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30-11-202630 STORIES

In this issue

Lathicharge, Kochi

The khaki isn’t clean

Policing must be reimagined as a public service rooted in the community rather than as a tool for political control alone. This requires building an institutional culture that is grounded in human dignity and due process.

Naveed Mehmood Ahmad

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Editor’s Note

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Bias is inherent in the force: K. Radhakrishnan

The former Director General of Police speaks about the need for fundamental reforms to build public trust in the police, including longer training periods, closer supervision, and stronger accountability mechanisms.

Vasanth Srinivasan

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The police should be made an autonomous institution: Meeran Chadha Borwankar

The former IPS officer calls for urgent inquiries into allegations of police violence and for reforms to ensure their independence from the political party in power.

Error of judgment

The central paradox of Prakash Singh (2006) is that by sidelining political institutions in the name of reform, it made genuine police reform impossible.

K. Ashok Vardhan Shetty

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FROM THE SIDELINES

Congress needs SP horsepower to drive its Uttar Pradesh campaign

While Congress believes it has gained momentum, it will have to recognise the Samajwadi Party’s stronger organisational base and accommodate its demands if the INDIA bloc hopes to wrest Uttar Pradesh from the BJP-RSS combine.

STUDENT AGITATIONS

Season for students

The recent agitations on the campuses of various Central universities underscore the anger and restlessness of young people, and follow a pattern that is emerging across the globe.

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Election finance

Democracy’s decoys

Data shows that many Registered Unrecognised Political Parties are being used as fronts to launder money. Not only must the ECI act against them, but a wider crackdown is needed, involving other agencies and tighter laws.

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Why have new enumerators been introduced for Census 2027?

The Home Ministry’s sudden notification to change who can become an enumerator for Census 2027 is generating suspicion, with allegations that the BJP wants to extend its political agenda through the census as well.

Inside Kashmir today

Instead of extending love and affection to Kashmiris, the Centre has created an echo chamber that totally excludes the Kashmiri voice. What Modi-Shah need to understand is that their favourite Zionist model will not work in Jammu and Kashmir.

Mani Shankar Aiyar

Hyderabad protest

SIR AND HINDUTVA

The Muslim ‘other’

The Narendra Modi regime’s perceived efforts, through the SIR process, to disenfranchise Muslims are part of an old ideological construct that sees the Muslim “other” as a foreigner. That is why it will never retreat on the issue.

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay

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People power vs hydropower

The Siang Dam in Arunachal Pradesh, projected as India’s answer to China, is rightly being opposed for its potentially devastating effect on the people and the environment in an ecologically volatile zone.

Vedaant Lakhera

IDBI Bank

ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES

What the IDBI stake sale tells us

The government wanted to ensure that the “delayed” transfer of IDBI to a private player goes through at any cost. While the sops it has offered to Fairfax make the latter a clear winner, the exchequer appears to have been short-changed.

C.P. Chandrasekhar

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BRAZIL ELECTION

The idea has won

Lula’s comeback against Flavio Bolsonaro is a victory for Brazil’s institutions and sovereignty, a relief for the Amazon rainforest, and a reprieve for the region’s Left.

Srinivasan Ramani

Opposition protests

ISRAELI ELECTIONS

Arab voters trump Netanyahu

An unprecedented Arab participation in Israel’s parliamentary election denies Benjamin Netanyahu’s party a majority. The clear mandate against US President Donald Trump in US midterm elections complicates the situation for the Israeli leader.

Iftikhar Gilani

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Giant forest trees threatened by Great Nicobar mega project

Satellite data reveals the existence of thousands of tall trees in the earmarked area of the Great Nicobar Island Development Project. It is unclear how many of them will be safeguarded.

T. Ramachandran

THE ETHICAL LIFE

Modernity, an idea as old as India

Modernity in India is more Indian than Western because India has its own long history of reasoning, individualism, and secularism. That we lack a term for it reveals only a failure of imagination and the lingering grip of colonialism.

Rajeev Bhargava

Jogen Chowdhury

Jogen Chowdhury (1939-2026): Artist of resistance

Jogen Chowdhury was haunted by a decomposing social order, and his grotesque figures emerged from the moral rot he saw all around him.

Vinyl covers of Amar Chitra Katha

The enduring Indian tradition of visual storytelling

Hero stones, Kalighat paintings, Tintin, web comics—all find a place in an ongoing exhibition about the visual stories that have shaped the collective Indian imagination down the centuries.

Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta

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Counter Culture

The expendable women of Tamil and Telugu cinema

Women are indispensable to commercial cinema’s storytelling, yet rarely afforded the agency or individuality to exist beyond the needs of male protagonists.

Prathyush Parasuraman

Onaiza Drabu

We’ve the right to remain complex: Onaiza Drabu

The anthology edited by the Kashmiri writer, anthropologist, and semiotician offers a reassessment of what constitutes Kashmiri literature.

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Political biography

Mizoram’s peacemaker

An account of modern Mizoram from the vantage point of its longest-serving Chief Minister, Lal Thanhawla: a statesman who bridged deep ideological divides to build the developmental state.

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No holds barred

Former judge of the Madras High Court Justice K. Chandru offers an insider-outsider’s take on the state of India’s judiciary today, and the verdict is damning.

Alok Prasanna Kumar

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Narrative history

The fault lines of Bastar

This book turns to history to understand how Bastar became the headquarters of one of India’s longest-running insurgencies, but its breadth comes at the expense of depth.

Ashutosh Bhardwaj

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Translated stories

Her unflinching eye

Geetanjali Shree’s weighty, complex stories in this collection are perfectly complemented by Daisy Rockwell’s thoughtful translation.

A Lucknow landmark

Longing for Lucknow

Omair Ahmad’s novel is written with heart but structured in a way that keeps the novelist away from its most significant space and timeline.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai

Mayhem in Mumbai

Abir Mukherjee’s latest detective novel, set in a luxury high-rise, is a locked-room mystery with plenty of drollery.

New books on the shelves

A Sahitya Akademi Award-winning Urdu novel in translation, non-fiction that traces how India’s Muslim women are becoming politicised and challenging the state, and much more.

Postman

Shadatmajan and his umbrella

There was a time when postmen delivered not just mail but also connections, linking remote villages with the world beyond.

T.N. Venugopalan

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‘The Dystopian Times’ by Appupen

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