Beneath their paradoxical twists and turns, Bollywood's horror com films offer us an ineffably human magic of an age great and sick at the same time.

You spend enough time watching the prime time news and you experience how toxic narratives will nibble away at reality until even the cartilage from the bones is gone.

Madhubala's beauty and her early death before its decline have made her a timeless icon, inimitable and strictly not for sale.   

Rooting for more and more children should be seen as a fundamental infringement on young mothers’ reproductive rights and physical autonomy.

We cannot have more incidents like the release of those accused of Gauri Lankesh's murder, the death of a paralysed Father Stan Swami while imprisoned or G.N. Saibaba’s demise soon after getting released.

A look at just three contestants and their enablers in major parties is enough to confirm that India’s entire political system is beset with a deep disease of contempt for women’s rights.

Here, two cultures, aggressive male and stoically stubborn female, merge for nine days and will part after the immersion.

Have we ever paused to think not what the opinionated young are shutting out but what they are shutting in?

How many of us now want to return and resurrect the dead each year? How much do the young do or wish to remember?

If sexuality is central to a woman’s definition in India and forced sex is central to the average Indian’s idea of sexuality, then rape remains indigenous to and not exceptional in most women’s lives.

Tyrants and predatory states have a long history. Let’s return to the world of literature and reports culled from popular lore on how their shenanigans were reported and embedded in racial memory.

It is time the system and citizens’ bodies rooting for women’s empowerment looked into the eyes of a Vinesh Phogat or parents of the grievously injured four-year-olds, and carried out a meticulous check upon the scared victims of rape who have withdrawn cases, and upon Babas who are brought out on parole in lieu of rounding up vote banks.

What an overworked and stressed younger generation is open to, is a sort of community media rave party.

Vinesh despite broken knees and torn ligaments and routine harassment rose like a phoenix to make it to the Olympics and defeat a world champion.

The caste system has stayed because of ordinary peoples’ support to the mechanism that keeps it running.

The caste system has stayed because of ordinary peoples’ support to the mechanism that keeps it running.

When women politicians challenge male views on policymaking, instead of the issue becoming debatable, they are immediately subjected to ugly character assassination.

As jobs shrink, global warming changes cropping seasons and lives and livelihoods in both cities and villages look more and more insecure for the poor, babas are the sole solace givers.

Everywhere stars rise to power as charismatic demagogues and risk-takers, but these very qualities breed in them an implacable desire to control all power and push away all they see as worthy replacements.

True, the government has launched several schemes to eradicate poverty in the poorer areas. But a close look at the nature and quality of this reduction against the money available, reveals that poverty alleviation schemes like free rations, gifts of cycles or laptops to students and cash handouts can not be sustainable in the long run.