India Today

We entered 2022 with a sense of déjà vu because the new year seems a lot like the year gone by. Covid-19 cases are rising again and a far more contagious strain of the novel corona-virus is spreading across the globe. The good thing, though, is that

CHAIRMAN AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Aroon Purie VICE CHAIRPERSON: Kalli Purie GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER: Dinesh Bhatia GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Raj Chengappa CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER: Manoj Sharma GROUP CREATIVE EDITOR: Nilanjan Das; GROUP PHOTO EDITOR

Nikhil R. Meswani Hital R. Meswani P.M.S. Prasad Pawan Kumar Kapil Nita Ambani Dipak C. Jain R.A. Mashelkar Adil Zainulbhai R.S. Gujral Shumeet Banerji Arundhati Bhattacharya K.V. Chowdary Yasir O. Al-Rumayyan Industry veterans in the 50-65 age group

Gujarat cadre officer A.K. Sharma made news last year when he joined the BJP. He was nominated as MLC in the state legislature but wasn’t included in Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’scabinet. Now, another new entrant from Delhi is turnin

Wax and clay statues of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee are passé. TMC district party leader Karim Khan has raised the bar with a silver bust of the CM. The bust, which took an artist over three months to make, weighs 6.5 kg, cost Rs 4.5 l

On New Year’s day, sarsanghchalak of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) Mohan Bhagwat addressed a gathering of eminent citizens in Bengaluru. He was there not to talk about a Hindu Rashtra or Hindu-Muslim relations, but about paryavaran—the enviro

Perhaps nothing better sums up the conquering eclecticism of Hinduism than these lines from the ‘Nasadiya Sukta’ in the Rig Veda, the first recorded rumination in Hindu philosophy on the origins of the universe: ‘Who really knows? Who will here procl

The start of 2022 finds Prime Minister Narendra Modi facing a quartet of challenges that will test his leadership skills and his governance to the extreme: tackling the third wave of Covid, leading his party to victory in the upcoming five assembly p

Driven by metrics like daily active users, companies strive to engage all of us in online commerce, media, entertainment and social connections, among others. But these are all activities that we do in addition to work. We arguably spend more time at

The year 2021 started in an exhilarating manner—with the promise of vaccines and lowering cases in India, against a background threat of what was called the UK variant at the time (now known as alpha), for which flights from the UK were temporarily h

It’s now been nearly two years since the pandemic began, and we are still not out of the woods. The Omicron variant is still spreading and the Delta wave is not yet over. But this is not 2020. Unlike then, we today have several vaccines and at least

China analysts are increasingly used to revisiting from scratch what Beijing is likely to do in a given situation rather than assuming it will follow precedent. The overturning of longstanding foreign policy norms and agreements has itself become a p

When it comes to climate change, three truths must define the way the world, and India, act to combat this challenge. First, we must recognise the urgent reality of extreme weather, attributed to emissions from burning of fossil fuels, that is devast

The sudden announcement by the prime minister of the decision to repeal the three central farm laws is seen by many as the end of the road for agricultural reforms. It surely isn’t. There are a few learnings from the 15 months of the farmers’ agitati

Kerala DGP Anil Kant, 60, is a fitness enthusiast and goes on a two-hour run daily, outpacing his juniors. This might be among the reasons why chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan chose him as DGP over other senior colleagues in June last year. Just days

As we hurtle towards the 75th year of our independence, a clear roadmap is necessary to ensure that the judicial branch of our republican Constitution—which includes courts and the tribunals—functions efficiently and independently. At present, India

The next wave of global Indian migrants may be much larger than what the world has experienced so far. With a much younger median age than China, India has 600 million youth under the age of 25. Already 3.1 million of the highly skilled foreign worke

To see the big picture of what is in store across Indian sport in 2022, let’s turn to our alpha male. Not Virat Kohli, Neeraj Chopra. Olympic gold medallist, javelin-flinging stereotype-buster, answer to our previously-unfulfilled dreams, Chopra’s 20

Last year’s most anticipated publishing event was perhaps the unveiling of Sally Rooney’s latest novel. Beautiful World, Where Are You joined a roster of old heavyweights returning with new work: Maggie Nelson, Colm Tóibín, Jhumpa Lahiri and Salman R

The Poem that Defined the Buddha by Jairam Ramesh PENGUIN; ₹799; 448 pages Ramesh’s biography is of poet Edwin Arnold and his poem’s subject, Buddha. Both glow in this marvel of archival excavation and narrative mastery. Hazrat Mahal & Lakshmibai in

HISTORIES OF BRITISH rule in India, especially textbooks, often focus on areas which were directly administered—presidencies and provinces—ignoring the huge number of princely or ‘native’ states that were ruled indirectly. This represents a major abs

For those in the thrall of Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee of the colonial Calcutta police, the pair have returned to their familiar milieu, from Lal Bazar (their headquarters) to the backstreets of Calcutta and beyond. This ti

by Essa Hansen ORBIT ₹494 (KINDLE); 512 pages The sequel to Nophek Gloss, Azura Ghost is due to be formally published in March 2022, and marks the continuation of one of the most innovative and original contemporary space operas available today. Hans

One of the books of the year for me is Colm Tóibín’s magnificent novel, The Magician, a fictionalised biography of Thomas Mann. Toibin dramatises Mann’s life and times in the most compelling fashion, giving us both a portrait of Mann the artist again

Anees Salim’s new novel is set between the day the Nizam did not die and the day on which he died. The era is one in which the Nizam is old, shrunken and powerless, but certainly not forgotten—the premature news of his death closes down shops and mel

by Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih CONTEXT ₹899, 1,024 pages The Moby-Dick of Meghalaya, this is a challenging read but ultimately rewarding. The term ‘ambition’ has become a cliché but this one genuinely has it, in spades. A group of friends set out for a f