Winter dalliances

Many older women in their sixties come every winter to Delhi for a month. They make friends with young Indian men and celebrate life Winter is freezing in northern Europe and most part of continental Russia, covered with a thick blanket of snow. People yearn for sunshine, a scarce commodity in those parts of the […]

Media scrum

Any tragedy in which multiple lives are lost brings news reporters flocking to the scene. Some don’t realise that the bereaved should be questioned with sensitivity  One of the recent tragedies to hit Delhi since the Uphaar Cinema fire in 1997 – which had left 59 dead – is the one that took place on […]

‘It is important to speak in a non-hypocritical language’

In the second and last part of the interview with Imtiaz Ali, the filmmaker opens up about Hindi films, his peers in the film industry and his views on a host of things – from media, censorship, politics to web series. Excerpts: What is your view on dance sequences in Hindi cinema? I enjoy song […]

Youthful reformers

History gives a clear message: Students are the harbinger of positive change. They will prevail sooner or later The student stir against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is the most recent example of students being the harbinger of positive change in the polity and society in favour of a liberal and democratic ethos. And in […]

Believe the disempowered

Mainstream media reinforces the alienation felt by people who live on the margins by ignoring them or reporting on their problems through lenses blurred with ignorance and prejudice The MEDIA’S response to the December 15  violence at Jamia Milia Islamia was no thanks to the so-called “national”, privately owned news channels located in the capital, […]

‘We stand with the youth’

Many of them have memories of the Emergency and they don’t want to see it playing out again “The Emergency then was not as bad as this, an undeclared one. They are creating a wall between people. I don’t know what they think.” Ghayasuddin, 70, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with youths and students in the biting cold […]

Beaten, bruised, pelted with stun grenades: Aligarh students recall a night of horror

The police brutality at Aligarh Muslim University on December 15 left many students severely injured At the Morison Court hostel in Aligarh Muslim University, Faizal Hasan, the former president of the AMU Students’ Union, talked agitatedly into a phone. Speaking to Shamsul Haque, AMU’s dean of students’ welfare, Hasan said angrily, “If anything happens to […]

Pleas in court

60 petitions have been filed so far, and counting The President’s ratification of the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019, on December 12 triggered a slew of petitions in the Supreme Court less than 12 hours later. By midday, at least a dozen petitions had been filed challenging the constitutional validity of it. The matter — almost […]