off-beat

From receiving a record-breaking 23-minute standing ovation to sweeping awards and audiences at festivals to commercial success; films about Palestine are having their moment in the world of cinema. Is it just a start?

Stretching from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, the whole river basin supports over 650 million people, a quarter of India’s freshwater, and much of its food and economic value.

Volcanic eruptions are excellent timekeepers because they happen very quickly, geologically speaking. As hot magma erupts, it cools and solidifies into volcanic ash particles and pumice rocks.

The event has been named “Chhotoder Durga, Chhotoder Mela”—a carnival of the young, for the young. This is not just a celebration, but a reclamation of dignity. For once, the spotlight will not shine on their identity as “children of sex workers,” but on their talent as dancers, actors, singers, and organisers.

Look deeper and you find a large population of women, living in tier-2 and tier-3 towns, struggling to wriggle out of the minotaur of patriarchy tightening its tentacles vigorously, to counter the first narrative

While Nano Banana and vintage saree edits may be entertaining creative experiments, users should exercise caution.

Every flood season and every flood-prone country has lessons galore for India—extreme rains can wreak havoc if met with weak infrastructure, compromised embankments, floodplain encroachments, obstruction of natural drainage and failure to desilt the rivers.

Habitat loss and fragmentation is the number one threat to koalas. Others include climate change, bushfires, disease, vehicle strikes and dog attacks.

A deadly mite, Tropilaelaps mercedesae or “tropi” is on the march. Beekeepers fear it will wreak even greater havoc than varroa – and the ripple effects may be felt by the billions of people around the world.

“If you have 300-year-old objects, you have to make their history relatable to the contemporary context, to make it interesting,” says artist and museologist Subodh Kerkar, founder and director of Museum of Goa and Museum of Beer.

Yet research conducted in Quebec shows that declawing causes irreversible nerve damage and chronic suffering. This mutilation must be banned, everywhere and forever. 

A study has made a best guess that the total carbon footprint of militaries across the globe is greater than that of Russia, which currently has the fourth-largest footprint in the world.