Politics & Society
Ajachi Chakrabarti

Cricket is Champion

Sammy from Samuel, Biblical judge and prophet, literally “the name of God” Darren Julius Garvey Sammy is a religious man. He was born in a family of devout Christians, and might have become a pastor if the whole cricket thing

Politics & Society
Binit Priyaranjan

Better Pay for Better Play?

  “If I was a lady player, I’d go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they have carried this sport. They really have.” Raymond Moore, Indian Wells Tennis

Politics & Society
Soumabrata Chatterjee

Can the Subaltern Bowl?

Cricket has never been just a game in South Asia. Even in its country of origin, it mimicked certain Victorian values of masculinity, purity and pride, and that is the reason why cricket was brought to India as part of

Politics & Society
Paramita Banerjee

Understanding the Underdog

So, who is an underdog? The dictionary defines an underdog as a loser/runner-up/second best/small fry and so on. But the term has a far more politically significant connotation in common parlance. To side with the underdog means supporting the wronged,

And Quiet Flows The Luit
Debashree Dattaray

Mapping Cartographies of Silence

“I am going to pack my two shirts with my other socks and my best suit in the little blue cloth my mother used to tie round her hair when she did the house, and I am going from the

Filter Coffee
Deepa Bhasthi

A Morbid Fear of Noise

There is a beautiful black horse in the United States that is now being hailed as the most beautiful horse in the world. Called, very appropriately, Frederik the Great, he sure is gorgeous, with a flowing mane that supposedly takes

Politics & Society
Shahnaz Bashir and Safwat Zargar

Anatomy of a Disappearance

  “Everything on this terrestrial globe lives…” Abdul Rashid Darzi quotes the first half of the sentence from an essay Nazir Ahmad Teli, a schoolteacher who disappeared on his way to school in 1990, dictated to him. “If he were

Politics & Society
Paramita Banerjee

Un-Smart Cities

The Government of India has taken up the Smart Cities Mission, and 20 cities have qualified in the first round to be upgraded to “smart” cities. What makes a city “smart”? The official website of the Mission admits in its definition

Politics & Society
Anonymous

Unsettling Developments

The proposal of setting up of Sainik Colonies for retired armed forces personnel and “separate townships” for migrant Kashmiri Pandits are the newest contentious issues in the Kashmir valley. Separatists have already warned the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP coalition government of a 2008-like

Cinema
Ajachi Chakrabarti

Through a Glass Darkly

Sarbjit Director: Omang Kumar Starring: Randeep Hooda, Aishwarya Rai, Richa Chadda, Darshan Kumar Rating: 2/5   “I was punched, kicked, beaten very badly. In order to humiliate me and to break me down [they] made me stand for long hours and