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Saturday, November 22, 2025
HomeGround Reports

Ground Reports

Basil Joseph perfected small-town Kerala stories with global appeal. Next, pan-India success

Basil Joseph shot to global fame with Minnal Murali, the superhero origin story set in a Kerala village. His shift from Infosys techie to director-actor is just as exciting.

Himachal floods a perfect storm––multi-storey buildings on shaky mountaintops

Himachal Pradesh is seeing a deadly combination of fragile mountains, increasing episodes of extreme weather condition, and haphazard construction.

Torture, hunger, death, Islamic prayers—the hell 18 Punjab-Haryana men went through in Libya

They were sent to Libya by the unscrupulous agent, where they were sold into slavery. They were stripped of their documents, separated, blindfolded and sold to their ‘masters’.

Raj Bhavans aren’t just about pomp, privilege but power too. They are now BJP war rooms

Mumbai's Malabar Hill Raj Bhavan was essentially the Buckingham Palace of the East. Running these are like looking after a white elephant: with a budget worth crores.

Christianity, polygamy, tribal insecurities — Meghalaya has a high fertility problem

The cascading impact of the high fertility rate isn’t just causing unemployment woes. It’s giving birth to a generation of malnourished children.

Jobless Haryana men have a new mission in Muslim hate. ‘They think cow protection is govt job’

Young Hindu men from Jatwas had never been to Nuh, but they had seen videos of the violence. That’s when they found their own local enemy in Shakeel, the only Muslim in their village.

‘Muslim kids at RSS shakhas, Hindus played at mosque’—Gyanvapi now a saga of who prayed where

Gyanvapi domes make BJP member Harihar Pandey seethe with anger. He is 77 now, but is building a sena to take up cudgels on his behalf.

Mumbai zoo made a colony of penguins. Birds ready for exchange, but Hyderabad making them wait

The penguins live in a special temperature-controlled exhibit. Their enclosure consists of a sand and rocky area, a water pool, and resting and nesting areas.

Bangladesh gangrape survivor fears 2024 polls. The 2001 election violence changed her life

Bangladesh exploded with violence in July. The BNP has taken to the streets to win polls. It is reminiscent of the post-poll violence when it won in 2001.

Gehlot gives gas, power, pension under Mehngai Rahat. Now people wait for cellphones

The chief minister has been hitting back at the BJP, which accuses his government’s ‘revdi culture’, insisting that they are not freebies but financial management.

On Camera

India’s labour policy left it unable to compete with other eastern economies: Nani A Palkhivala

Liberty without accountability is the freedom of the fool. Our concept of freedom will remain impoverished until it is deepened by liberal education, wrote Nani A Palkhivala in 1995.

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.

Tejas fighter aircraft crashes at Dubai Air Show, IAF confirms pilot’s death

This is the second such incident after a Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas had crashed into a hostel on the outskirts of Jaisalmer in March last year.

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.