Chief Election Commissioner says electoral authorities must go beyond the call of duty to prevent eligible voters from being excluded in the massive exercise.

Soni Mishra

Legacy Issues

BJP-RSS effort to claim Ahilyabai trips on history and a bulldozer

The Sangh’s intense campaign to claim the Holkar queen as a Hindu and OBC icon is running into her actual secular history, even as the demolition of her ghat unites the opposition and angers her community.

Soni Mishra

Indian Army

Why Punjab is stepping back from the Sikh Regiment

With Agnipath changing military service into a four-year commitment and migration abroad offering clearer futures, Punjab’s historic trust in Army careers is wearing thin.

Ashutosh Sharma

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Karol Nawrocki, and President Gitanas Nauseda

MANI-TALK

Ukraine’s stalemate might finally forge a united Europe. Can South Asia learn?

A Europe-led rapprochement could end decades of US-powered NATO confrontation. This model of pan-continental cooperation is the bold alternative South Asia needs to escape its own deadlock.

Mani Shankar Aiyar

RELIGION

Tiruparankundram controversy: Unholy fight over holy ritual

How a centuries-old lamp-lighting ritual on a sacred hill has set off a legal, political battle that threatens Hindu-Muslim harmony in Tamil Nadu.

Ilangovan Rajasekaran

CINE-POLITICS

The missing isms in Vijayism

Vijayism abandons ideology, programmes, and disagreement, leaning instead on consensus, charisma, and content-lite cinema. TVK’s politics is anchored on star power rather than ideas.

Arjun Ramachandran,Kuriakose Mathew

ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES

The EU-India FTA is a net loss for India’s future

The hurried pact, a reaction to US tariffs, will damage India’s manufacturing and stunt its domestic market expansion—a costly price for political symbolism.

C.P. Chandrasekhar

Weak consumption-woman-shop-bread-groceries.JPG

DEVELOPMENT

Democracy damned by doctored data

When growth numbers flatter power, hide job scarcity, and mute rising costs, bad data stops disciplining policy and democracy pays a hefty price.

Ashoka Mody

Interview

Secularism is a stick with which to beat multiculturalists: Akeel Bilgrami

The philosopher argues that in modern liberal states, secularism has become a cudgel used by elites to oppose multicultural accommodations for religious minorities.

Muddasir Ramzan

Heritage

The Kushans of Kashmir

The recent discovery of the ruins of an ancient Buddhist stupa in Baramulla suggests that Kashmir was probably a key outpost for the ancient Kushans.

Shakir Mir

Counter Culture

The Great Indian Brain Rot scrolls past Internet’s hard questions

It describes virality and visibility but hesitates to rethink meaning, legitimacy, and the self in an Internet that we cannot understand with old beliefs.

Prathyush Parasuraman

TRIBUTE

The queen of crime, and her kingdom of contradictions

On the 50th anniversary of Agatha Christie’s death, an investigation into the Dame: her dazzling puzzles, her elusive life, and the dark shadows that made her the world’s bestselling storyteller.

Aditya Sinha

Tribal Rights

Jharkhand’s Big Chief

The incredible journey of Jaipal Singh Munda, from captaining India’s hockey team in the 1928 Olympics to campaigning for the Jharkhand movement.

Kamal Nayan Choubey

Gender Politics

His story. Her labour

Pandey’s book on men at home is built on the back-breaking labour of women’s unseen work. It’s a consequential but flawed study of masculinity, haunted by the absence it tries to fill.

Panchali Ray

Women of the Left

Mallu Swarajam: The one that wanted the whole sky

Tracing the role of Mallu Swarajyam in the Telangana movement, this book reclaims feminist legacies of revolution, caste, and collective resistance.

A. Mangai

Indian Crime Fiction

Dark stories for dark times

The stories in this collection are a mixed bag, but they give a fair sense of the realities surrounding crime and criminality in India.

Sashikala Asirvatham

CLASS AND SEXUALITY

The questions that hang over Half Light

Mahesh Rao’s sharp urban sketches interact with the political questions around homosexuality and social codes in India, creating a work of surprising depth.

Dakshayini Suresh

CLIMATE CHANGE

Will climate visas guard our morality, or steal it?

Megha Majumdar’s dystopian Kolkata shows how thin the line between guardian and thief becomes when survival is at stake.

Shuma Raha

Books

New books on the shelves

A classic Assamese novel in translation, an unapologetically desi anthology on love and sex in India, and more.

White Space

The disappearing art of the ‘kuchh gaa ke sunao’ moment

That awkward picnic request for a song once crafted cinematic gems like ‘Main kaun sa geet sunaoon’. Today’s reels and shorts have killed the courtesy, and the clever, situational music it inspired.

Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

BACK PAGE

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In this issue

Power as ultimate truth

Editor’s Note

Beyond docility or defiance: India’s new post-Trump reality

Is Europe’s ‘legally complex’ excuse its foreign policy future?

Is Europe’s old-world formula failing against new realities?

Cricket boycotts are just the opening overs in South Asia’s deepening politics of exclusion

SIR has made more than 6.5 crore voters disappear from the rolls: O.P. Rawat

BJP-RSS effort to claim Ahilyabai trips on history and a bulldozer

Why Punjab is stepping back from the Sikh Regiment

Ukraine’s stalemate might finally forge a united Europe. Can South Asia learn?

Tiruparankundram controversy: Unholy fight over holy ritual

The missing isms in Vijayism

The EU-India FTA is a net loss for India’s future

Democracy damned by doctored data

Secularism is a stick with which to beat multiculturalists: Akeel Bilgrami

The Kushans of Kashmir

The Great Indian Brain Rot scrolls past Internet’s hard questions

The queen of crime, and her kingdom of contradictions

Jharkhand’s Big Chief

His story. Her labour

Mallu Swarajam: The one that wanted the whole sky

Dark stories for dark times

The questions that hang over Half Light

Will climate visas guard our morality, or steal it?

New books on the shelves

The disappearing art of the ‘kuchh gaa ke sunao’ moment

‘The Dystopian Times’ by Appupen

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