Ten years ago Ramachandra Guha’s landmark text, India after Gandhi, proved that a complete and detailed exploration of India’s post-Independence history could be written in a single volume. Championing Guha’s achievement, The London Review of Books claimed that, prior to India after Gandhi, the best book on the period was ‘a stodgy piece of nationalist-Marxist writing from the rank and file of plodders at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University’. Guha […]

The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine is being blocked by many of India’s net providers. The online tool allows the public to see old versions of websites and contains more than 302 billion saved web pages. Affected users are being shown a message saying that access has been restricted under the orders of the government’s Department of Telecommunications. However, no explanation has been given. “Courts and security agencies do block certain […]

It’s a story that’ll touch your heart. A young boy has a crush and is terrified the object of his affections will find out about it. And yet, he risks being outed – quite literally – by his own heart. The animated short film, titled “In A Heartbeat,” has been viewed over 14 million times on YouTube in just five days. The short film, which has no dialogues and a […]

There’s a vacancy at NASA, and it may have one of the greatest job titles ever conceived: planetary protection officer. It pays well, between $124,000 and $187,000 annually. You get to work with really smart people as part of the three- to five-year appointment but don’t have to manage anyone. And your work could stave off an alien invasion of Earth or, more important, protect other planets from us. President […]

After helming the grave 2014 war film The Monuments Men, George Clooney will return to direction this year with the crime comedy Suburbicon. Since this film from a rather unique genre, traces of levity can be seen in the trailer. The trailer transports the viewers to the USA of the 1950s and revolves around a family which is at the receiving end of a brutal house invasion. Garndner Lodge, the […]

Many people think that if they work hard, be the first person in the office and the last one to leave at night that they will be successful. Entrepreneurs put in 50 to 60 hours a week chasing success as they slowly burn out. The reality is that success is often closer than you realize and it depends on how you think about it and what questions you ask yourself. […]

Christopher Nolan’s epic World War Two film, Dunkirk, which tells the story of the mass evacuation of Allied troops from the northern coast of France in 1940, has been getting glowing reviews in India. But many are glowering over Nolan turning a blind eye to the role of Indian soldiers in the battle. The Times of India wrote that their “significant contribution” was missing from Nolan’s “otherwise brilliant” work. Writing […]

The memoir of an Indian woman who was born a so-called untouchable and now works as a conductor on the New York City Subway has been hailed by critics for its unflinching account of caste and family in India. Journalist Sudha G Tilak spoke to Sujatha Gidla about her life story and how it became Ants Among Elephants. In Sanskrit, the main language used by scholars in ancient India and […]

The upcoming horror/thriller The Snowman, featuring Michael Fassbender and Rebecca Ferguson in lead roles, is an adaptation of a 2007 novel, written by Norwegian author Jo Nesbø, of the same name. It was the seventh installment of Nesbø’s detective series, Harry Hole. The upcoming film’s story revolves around Hole (played by Fassbender) in pursuit of a psycho-serial killer who is on the loose and uses snowmen as a signature. So […]

Emoticons have become a way of expressing feelings on social media. Not just the basic smileys, the bag of emojis on social media platforms brings a variety of expressions — from food to animals and nature! As the world celebrated World Emoji Day on July 17, the co-founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, shared an insight on the world’s top 10 most used emojis on Facebook. Revealing the countries that use […]