G slim ground material review

In his post- Tum Bin avatar, Anubhav Sinha is like an intrepid reporter on ground zero who negotiates multiple points of view, but lets the reader know which side he is on. This week, he completes his trilogy on the issues that go against our credo of unity in diversity. After addressing religious rancour in Mulk and the caste cauldron in Article 15 , he turns his sharp gaze to regional identity in Anek . Over the years, the North East has remained out of focus of not just policymakers, but also Hindi cinema. Apart from a stray Tango Charlie (2005), one doesn’t remember any mainstream Hindi film that addressed the insurgency in a part of the country that didn’t get into a “happy marriage”, as one of the characters says in the film, with India in 1947. Anek is a deeply-political film that asks why people of certain parts of the country have to repeatedly prove their love and worth for the country, and echoes the deep-seated distrust that a section of the Northeast people … [Read more...] about ‘Anek’ movie review: Anubhav Sinha launches an incisive inquiry into a disturbing truth

There are two lanes an automaker can take when bringing back an old nameplate. It can go full retro, trying to capture the magic of the original, or it can go all new in every dimension besides the most basic design attributes. Acura did the latter with the 2023 Acura Integra , limiting the link between old and new to its five-door hatchback bodystyle, name and the option of a manual transmission. Almost everything else is new and modern. Acura first teased the return of the Integra in August of 2021, calling it the fifth-generation hatchback, though Americans only have seen four. From 2001 to 2006 the U.S. and Canada got the Acura RSX, but around the world it was the fourth-gen Integra. The new Integra starts with a frameless diamond pentagon grille, a take on its pentagon shield front end from a decade ago, but with much more style. It's flanked by slim LED headlights on a pointed front end with LED daytime running lights and optional fog lights on the A-Spec Package … [Read more...] about 2023 Acura Integra Review: Refinement Yields Enthusiasm

In 1955, the great Indian sociologist M.N. Srinivas published his celebrated essay, ‘The Social System of a Mysore Village’, based on fieldwork that he carried out in 1948 in a village which he called Rampura. This fieldwork, carried out in the year of Gandhi’s death, had influenced Srinivas’s thinking profoundly. It would lead to the beautiful reflection titled ‘The Remembered Village’ two decades later, when a fire started by anti-war arsonists in a U.S. university destroyed his material, and Srinivas had to reconstruct, through memory, the life and dynamics of the village. But that was to come later. In his 1955 essay, Srinivas used the term ‘vote bank’ for the first time: “The coming of elections gives fresh opportunities for the crystallization of parties around patrons. Each patron may be said to have a ‘vote bank’ which he can place at the disposal of a provincial or national party for a consideration which is not mentioned but implied.” Role of money The formulation … [Read more...] about Costs of Democracy: Political Finance in India review: Following the money trail

Kuttavum Sikshayum Starring: Asif Ali, Alencier, Sunny Wayne, Sharafuddin, Senthil Krishna Direction: Rajeev Ravi Sticking strictly to a narrative, without ever taking the possible tangents, and forgetting about all the flashbacks, takes immense discipline and courage. In Kuttavum Shikshayum , the narrative begins from a crime and progresses through the investigation, without straying into the many possibilities that lay beckoning on either side. That becomes the film’s strength, but not fully exploiting this core material, paves the way for its undoing. Following a jewellery store heist in Idukki district, Circle Inspector Sajan Philip (Asif Ali) is tasked with the challenge of nabbing the suspects. After zeroing in on the initial leads, the police team realise that the suspects all hail from a north Indian village. A five-member police team led by Philip heads to the village, but getting the criminals out from their lair is easier said than done. Owing to Rajeev Ravi’s … [Read more...] about ‘Kuttavum Shikshayum’ film review: Accurate portrayal of a police probe, minus the thrills

As someone who has done travel books himself, would it be fair — even ethical — on my part to comment about someone else’s travelogue? That was the first thought that struck me as I finished reading Jono Lineen’s Into the Heart of the Himalayas . There’s no rulebook that stops me, but why should I judge another writer’s labour of love? Then it occurred to me that there’s hardly any common ground. I can never come close to doing what he has done. I am an Indian, that too belonging to a generation that cannot even imagine backpacking in the mountains of Pakistan in the foreseeable future. While millions were direct victims of Partition, an event that took place more than 70 years ago, successive generations continue to pay the price for it in numerous ways, one of them being their inability to access some of the most majestic parts of the Himalayas, which today lie in Pakistan. Tumultuous landscape In other words, you are unlikely to find a present-day Indian writer beginning … [Read more...] about ‘Into the Heart of the Himalayas’ review: Walking the mountains in silence

Barkha Dutt’s book, Humans of COVID: To Hell and Back , is about the people she met on the road over two years of covering the pandemic for her digital media platform, Mojo Story. It is a poignant narration of the struggles of COVID-19’s victims and survivors, the challenges faced by first responders and bereaved families, and the unexpected gestures of goodwill that came from strangers. How Indians fought the scourge of coronavirus, personal grief and financial hardship at a time when India failed to save the living and refused to count the dead, is overwhelming to read. The book was not a planned one but Barkha was quick to realise that the real story of COVID could neither be told sitting in the studio nor just depend on the government’s statistics, policies and announcements. Traumatic days The humanitarian crisis among the most-marginalised sections overshadowed the medical emergency when she met Mukesh Mandal’s family living cheek-by-jowl at a migrant workers’ colony on … [Read more...] about review: A million acts of compassion amid pain and despair

An American bagger cruiser, an open highway and pleasant weather that keeps you company throughout the journey. Some good old country music playing alongside the modest rumble of your motorcycle for hours and hours. That’s a cruiser motorcycle enthusiast’s wet dream and the reality often takes shape in the form of a motorcycle like the Indian Chieftain Dark Horse. There are seldom such motorcycles that turn heads like the ones made by the American motorcycle maker Indian, and the Chieftain Dark Horse keeps the legacy alive. But given the price tag that it comes with, it needs to deliver on a lot of expectations. How does it fare? Let’s find out. Watch the video below: The Looks The Indian Chieftain Dark Horse is, like we said, a head turner. Wherever you go, people take notice and one of the reasons for that is the sheer size of the motorcycle. It is almost 8.5 feet long and overall, the motorcycle has a presence of road that will make most motorcycles or even SUVs shy. … [Read more...] about Indian Chieftain Dark Horse Review: Cruiser Lover’s Wet Dream

THE EARLIEST recorded jokes at the expense of vegetarians appear to date from the fourth and third centuries BC, according to Colin Spencer in this meticulously researched book. The followers of Pythagoras and his doctrine of asceticism inspired Antiphanes and Alexis and other Greek writers of comedy to much sarcastic banter about their strange dietary habits. Alexis, in Men of Tarentum, observed that the Pythagoreans 'are the only ones who drink no wine'. There are people today who believe that vegetarianism is synonymous with teetotalism. Some myths never seem to vanish. The Heretic's Feast begins in pre-history and ends in the present day. We were all vegans once, in that distant time when we hunted solely for berries and edible grasses. It was only with the taming and domestication of animals that meat-eating became the norm in certain civilised societies: 'A captive animal was already half-tamed and its mystery, an inherent spur to mysticism, had disappeared. Animals, once … [Read more...] about BOOK REVIEW / No meat, high moral fibre: The Heretic’s Feast: A History of Vegetarianism – Colin Spencer: 4th Estate, pounds 20

On Friday Canadian Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne announced a ban on 5G networking technology from Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE on grounds that the hardware poses a threat to national security. “We intend to exclude Huawei and ZTE from our 5G networks. Providers who already have this equipment installed will be required to cease its use and remove it under the plans we’re announcing today,” Champagne told reporters. Champagne set a deadline of June 2024 for Canadian companies to remove all Huawei and ZTE 5G equipment and December 2027 to remove 4G hardware. He said the decision was made with care after an extensive review. “We’ll take any actions necessary to safeguard our telecommunications infrastructure,” Champagne declared . Chinese 5G hardware is already banned by the other four members of the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing network — the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The U.S. banned Huawei … [Read more...] about Canada Bans China’s Huawei and ZTE Tech on National Security Grounds

The third Quad summit on May 24 in Tokyo is taking place under the shadow of the conflict in Ukraine. The US/EU/Nato are all consumed by this conflict, to the exclusion of almost everything else. The West is attempting to create a global front against Russia, even going as far as both appealing to and threatening China to not support Russia economically or militarily. India too has come under pressure to condemn Russia for its aggression against Ukraine, reduce its military ties with Russia, not violate the sanctions imposed on the country by the West and, specifically, not buy discounted Russian oil or make payment through a rupee-rouble arrangement. All-out pressure on India has, however, not been applied because of the almost indispensable role of India in any viable Indo-Pacific strategy of which Quad is one concrete face. During his recent visit to Europe – which is in the eye of the Ukraine storm – Prime Minister Narendra Modi managed to maintain India’s independent … [Read more...] about Quad Summit: Despite Western Pressure, India Will Be Able to Stand Its Ground in Tokyo