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Economic Perspectives

ED raid on loan apps reveals strong Chinese presence in crypto crimes

Crypto exchanges were transferring overseas the money these apps extracted from borrowers.

C.P. Chandrasekhar

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Editor’s Note

A rare moment when one can pause, look back, and take stock.

Counter Culture

Behemoth studios in the era of pan-Indian films

Yash Raj Films used to set trends, not follow them. Can it turn the tide?

Prathyush Parasuraman

India, This Side

The tale of two villages

Sleemanabad in Madhya Pradesh and Akarbad in West Bengal share an unlikely link.

Counter Culture

What explains the asphyxiating glut of biopics in Indian cinema?

Film-makers attempt to stun spectators into worship as opposed to crafting a complicated portrait.

Prathyush Parasuraman

Economic Perspectives

The jobs crisis is real

Three severe shocks to the economy in quick succession damaged the “informal” sector.

C.P. Chandrasekhar

India, This Side

Pilgrimage to Pandharpur: The pit stop at Chinchani

A rural art installation emerges as a critique of nationalism with its embracing of pluralism.

More stories from Columns

The rupee seems to be on a trajectory of accelerating decline.

Why the fall of the rupee should have us all worried

The factors causing it are likely to persist even as the import bill continues to climb.

C.P. Chandrasekhar

After the unsubtle, manifesto-like subtitle of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), Dharma Productions, the big daddy of the “family pack”, took a surprising swing for the fences, making films on adultery, marital separation, and homosexuality, among others.

The Great Indian Family is in transition

The family in pop culture is morphing into an unsteady and fragile site of introspection.

Prathyush Parasuraman

NDA’s candidate Droupadi Murmu, accompanied by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, BJP President JP Nadda and other dignitaries, walks towards Parliament House to file her nomination papers for presidential election, in New Delhi on June 24.

Droupadi’s moment: Can the presidential candidate push the envelope?

Droupadi Murmu’s nomination has been audacious and imaginative. Will she grasp its possibilities?

Peter Ronald deSouza

Staff members at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without borders) Elwa hospital in Monrovia, Liberia.

Has COVID truly exposed the broken global order?

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic being a severe and truly global crisis, developed countries continue to act in the interests of Big Pharma instead of fo

C.P. Chandrasekhar

Still from the movie Samrat Prithviraj. It is an ineffective historical film. If it wanted to instil Hindu pride, it needed actors with more dignified conviction, and a production and musical palette with more orchestral swells, more rapture.

Are Hindi films problematising history?

After Padmaavat, the Hindu historical tasted blood and sharpened its fangs, but the recent Samrat Prithviraj is a weak offspring of the genre, neither

Prathyush Parasuraman