Even if the Bangladesh Nationalist Party wins, the Jamaat-e-Islami looks set to become a formidable opposition force, shifting the country’s political centre further to the right
With women comprising only four percent of candidates in 2026 general election, Bangladesh’s post-Hasina transition is reproducing the patriarchy it promised to dismantle
In ‘Native ball’, the artist presents life in Kerala through a deliberate mix of fact and fabrication, combining photography and text to evoke a kind of magical realism
An alliance with the student-led National Citizen Party gives the Jamaat-e-Islami a chance to rebrand ahead of Bangladesh’s first election since the July Revolution
Shahrukh Alam talks to Harsh Mander about the criminalising of protest by Muslims, anti-constitutional arguments in courts, and how cultural narratives have allowed these shifts.
Namit Arora and Romila Thapar on how identities in early and medieval India were formed, contested, and why a shared sense of “Indianness” may be a colonial-era development
Myanmar’s military rulers present the recent election as a “democratic transition”, but increasing repression and mass political arrests expose the real face of a brutal authoritarian regime
Hungry for wildlife and conservation funds, Madhya Pradesh has violated science, the law and the rights of forest dwellers to establish its brand as a tiger-cheetah conservation state
Sociologist Samina Luthfa talks about how women have been caught between an interim government failing to protect them and rising Islamist conservatism targeting their freedoms
From Panchayat-era moralism to donor-driven publishing, and today a rising crop of local initiatives, the shifts in Nepal’s children’s literature reflect the difficult history of the country itself
With a narrow focus on security and a desire to perpetuate Afghanistan’s dependence on Pakistan, Islamabad has failed to recognise the Taliban’s new regional ambitions and geopolitical strategy
