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Book Excerpts

Habib Tanvir’s Charandas Chor was led by Dalit actors from Chhattisgarh—and they owned the play

Habib Tanvir and His Legacy in Theatre, edited by Anjum Katyal and Javed Malick, features essays exploring the lasting impact of the thespian's work, which blended tradition with modernity.

How John Edward Sache photographed 19th-century India

In 1865, John Edward Sache began a partnership with photographer WF Westfield to set up a photographic studio named Sache & Westfield at Waterloo Street in Calcutta, which became a member of the Bengal Photographic Society.

Vajpayee had one question after IC 814 crisis—Why wasn’t the plane grounded in Amritsar?

With telling revelations, memoir, and account of history, Ajay Bisaria's Anger Management is a study of the diplomatic engagement between India and Pakistan.

Shirdi’s Sai Baba practised wrestling. Then he lost a match and gave it up forever

In 'Shirdi Sai Baba', Chandra Bhanu Satpathy explores the fusion of Sufi and Bhakti traditions in Sai Baba's teachings.

Harappa’s 5 mega-urban sites were located on a grid, at calculated distances

In 'Discovering India Anew: Out of Africa to its Early History', Alan Machado (Prabhu) reconstructs the history of Indian peoples from its point of origin in Africa.

IC 814 was first India-Taliban contact. So New Delhi sent a young officer to test the waters

In 'An Indian Woman in Islamabad', Ruchi Ghanashyam narrates her experience in Pakistan during the IC 814 hijack.

Bengali bhadralok culture in Tripura — Tribal women wore saris to look ‘respectable’

In 'But I Am One of You', edited by Samrat Choudhury and Preeti Gill, Jamatia recalls Tripura of the 1980s—when tribal women started covering up in urban spaces.

Wokes are destroying beauty of language. Being blunt is better than inoffensive

In 'A Wonderland of Words' Shashi Tharoor demystifies punctuation, guides us through the arcane rules of spelling and grammar, and explains a wide array of essential components of the language.

Punjabi women missing from discussions on Jallianwala Bagh—as if they didn’t suffer at all

In 'The Jallianwala Bagh Journals', Sarmistha Dutta Gupta gives more than an account of the 1919 Amritsar massacre. Her pedagogic experiment also serves as a chronicle of our own troubled times.

A visit to Pizza Hut reversed the roles between these Indian diplomats & Pakistani agents

In ‘An Indian Woman in Islamabad’, Ruchi Ghanashyam recalls her adventures in Pakistan between 1997 and 2000, when she was stationed there as a diplomat.

On Camera

Can Syria’s tiny Druze minority survive West Asia’s new storms? There’s little hope

Indians see West Asia as one uninterrupted wash of Islam, but the reality is more complex. For the Druze, support from Israel—where they are a recognised minority—is now critical.

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.