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Wednesday, March 18, 2026
TopicPop culture

Topic: Pop culture

Is there an Indian way to be gay? Most of us learn about queerness from American TV

We’re sad about drag bans in the US, but don’t care about horizontal reservations in India. Stonewall remains our frame of reference, and AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan is unheard of.

Luigi Mangione changed how we view murder suspects. It’s all about his digital footprint

Luigi became a folk hero overnight, across the political spectrum. But his personality being deciphered from his online presence left me feeling disconcerted.

Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain is still shaping pop culture. Here’s how

Nirvana were everywhere at the start of the 1990s, much like Taylor Swift’s omnipresence today.

After K-culture boom, Indian women loving Thai queer drama. ‘We can see 2 handsome men’

A legion of new fans has bolstered the BL fandom in India. They have sent gifts to the actors in Thailand, sent food trucks to their shooting locations, & put up billboards in India.

On Camera

The West’s real crisis isn’t war. It is the weakness within

The West appears to many not only to be declining, but to be flailing around like ‘an ineffectual angel beating its wings in the void’.

Covid, sanctions, war. Life’s rough for Surat’s small diamond units, salaries ‘not guaranteed anymore’

West Asia war threatens to push already fragile industry deeper into crisis. Latest disruption is playing out differently for bigger and small-scale players in Surat’s diamond industry.

Supreme Leader Mojtaba, the man Iran must keep alive & the secret force ‘tasked with it’—all about NOPO

The Nirouyeh Vijeh Pasdaran Velayat, or NOPO, was the only force Ali Khamenei trusted.It was founded in 1991 and is more feared than the Revolutionary Guards.

Peaceful power transfers followed uprisings in India’s neighbourhood. It’s a sign of mature democracies

Rating democracies is a tricky business. I am only using the simple metric of who in the Indian subcontinent has had the most peaceful, stable, normal political transitions and continuity.