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Friday, September 5, 2025
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Book Excerpts

Boiled spinach, stewed fruit, haricot soup — Gandhi’s experiments with vegetarianism

In ‘Restless as Mercury’, Gopalkrishna Gandhi reconstructs Gandhi’s own words about the struggles, experiences, and philosophies that influenced his younger self.

Modi told Hamid Ansari that the Rajya Sabha TV wasn’t favourable to the government

In ‘Many A Happy Accident’, former vice-president and Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari writes about the time PM Modi told him, ‘You aren’t helping me’.

The underground Congress radio during freedom struggle and 22-yr-old woman behind its voice

In an essay in ‘Our Freedoms’, Aanchal Malhotra writes about Usha Mehta and the Congress Radio set up in 1942 to counter the British-controlled AIR.

They’re not all bad — A former police officer writes on how to deal with Indian politicians

In ‘Stepping Beyond Khaki’, former police officer K. Annamalai writes about the one hour with an MLA that changed his view of politicians and public service.

Calcutta changed Ghalib forever — from humiliation and grammar errors to his pension plea

In ‘Ghalib’, Mehr Afshan Farooqi writes that the Calcutta chapter in Ghalib’s life planted the seeds for his prolonged clashes with critics.

Sindhis are not a caste-free society. My interviews show it is just a false claim

A new collection of 60 essays on the Sindhis, edited by Saaz Aggarwal, traces the complex Sindhi identity.

Better than a ‘proper’ ambulance — how Karimul Hak’s free bike service won him a Padma Shri

In ‘Bike Ambulance Dada’, Biswajit Jha writes about how Karimul Hak saved 4,000 lives with his free bike-ambulance service.

India’s diplomatic corps is understaffed, busy with bureaucratic work. That’s a problem

In ‘Flying Blind’, Mohamed Zeeshan writes on how foreign policy is considered a 'luxury' & why India needs a coherent strategy for its relations with the world.

How Tamil Nadu aced board exam scores for years by manipulating results

In ‘Despite the State’, M. Rajshekhar writes on democratic failures in India, as part of a thirty-three month reporting project across six states.

How ‘Muslim zones’ and ‘mini-Pakistans’ came about in Delhi

In ‘Contested Homelands’, Nazima Parveen chronicles how Patel and Nehru disagreed on Delhi’s post-Partition areas with ‘Hamare log’ and Muslims.

On Camera

Give Trump a Nobel already. He has united Modi, Xi and Putin

Both India and the US should realise that whether it is trade or security, strategy or diplomacy, relationships cannot be one-sided.

GST 2.0: India streamlines indirect tax regime amid Trump tariffs & what it means for consumers

Goods and Services Tax Council paves way for a broad two-slab structure of 5% and 18% with a demerit rate of 40% for super luxury and 'sin' goods.

HAL team to visit US this month for talks on joint production of GE 414 engines

The engines are meant for Tejas Mk 2 and the first tranche of Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).

For Indian Mercedes, Asim Munir’s dumper truck in mirror is closer than it appears

From Munir’s point of view, a few bumps here and there is par for the course. He isn’t going to drive his dumper truck to its doom. He wants to use it as a weapon.