The road downhill

A register most flawed

The foreigner debate in Assam is devoid of reason, with unreliable data, a tie-up with Ahom history that is more fiction than reality leading to an exercise that divides rather than clarifies.

Shackling the blog

Tanzania’s latest anti-free speech rules require bloggers to pay a hefty licence fee and subject themselves to writing things that don’t annoy the regime.

The importance of being Baloch

Balochistan is Pakistan’s most restive province For India it is a constant temptation. While military intervention is off the table there are opportunities to neutralise Pakistan's terror threat.

Pushed to the margins

The Siddi community, poor and friendless, seems to have no road to the future.

The Bhagat Singh of letters

Historian S. Irfan Habib on the intellectual legacy of the revolutionary, the many shades of the freedom movement, and the nationalism of history writers.

China's belt loses its charm

The world’s biggest ever infrastructure initiative is attracting increasing flak but its author, China, seems undeterred by the controversy.

Their way or the right way

When fake news nearly started a riot

Telangana’s Kalwakurthy was on the boil last year over a viral WhatsApp forward, as the town experienced the might of online hate sparked by a photo.

Washed away in a flash

Floods and flash floods are inevitable facts of climatic fluctuations but new research on the probabilities of weather events shows that neither death nor destruction is foreordained.

'I don't know how producers make money'

Girish Kasarvalli has made 14 films and is the undoubted doyen of Kannada independent cinema. But his job has got harder with the years, as funding dries up.

The unknown Indian

No one knew of Sanjay Pradhan’s death. He was just one of the millions who traverse the country, working where they can, building a nation and dying alone.

The Mahua story

Modern times and an iconic brew.

Left behind by the wayside

India is a country tailor made for communists but they have failed to arouse public enthusiasm due to a complete misreading of the common man's temperament.

Death by nitrogen

We are all familiar with the perils of a runaway carbon cycle but there is a lesser known one that may be worse, the rise of reactive nitrogen to dangerous levels.

In the fight of its life

Brexit and rise of the far right across Europe, along with an assault on democracy threatens the continent’s identity as a liberal, inclusive place.

In the black hole

India has four million drug addicts, one million hooked to heroin. One in five of the latter is a minor. The story of Arman, an 11-year-old who can’t do without his fix.