2018 Saw Films That Would Have Been Unthinkable a Decade Ago
This was an exciting year for Hindi cinema. Self-assured scripts were written on subjects and films made in ways that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
Yogi Raj Priorities: Catch Cow Killers Over Cop Killers?
Just over two weeks ago, on December 3, inspector Subodh Singh was killed by a mob in UP’s Bulandshar. Some 400 people rampaged through a village after 25 cow carcasses were found in a nearby jungle. Inspector Subodh Singh died of gunshot wounds when he went there to control the violence.
Speak up, act
Grace, humility and sobriety marked the address by the Congress president Rahul Gandhi in his moment of triumph after his party wrested three major states from the BJP. These are qualities that, sadly, have become rare in public life in India today.
Miracles in Asansol: As coal city burnt in hatred, a Muslim cleric and Hindu temple healed with love
We mounted the stairs of the tranquil 200-year-old Noorani mosque in West Bengal’s coal city of Asansol with trepidation. What could you say to a man who had just lost his 16-year-old son to a hate mob that would give him any kind of solace?
In Madhya Pradesh, priests attacked for singing carols bear witness to erosion of religious freedom
It was night by the time our weary and dusty band of travellers in Karwan e Mohabbat reached the seminary near Satna, Madhya Pradesh, where young prospective Catholic priests spend several years studying theology.
New hate crime tracker in India finds victims are predominantly Muslims, perpetrators Hindus
The election results in Brazil last month came as another troubling reminder of the direction in which an increasing number of countries are careening.
Hashimpura: 31 years after custodial massacre of Muslims by men in uniform, justice is incomplete
Uzma was born on the terrifying night when her father was shot dead on the banks of a canal by paramilitary soldiers, about 50-odd km from Delhi. This was in the summer of 1987.
In Odisha, no blood spilt but the fires of communal hatred are touching the skies
The first day of the Karwan e Mohabbat (caravan of love) in Odisha revealed a state torn apart by the same ruptures of communal and caste mobilisation against religious minorities and disadvantaged castes that lacerate many parts of the country.
PMO’s proposed changes in civil services allocation are an attempt to weaken India’s steel frame
During the two decades that I served in the Indian Administrative Service, I would often wonder why our country’s founding fathers and mothers chose to retain in democratic India the permanent civil services patterned closely after the colonial civil services
Alwar lynching shows the government has put the burden of ending mob killings on victims themselves
I held Rakbar Khan’s father Suleiman’s hand in mine for a long time. His face was creased with grief, his eyes often welled up.