The tapestry and the murals are part of the complex and multi-layered ‘archi-texture’ of the parliamentary buildings, which continue to echo with older articulations of power and what the nation is and should be.
There are more than one million prostituted girls in India. "Only when the buyers of sex are arrested will the brothels close down; and only when the brothels are closed will we be safe,” Uma Das, speaking to Hillary Clinton in India
A Gallup poll finding that women in Rwanda and Bangladesh felt safer on the streets than women in the UK and Sweden needs to be treated with great caution. There is no correlation between 'feeling safe' and the objective reality of whether women are actually safe or not, says Rahila Gupta.
When the rice harvest season finishes in a few weeks, fields in India will turn black as farmers burn thousands of acres. This practice shows one of the failures of the Green Revolution, with devastating regional and global consequences. A food-security-obsessed India cannot ignore these issues fo
Large parts of Indian society bay for the blood of religious minorities engaged in alleged terrorist activities, but look askance at what ought to be labelled crimes against humanity by Hindu fanatics
Strong religious, communal and kinship ties in non-European societies were treated as evidence of their inability to produce modern citizenship. How then, did religious institutions called mathas in South India in the early twentieth century successfully express their political will through acts o
The Indian government has justified the construction of the Sardar Sarovar megadam as a national instrument of democratization, potentially supplying drinking water to millions of people. Activists claim that dams form part of a biopolitical apparatus, causing displacement and relocation for indig
India has had a complicated relationship with the United States for most of its independent history. Things are better now - but Indians still do watch the election closely, fearing a return to old tensions.
"Many temples in South India held prayers for Obama’s victory in the 2008 elections. Haven’t heard of any this time round. Here is one from me, after four encounters on three continents."
Edmund Burke’s speeches on India illustrate the emergence of the orientalised political subject. Traces of this in the present can be seen through the relationship between British multiculturalism and the undocumented migrant.
Some say that Aseem Trivedi, the satirical cartoonist imprisoned in India this September, set himself up to achieve very little by highlighting an already deep rooted problem. But Trivedi’s real victory may be to have uncovered how India’s antiquated sedition laws are silencing democratic dissent
Small but promising steps towards normalisation between India and Pakistan have implications beyond their bilateral relations, given the challenging neighbourhood the two states inhabit.
