In The Hindu today, I examine the great Indian fault-line of the north-south divide and discuss the possible ways forward out of the dilemmas it poses

The shift from pre-colonial village education to the colonial English education system in India created both losses and new opportunities. Read more ... How the British shaped India’s education system indianexpress.com/article/upsc-c… via The Indian Express

The irony is stark: Pakistan is waging an open war against Afghanistan, carrying out dozens of airstrikes that have killed large numbers of civilians, including hundreds at a drug rehabilitation hospital. Yet, even as it prosecutes this reckless campaign, Pakistan casts itself as

What is holding West Bengal back? While the rest of India has enjoyed real growth in consumption levels over the last decade, WB has experienced near stagnation, specially in urban areas. In fact, the top 20% of urban WB population has seen a decline in their real consumption

He could speak 8 languages and they said he could recite all 37 of Shakespeare's plays from memory. An award winning playwright & stage artist and one of Satyajit Ray's favourite actors. Also one of India's finest comic actors in films like Golmaal, and Hirak Rajar Deshe. The

The world is being reordered by those who act and those who define. If India wishes to be counted among the latter, it must ensure that its silence does not speak louder than its convictions. We are living through a moment when the rules of the international system are being

Lot of posts today remembering the great Utpal Dutt. You might wonder what Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen, in a scene from Othello, have to do with Dutt. Listen carefully - Uttam Kumar’s voice is that of Utpal Dutt; Suchitra Sen’s is Jennifer Kapoor (nee Jennifer Kendal).

A moving piece.

যে হাসিটা চির অমলিন... --সুমন দে কী বলব জানিনা! বহু বছরের অভ্যেস, কোনও লেখা খুব ভালো লাগলে, সপ্তাহশেষে আবার পড়ার জন্য রেখে দিই... গতকালই আমার স্ত্রী আনন্দবাজার রবিবাসরীয়তে ছাপা একটা পুরনো লেখা পড়ে বলল , "কী করে এই লেখাটা মিস করে গেলে?অসাধারণ...পড়ে দেখো!" লেখকের নাম রাহুল

Nothing is much better than a cup of hot coffee or tea on a cold night, and an entertaining novel to read.

Ashok Gulati and Bidisha Chanda provide some answers in today’s excellent column, to my above question: What is holding West Bengal back?

A 79 year old professor is my current poster girl. In 2023, Claudia Goldin was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for her work in women's labor market outcomes, the first woman to win the award solo. After her win, she was deluged with hundreds of requests of

I am no stranger to criticism and have learnt, over time, to absorb it without losing focus. That is part of public life. What is harder to accept is the steady erosion of civility in our discourse. Disagreement is essential; derision and vituperative, personal slander is not. A

In a war, one benefit of being totally confused about what you want to achieve is it leaves your enemies totally confused about what you want to achieve.

There is a certain genre of writing that substitutes accusation for argument. It begins by assigning motive, then arranges facts,real, distorted, or imagined, to fit that conclusion. The recent commentary on my views on India-Pakistan relations follows that familiar script. Let

Morality, fairness, and justice were the unwritten critical conditions to follow for people in power since the early days of civilisation. Even if they didn’t follow them, they made efforts that history remembers them as the good guys who tried. And then sometime in the last two

Fifteen years ago..

After 54 years, four astronauts have once again commenced their journey around the Moon, a moment that feels both historic and deeply personal. Today, they launched aboard the Space Launch System from Kennedy Space Center , a place where the weight of history is almost tangible.

Mahabharata & Ramayana are not myths. They are manuals of life- universal texts of wisdom, meant for the entire humanity. They are reflections of human nature, consciousness & dharma and are relevant across generations, geographies, and cultures. While the Bhagavad Gita is widely

NASA just released a stunning picture of earth taken by the Artemis astronauts. And someone said it was our latest group photo. It was, all of us, that's all of us other than the 4 in Artemis and 10 in the International Space Station. Iranians and Americans, Arabs and Jews,