NB: Arvind Gupta combines humility, enthusiasm, energy, love and creative intellect in a character all his own. He’s the Pied Piper of India’s children, one who can quieten a noisy class of children in two minutes, by showing them the wondrous ways of nature. He never sought glory, and I suspect his numerous awards indicate… Read More The Science of Toys: by Padma Shri Arvind Gupta
First posted October 27, 2011 ‘The essay is a marvellous account of the hundreds of ways in which the Ramayana has been told, complete with examples of this narrative diversity. I can’t imagine that the vice-chancellor, a member of that urbane cohort, the Class of ’75, wanted the essay removed because he agreed with the Akhil Bharatiya… Read More Mukul Kesavan: Delhi University and the purging of Ramanujan
One of the strangest things about an American university education is that it bundles a whole lot of different things together. If you want to take a course in high-level mathematics or listen to the lectures of an accomplished historian of Ming China, you must also buy membership in one of the country’s most lavish gyms;… Read More Unbundle the (American) University
By Tora Agarwala in East Khasi hills, Meghalaya Excited chatter and the clattering of steel plates drown out the din of the monsoon rains: it is lunchtime in Laitsohpliah government school in the north-east Indian state of Meghalaya. The food has been cooked on-site and is free for everyone, part of India’s ambitious “midday meal”… Read More Fish mint, Himalayan chives and berry pickle: how wild ingredients are transforming school dinners in India
Things were already bad. They’re about to get worse Charlie Kirk in his own words: ‘prowling Blacks’ and ‘the great replacement strategy’ By David Austin Walsh September 11, 2025 The assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on Wednesday was both morally repugnant and an absolute political catastrophe. Kirk was one of the most influential and… Read More Charlie Kirk’s Death Is a Catastrophe for Higher Ed / Charlie Kirk in his own words: ‘prowling Blacks’ and ‘the great replacement strategy’
There is one recurring theme: Young people feel robbed of their future Pratap Bhanu Mehta NB: A timely and typically thought-provoking essay by this scholar. I add some observations below 1/ The crisis of the 1960s and 1970s culminated in the Trilateral Commission’s 1975 report on The Crisis of Democracy, authored by Samuel Huntington et… Read More Nepal, France, America: democracy seems overtaken once more
Dilip Simeon NB: This article was published seventeen year ago. I post it now because of a need to highlight certain alarming features of our criminal justice system. The article appeared in Mail Today on June 17, 2008, and is an account of my personal experience of Indian justice. The happenings it relates were public… Read More Insult to Injury
St Xavier’s College in Mumbai has cancelled its annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture, which was to be held on Saturday, after protests by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, reported The Free Press Journal. The ABVP is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The lecture, titled “Migration for… Read More Mumbai: St Xavier’s College cancels Stan Swamy lecture after ABVP protests
The last thing I want to say is this is not just a capitulation to the Trump administration. This was an inside job. There was a fifth column, members of the Board of Trustees, senior members of the faculty of some of the professional schools, and a clutch of donors, who have been beating the… Read More Professor Rashid Khalidi Slams ‘Crushing Repression’ at Columbia, Cancels Course to protest Trump Settlement / How Trump and Miller are rewriting US higher education to shut out international students
Goodbye Professor Naim By Vidya Rao Re-reading, now, his essay on ‘The Art of the Urdu Marsiya’, I realise once more what a wonderful teacher CM Naim must have been. I, sadly, never had the privilege of being his student. But, then to have known him briefly, even if only as an editor—that was privilege… Read More Remembering C.M. Naim, A Scholar Extraordinary. Vidya Rao and Shefalli Jha
After the truth-shower 