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Wednesday, November 12, 2025
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The FinePrint

Olympics of medieval India were grisly, wacky, & thrilling. Elephant racing, polo, wrestling

Sports in medieval India were primarily conducted for royal entertainment. The prizes were dazzling, but some sports could end in death.

A crime-infested Rajasthan village is called IAS factory today. Next goal: more women officers

Nayabas was notorious as a village of criminals until the 1970s. Now, about 500 people from here hold govt jobs, including 10 UPSC officers and over two dozen in state services.

Bangladesh is now India’s potential enemy, Pakistan a declared enemy, China an open enemy

We should stop hailing the bogus ‘people’s revolution’ in Dhaka and think about our own country instead. To celebrate the chaos is the same mistake as those who welcomed Arab Spring. 

Sheikh Hasina’s fall will lead to rise of the only organised force in Bangladesh—religion

Bangladesh’s political life isn’t an irreducible confrontation between secularism and Islamism. Like in Pakistan, Islam has been the language of both power and resistance.

A Delhi doctor is the ‘Tihar specialist’. Extracts phones, drugs & blades from inmates’ bodies

Dr Ashok Dalal, a gastroenterologist at GB Pant Hospital, is the go-to expert for removing contraband lodged in the bodies of Tihar prisoners. Many patients are ‘professional’ mules.

What Bangladesh, Lanka, Jan 6 riots say—Democracy & Dior suitcases are both public property

This isn’t just a story about street power and regime change. It is about a new semiotics of takeover. Dhaka protests have a dotted line all the way to Colombo, Lahore, and Washington.

Gurugram can’t get its trash together. Rich people’s waste caught in mafia-like drama

Gurugram’s garbage empire has been hijacked by private players and mafias who are turning the city of C-suits and multinationals into one big dump yard.

Modi govt and private sector are in a bad marriage. Both need an honest talk

India’s corporate sector needs to toughen up and be brave with its criticism. The government, for its part, needs to listen and not lash out.

Unwilling to return to ‘jaws of death’, rescued Silkyara workers turn farmers, grocers, shop owners

Only 9 of 41 workers rescued from collapsed Silkyara tunnel last November have returned to Uttarkashi. Rest are now farmers, shop owners or in pursuit of other sources of income.

Sheikh Hasina was no progressive. She knelt down to Islamic fundamentalists, created a demon

Just like Frankenstein, Sheikh Hasina has been devoured by her own demon. She has fled Bangladesh and saved herself. Now this demon will seek to crush all progressive thinkers in the country.

On Camera

BBC scandal: Britain’s elite establishment is rapidly sinking

The impact of all this upheaval is unmooring. We search for the BBC to confirm that Britain still exists and find it missing.

India’s factory data may get reality check in MoSPI’s new IIP plan, defunct factories to be dropped

MoSPI proposes to remove closed factories from IIP sample, aiming for truer picture of India’s industrial health in upcoming 2022–23 base series. Plan open to public feedback until 25 November.

‘Let them see’: Putin says new nuclear-powered missiles in the making, in message to Washington

At a ceremony felicitating Russian military engineers, Putin highlights Moscow’s 'parity' in defence technologies for the next century.

Bihar is where politics moves, and everything else stands still

Bihar is blessed with a land more fertile for revolutions than any in India. Why has it fallen so far behind then? Constant obsession with politics is at the root of its destruction.