Why fuel prices are so high

Here’s why petrol and diesel are more expensive now than in May 2014 Narendra Modi was sworn in as the prime minister of India on May 2014. The price of the Indian basket of crude oil averaged at $106.85 during the course of the month. Soon after, the price of oil started to fall. It […]

Study Buddhism, win elections

What attracts aspiring student leaders to the department of Buddhist studies? A ‘strange’ phenomenon that looms over DUSU elections year after year is that of an overwhelming participation coming from students pursuing their MA in Buddhist Studies, a course run by the Department of Buddhist Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Delhi. The two-year course, […]

No takers for cycles

Public bicycle sharing has not really taken off in the Capital, with only a sprinkling of tourists and students availing of the facility, that too on weekends It’s a bright Sunday morning and you’re in the Metro, feeling good about how empty it is. You get a seat, reach your destination, exit the station and […]

A walk below clouds

Heritage walks on weekends are a popular way of acquainting Delhi’s citizens with their culture, especially when the group leader is a storyteller As you walk past the dark caves, you could see silhouettes inside, and hear occasional sounds of weeping. The whole air around these caves — where worshippers were offering prayers to the […]

Death with indignity

It’s not just civic agencies which send untrained workers into septic tanks to clean them up. Gated communities are equally merciless Five young men — Vishal, Sarfaraz, Pankaj, Raja and Umesh — died inside the sewage tank in an affluent colony in Delhi. They were untrained workers of 18 to 30 years of age and […]

On the line with a fraud?

These are white collar crimes with a difference. Call centres are set up to make fraudulent offers to those seeking jobs or loans Every now and then, phone service providers send out text messages to beware of fraudulent calls which will ask you to swap your SIM. And banks warn you to never ever divulge […]

‘I first came out to myself’

A first person account by a professional whose happy childhood turned into a nightmare adolescence till he found acceptance among college friends What is being gay? How do gay men live? How do they perform the sexual act? Is that even natural? These were some of the questions that started crossing my mind when I […]

Battle royal against homophobia

From the Rajpipla palace grounds in Gujarat, Manvendra Singh Gohil is celebrating India’s real independence. Manvendra Singh Gohil, whose name would be prefixed with ‘Prince’ if royal titles had not been abolished, is not just a face adorning the walls of palaces in Rajpipla. Since coming out as a gay in 2006, he has leveraged […]