Times Of India • 14th January 2024

Filmmakers versus critics: How ‘Animal’ brought out the claws

Unkind reviews are not new, even ‘Sholay’ was skewered. But, are critics harsher now or directors more thin-skinned? A look at how film criticism is changing in the digital age

Times Of India • 6th January 2024

Why affluent Indians are turning to the grey market for miracle jabs that make kilos disappear

Affluent Indians are turning to the grey market to get their hands on the so-called miracle jabs that make kilos disappear into thin air

Times Of India • 27th November 2023

Why India is still waiting for its first face transplant

Three hospitals get licences, but the surgery that could offer hope to acid attack survivors and burn victims is facing several roadblocks

Times Of India • 29th October 2023

Community-led study sheds light on urgent toilet needs of nomadic homes

In the sprawling Circus Ground in Ambernath, Pooja Ingole and her family navigate life in a tent community, home to 530 families for close to three decades, their homes held up by bamboo poles or asbestos sheets that barely shield them from the realities they endure.

Times Of India • 16th October 2023

Jamtara loses crown as new remote districts rewrite India’s cybercrime map

Move over Jamtara , there’s a new cyber playground in town. The once-notorious hub for online mischief in Jharkhand no longer reigns as India’s cybercrime epicentre. Emerging from the shadows are fresh contenders—districts like Bharatpur , Mathura, Nuh , Deogarh , Gurgaon, Alwar , Bokaro, Karma Tand, and Giridih—that have claimed the spotlight and are collectively responsible for 80% of reported cybercrimes across country.

Times Of India • 15th October 2023

Meet city's Banksy: Phantom street artist tackling social ills, wall by wall

Tyler, a guerrilla street artist from Mumbai, has been gaining attention for his thought-provoking and socially scathing art. Dubbed as Mumbai's Banksy, Tyler's works fuse graffiti with stenciling and often address issues such as surveillance, corruption, and communal politics.

Times Of India • 12th September 2023

Meet the farmers who are raising India’s craft chocolate game

Artisanal bean-to-bar brands such as Manam, Huraco and Soklet are helping forge a connection between consumers and cultivators

Times Of India • 20th August 2023

How Manipur's trans footballers are coaching kids stuck in relief camps

In 2020, Manipur witnessed the emergence of India's first all-trans football team 'Ya.All' - meaning 'you all' in English, 'revolution' in Manipuri and 'inclusive revolution' when combined. Currently, this team is on a new mission - coaching children stranded in Manipur's relief camps in the midst of an ethnic conflict that has plunged the state into civil unrest since May.

Times Of India • 20th August 2023

The hairy story behind India’s ‘black gold’ exports

It’s an overcast Monday morning in a low-income housing colony in Bengaluru’s Kamala Nagar. Malleesh, 21, Parasuram, 21, and Ravi , 24, are on a peculiar quest. Swinging a large sack slung over one shoulder while balancing a hefty net, crammed with aluminium vessels, they make their way through the neighbourhood, hollering ‘Kudalu patre kasu’ (vessels for hair), a boisterous call in hot pursuit of something valuable to them: balls of fallen human hair.

Times Of India • 30th July 2023

'No spl disability tag for spinal injury has left 1.5m survivors in lurch'

In September 2012, tragedy struck the Galgatte family from Jamkhed in Ahmednagar district during a promised temple visit with their six-month-old child, Tanmay. Their van collided with another car, leaving Tanmay's mother, Ashvini, with a life-altering spinal cord injury. Just a week later, Tanmay's father succumbed to his injuries.

The Times of India • 18th June 2023

Tote bags, T-shirts & trinkets: Queer-run businesses move beyond rainbow cliches

As June rolls in, so does an influx of rainbow-themed goodies everywhere. While the queer community could do with visible support, it is also the first to remind you that Pride Month isn't just about the all-colour spectrum. A new wave of queer entrepreneurs are trying to redefine rainbow capitalism with ventures that reflect their identities beyond rainbow cliches.Last weekend a two-day showcase at BKC called 'Queer Made' amplified businesses and products owned and created by India's queer community.

The Times of India • 18th June 2023

The Mindhunters: How brain mapping detects memories of crime

In the shadowy realm of crime, the human brain isn’t merely a cunning accomplice. It can also be the ultimate snitch. Over the last two decades, ‘ Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature (BEOS) profiling’ — also referred to as ‘brain-mapping’ or ‘brain fingerprinting’— has emerged as a forensic tool meant to unlock criminal secrets within the grey matter and crack open a case when traditional investigative methods hit a wall.

The Times of India • 29th May 2023

How Chhattisgarh's 'live-in' tradition is taking a toll on Adivasi kids

In the lush forests of Surguja district in northern Chhattisgarh where the Mahabharata still resonates, live two primitive tribes — the Pando claiming lineage to the Pandavas and the Korwa to the Kauravas. However, despite their unique cultural heritage, children from these tribes have been bearing the weight of a time-honoured tradition. More and more couples are embracing the tradition of dhuku to save expense of a lavish wedding but for the children they neglect or abandon, there is a heavy price to pay

The Times of India • 28th May 2023

How Pakistan uses 'honeytraps' to gain sensitive info

The latest DRDO case shows how the game has changed. Instead of seductive temptresses in shady hotel rooms, traps are laid through social media

The Times of India • 14th May 2023

Why Indian screenwriters are watching Hollywood writers strike

While streaming has changed the way we consume content, screenwriters say some things haven’t changed — their compensation, lack of credits or the lopsided contracts. A battle is raging in America’s Tinseltown. For the first time in 15 years, the Writers Guild of America (WGA ) launched an industry-wide strike demanding fair pay and benefits rather than being treated like gig workers. In a spillover effect, writers guilds across the world united to fight back, including India’s Screenwriters Association.

The Times of India • 13th May 2023

Can India’s grandest cultural centre become its finest?

Amid the grey, glassand-steel skyscrapers of Mumbai’s BKC, there is now a jolt of colour. The Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre ( NMACC ), an arts and culture hub that opened last month, is a kaleidoscope of buildings with three overarching gold leaves and a lotus motif running through it. Just as its building has injected colour into the sterile landscape many hope Mumbai’s newest cultural playground will spark a new sense and standard of patronage for the arts.

The Times of India • 24th April 2023

Where some of India's most sexually adventurous people meet

Tired of living with shame and stigma, members of India’s growing kinkster community say they no longer want to live in the shadows

The Times of India • 17th April 2023

Look Ma, new hands

Imagine looking down at your hands and seeing a stranger’s fingers. We spoke to recipients of hand transplants about their struggles as well as the joy of doing small tasks again.

The Times of India • 26th March 2023

Decoding the fictional country of Kailasa that catfished 30 US cities

It was a usual scene at the annual meetings hosted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in the UN Office headquarters at Geneva, last month. Conference-goers — NGOs, permanent missions, academic institutions from different countries — filed into a room inside the historic Palais Wilson building to discuss their rights.What was unusual was a delegation of about a dozen women — decked in gold jewel

The Times of India • 5th March 2023

When the selfie chase goes too far

That the photograph is the new autograph is old hat now. Celebs, too, have adapted accordingly. But the average selfie hunt — no matter which celebrity is in it — can go much further in this age of ‘Pics or it didn’t happen’.

The Times of India • 13th February 2023

'Fellowship' of social workers, lawyers helps poor undertrials navigate legal maze, get bail

Dia and Sonia (names changed), two sisters aged 20 and 21, had a troubled upbringing. Their mother, desperate to escape an alcoholic husband, remarried, but the girls never warmed up to their stepfather. They took to wandering the streets at night, falling into a life of crime that led them behind bars at the Byculla District Prison.

The Times of India • 12th February 2023

Gen Zer from genre town bagged Grammy with an old soul

It's an impersonal setting - rooftop of a five-star hotel in the heart of Mumbai's business district - but Christone ' Kingfish ' Ingram doesn't seem to mind when you try and tease the 'personal' out of him.The 24-year-old is being hailed as 'the heir to the Delta blues crown'. But blues, they say, is a dialogue, songs of the soul in pain. Ingram was only 20 when he released his first album in 2019. How did he channel those emotional depths and social insights at such a young age, we press on.

The Times of India • 11th February 2023

After belting out blues with a Gandhian string in Mumbai, Taj will trip on Mahal

When we meet Henry St Claire Fredericks , better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, at the appointed hour on a nippy Friday morning in the city, the towering blues figure is already in his chair fondling a ukulele and plucking a few chords before he leans close and tells a story.

The Times of India • 15th January 2023

Spooked by recent 'airpocalypse', some Mumbaikars pack their bags

Vivek and his wife Anusha returned to Mumbai from South Africa in 2021 after a 15-year gap. Accustomed to daily runs and outdoor workouts while living in Johannesburg, they went running in Mumbai too. Except that whenever they did that, they found themselves gasping within 15 minutes. They are now among a small number of urban dwellers who have decided to relocate to another place...