Behind the language of protection, India’s new transgender law advances a Hindu nationalist project that recasts gender variance through state classification while deepening exclusions along caste and religious lines
Linguistic and historical analysis of Southasian swear words shows that they act as a linguistic mirror, reflecting deep taboos and cultural prejudices as well as unexpected social camaraderie
As Baloch nationalism changed from tribal sardar-led, negotiation-driven politics to a human rights movement, it opened spaces for women like the BYC’s Mahrang Baloch
Spanning three decades and multiple linguistic worlds, Bhattacharya’s ‘Railsong’ writes India’s great events around the lives of its people – and not the other way around – reimagining the Great Indian Novel for the 21st century
A top monk’s alleged rape of a child threatens to unmask the Sri Lankan sangha, but its moral decay is rooted in the millennia-long transformation of the Buddha’s dhamma into Sinhala Buddhism
Vijay’s rise as Tamil Nadu’s new chief minister has bamboozled analysts, and his political vision is hypothesized based on “punch dialogues” rather than ideological clarity
Field Marshal Asim Munir is riding high on Pakistan’s mediation of US–Iran talks, but the country remains beset by economic crisis, a rapacious elite, IMF-imposed austerity and violent insurgencies
New Delhi’s redistricting of Ladakh has raised fears of Muslim marginalisation and heightened tensions with the Buddhist community, threatening a Leh–Kargil alliance demanding statehood and rights
Gyanendra Pandey’s new book reads the lives of India’s great 20th-century writers and reformers through the home, revealing how domestic life sustained gendered hierarchies even as they relegated it to the margins
