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Monday, November 24, 2025
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Book Excerpts

Women and Mughal jali architecture—where the body couldn’t go, the eyes could gaze

Navina Najat Haidar's 'Jali: Lattice of Divine Light in Mughal Architecture' explores the delicate beauty of centuries-old jalis across India.

God put ball in Bishan Singh Bedi’s hand, said ‘Go spin for India’—That’s not how it happened

Bedi’s smooth action was such that, unusually for a spinner, he never had any injuries of the fingers, shoulder, thighs or ankles.

Java to Iceland, ancient India’s Panchatantra stories had 200 versions in over 50 languages

In 'The Indian Cat', BN Goswamy explores how the cat was represented in stories, paintings, poetry, and proverbs in India.

Pakistan businesses soared in early 1950s compared to India. Gujarati Muslims were the reason

In 'No Birds of Passage', Michael O'Sullivan explores the history of Gujarati Muslim business communities like Bohras, Khojas and Memons.

Electric crematorium won’t give moksha, caste Hindus won’t touch dead. Dom jobs in Banaras safe

In 'Fire on the Ganges: Life among the Dead in Banaras', author Radhika Iyengar writes how no ‘upper-caste’ Hindu will be willing to perform the task of burning corpses, even if the said work has been ‘glorified’ for centuries as the only way of ‘providing moksha’.

Our ‘smart devices’ know more about us than we do. Don’t put blind faith in companies making them

In 'The Third Way: India’s Revolutionary Approach to Data Governance', Rahul Matthan presents an original view of the role technology can play in data governance.

Nepal’s politicians are hiding a democratic deficit. Look beyond the elections.

In 'Nepal', Lok Raj Baral unpacks the idea and practice of democracy in the South Asian nation, disentangling the tensions and balances between representation and governance.

Kingfisher Airlines to Victoria’s Secret—How authority bias brings governance failures

The authority bias gets concretized due to long tenures of board members which erodes their actual independence from the owners or promoters.

Travelling storytellers from Bengal – How Patua artisans preserve oral histories

The practice of carrying patas, or scroll-paintings, and performing patua across villages on auspicious occasions was widespread in eastern India, particularly in Midnapore, Murshidabad, Birbhum and Purulia districts of Bengal.

Overdressed, deluded—how Brahmins viewed Buddhists in medieval India

In ‘Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in Modern India’, Douglas Ober provides a new perspective on India’s modern Buddhist revival.

On Camera

Worker exploitation powers the firework industry in Tamil Nadu’s Sivakasi

For an industry globally classified as hazardous, protections such as health insurance and a provident fund for workers are necessities. In Sivakasi, they remain elusive.

172 countries & counting, India looks to hit new record in rice exports. But there’s a flip side

The industry forecasts exports are set to grow 16% in 2025-26, boosted by surplus domestic production and a drive to push into 26 underserved global markets with strong potential.

India and France to jointly manufacture HAMMER air-to-surface missile

Indigenisation level will progressively increase up to 60 percent with key sub-assemblies, electronics and mechanical parts being manufactured locally.

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.