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Tuesday, July 22, 2025
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Weekend Feature

Kamal Amrohi’s ‘Razia Sultan’ lacked the magic of Pakeezah. Only opulence, no substance

Like Pakeezah, Kamal Amrohi’s Razia Sultan had all the right ingredients–superstar Hema Malini as leading lady, Bhanu Athaiya as costume designer, and Khayyam as music director. But none of it could translate into magic on screen.

Pune’s Swastik asks to banish the whites from your kitchen—it’s a seekers’ wellness resort

With meticulously crafted routines for ‘seekers’, villas out of Tolkien’s Shire, and a kitchen with a policy against fried foods, Swastik is the latest addition to India’s niche but growing wellness tourism sector.

Here are two Indians who’ve tried to crack the Indus script in last 10 years

In the absence of a Rosetta Stone-like artefact – which helped scholars decode Egyptian hieroglyphics – and a lack of bilingual texts, making sense of the Indus script remains a big challenge.

Bad Newz to Mr & Mrs Mahi—new Bollywood films are all about marriage. Where’s the dating?

Tripti Dimri eats golgappa with Vicky Kaushal only once in Bad Newz and their parents start matching their kundalis.

‘Marching in the Dark’ flips the lens on farmer suicides—it’s about those left behind

Kinshuk Surjan’s experience growing up in a ‘family of farmers and journalists’ informs every twist, turn and texture of the docu-film

Shivesh Bhatia’s cookbook launch was an ode to chocolate—brownies, cookie dough to mousse

Cookbooks are a passion project for 28-year old chef Shivesh Bhatia. And his new one is about a crowd pleaser.

Nehru model slowed India’s economic growth. Licence Raj made it worse, says Amitabh Kant

At the launch of his new book 'The Nehru Development Model', Arvind Panagariya dispassionately dissected the PM's economic thought process.

India’s filter coffee is now best in the world. Why is it absent from global menus?

Filter coffee has secured the top spot on TasteAtlas’ ‘Top 62 Coffees in the World’. It has even surpassed the beloved café Cubano. For some, the recognition comes too late.

Love, Bombay, middle-class — Basu Chatterjee’s ‘Rajnigandha’ is relevant even today

‘Rajnigandha’ articulated the conflicting thoughts of its woman protagonist, at a time when inner female turmoil wasn’t considered a crowd-puller or even an interesting film plot.

Nehru & Jinnah next up on Sony LIV. They are the rocket boys of Independence

Arif Zakaria, who plays Jinnah in Freedom At Midnight, makes it a point to stumble over the Urdu speech scenes. After all, Jinnah was not comfortable with the language.

On Camera

Bihar mimics 19th-century American South. Citizenship is now weaponised to exclude voters

Disenfranchisement by institutional fiat is profoundly undemocratic. The effect of the ECI's new documentary process in Bihar will tilt the scales in favour of the BJP.

India-US set to ink mini trade deal soon, reach understanding on agricultural & dairy products

Mini deal will likely see no cut in 10% baseline tariff on Indian exports announced by Trump on 2 April, it is learnt, but additional 26% tariffs are set to be reduced.

Not just AK-203, India & Russia to jointly manufacture AK-19 and PPK-20 for domestic use and export 

India-Russia JV is also racing to deliver 7,000 more AK-203 assault rifles by 15 Aug. These are currently being made with 50% indigenisation and this will surge to 100% by 31 December.

Strategic partner one day, tactical nightmare the next: India’s learning Trumplomacy the hard way

Public, loud, upfront, filled with impropriety and high praise sometimes laced with insults. This is what we call Trumplomacy. But the larger objective is the same: American supremacy.