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Sunday, November 23, 2025
HomeGround Reports

Ground Reports

Ratnagiri to Ramanathapuram—engineers, teachers, fishermen are ASI’s unsung warriors

Without formal training or funding, they have braved rugged terrain, deciphered ancient scripts and uncovered hidden treasures — from the Sundarban to the Aravallis.

Sanskrit to satellites, embassies in Delhi are using culture to show ties, get close to India

With major players engaged in ‘hard’ diplomacy, smaller embassies like Australia, Lithuania, Switzerland and others are rushing to fill the gaps with soft diplomacy.

Andhra Vedic institute’s time has come—IIT to DRDO and ISRO partnerships, govt grants

Established by Vedic scholar ABS Sastry in 1999, SRIVT in Guntur is now a recognised PhD centre for several IITs. Sastry says he is in talks with BITS to develop courses for future engineers and scientists.

The Great Indian Sanitation Scam. General castes bag govt jobs, Valmikis do the work

Across India, proxy, ‘badli’, or ‘ewaj’ work is rampant in sanitation jobs. ‘They want our jobs but they don’t want to do our jobs.’

Rajasthan’s elderly are victims of ‘digital murder’. eKYC gaps leave lakhs without pension

Digital verification issues are excluding Rajasthan’s elderly and disabled from pensions, with lakhs incorrectly declared ‘dead’ or missing. There’s an embarrassing KYC-shaped hole in Digital India.

After UPSC, India’s coaching industry has found a new gold rush—judicial services

With law schools churning out more graduates than ever, the competition to become a judge in India’s lower courts and tribunals has heated up. The coaching industry is cashing in.

Darjeeling zoo showed the world how to save red pandas. Now it’s on a global award shortlist

The Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park’s red panda programme is the first Indian project to be shortlisted in October 2024 for the global conservation award by the WAZA.

Delhi’s five pollution hotspots

These five areas in Delhi see the worst air quality every winter.

India’s digital nomads fleeing big cities for work-bliss balance. New hubs want them, woo them

Instagram-friendly Goa and Dharamshala are the favourites of digital nomads. They are shaping the future of work, with a little help from Amazon, Nykaa and high-speed data.

Girl kills father, lover turns murderer. Are rural romances growing deadlier?

Love affairs in rural India seem to be turning deadlier, more brutal, and increasingly gender-agnostic. These breathlessly covered ‘prem prasangs’ suggest a churning among rural youth and a society that’s unprepared.

On Camera

In Tejas Dubai crash, the harm goes beyond the loss of an aircraft and pilot

Airshows are thrilling spectacles of aviation skill and engineering marvels. But they carry inherent risks as the crew is pushing the aircraft, and themselves, to perform at the edges of the envelope.

At Charcha 2025: Local entrepreneurship, not just big IT, will drive next wave of distributed AI work

While global corporations setting up GCCs in India continue to express confidence in availability of skilled AI engineers, the panel argued that India’s real challenge lies elsewhere.

From a small Kangra village to Tejas cockpit: IAF fighter pilot Namansh Syal’s journey cut short

Wing Commander Namansh Syal is survived by his wife, their 6-year-old daughter and his mother. Back in his native village, relatives and neighbours wait for his remains for last rites.

A tribute to Tejas. India’s delay culture is the real enemy in the skies

It is a brilliant, reasonably priced, and mostly homemade aircraft with a stellar safety record; only two crashes in 24 years since its first flight. But its crash is a moment of introspection.