A decade or so ago, Mathew George Sankaramangalam decided to restore his family’s nearly 100-year-old ancestral home or tharavadu, in Thiruvalla, located in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district. “I inherited this place in the late 1990s after my grandfather passed away, but it ended up lying unused for nearly 25 years,” says the Bengaluru-based businessman. During this … Read more
One winter, many years ago, I was gifted a ticket to witness the Republic Day parade: the kind of gift you cannot refuse without offending the giver, and the kind of giver you cannot afford to offend. I grudgingly took myself to the venue, bereft of all distractions other than a novel clutched under my … Read more
As dawn breaks over Hyderabad, before the first tea stalls steam to life, hundreds of sanitation workers are already at work, their brooms combing the city to prepare it for the day’s bustle. For 58-year-old Nethetla Pochamma, a single mother and an outsourced worker with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, it wasn’t just a job—it … Read more
An EV charging station being operated by the KSEB near the Kozhikode beach. | Photo Credit: K. Ragesh The story so far: The Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) have initiated a pilot project to explore the implementation of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology across the State. This collaboration … Read more
From the coastal city of Visakhapatnam to the farthest corners of the globe, Bharadwaj Dayala is on an extraordinary journey: one that spans 195 countries, seven continents and 12 years, capturing the portraits of women. But it is not the miles he is counting. It is the faces, the stories, the lives. His dream project, … Read more
Kallukoppa (Shivamogga) It is 10.30 a.m. and four government officials have just reached Kallukoppa, a village in Sirigere, a gram panchayat in Shivamogga taluk. One of them is armed with a rover to record GPS location, while others are carrying documents. The team, comprising officers of both the Revenue and Forest Departments, with residents as … Read more
Priya Ranganathan’s first encounter with a Myristica swamp was back in 2019 when she was working as a research assistant at the Bengaluru-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) on a hydro-ecology project. As part of a field trip with other researchers, she was exploring the Aghanashini, one of the rivers … Read more
The Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks and Geographical Indications granted the long-awaited ‘GI’ recognition to the Patteda Anchu saree from Gajendragad in Gadag district in north Karnataka in March. This traditional hand-woven cotton textile with natural colours is known for its bright colours and simple design. It earned its name from its … Read more
When the Constitution of India was first published, over 75 years ago, it included many artworks. Amongst them was one showing Kubera, Ravana’s brother and the king of wealth and yakshas (nature spirits), fleeing from Lanka. It is often mistaken for Hanuman burning Lanka, but there are no flames of a burning city or a monkey’s tail. … Read more
In this file photo, an Indian police officer prepares to close one of the gates at Tihar Jail, the largest complex of prisons in New Delhi. | Photo Credit: AP With a national average occupancy rate of more than 131%, Indian jails face extreme overcrowding and are battling multiple health challenges, according to the recently … Read more