COVID-19 has again put the failures of our health care system in the spotlight. Shefali Saldanha argues that an overhaul should bring to the forefront the conversation about preventing sickness, before treating the survivors of our failed health policy.

Kochi-based multilingual pop-folk band When Chai Met Toast discusses their first Hindi track, upcoming album and connecting with fans amid the pandemic - by Barkha Kumari

Photo Essay: 13 years ago, Siddharth Jain visited the largest animal fair in the world in Sonepur (Bihar), discovering the contrast of mythology and trade, and life and death, under the auspicious full moon.

A poem by Karan Madhok: “i have time to ask why i have time, / to contemplate this sudden nothingness.”

Photo Essay: Amidst the gorgeous Himalayan backdrop in the hamlet of Landour (Mussoorie) Gopala Krishna finds strange beauty in the old Bazaar, where history has long stood still for the local community.

Contributors to the anthology Open Your Eyes Vinita Agrawal, Gayatri Chawla, Alex Josephy, and Sudeep Sen, join us in a panel for the Golchakkar Series to discuss what it means to use poetry and literature as a response to climate change.

Why Shashi Tharoor’s satirical 1989 masterpiece The Great Indian Novel—which married India’s recent history with The Mahabharata—is as relevant as ever in today’s polarising times. - by Atulya Pathak

How a for-profit society creates not just joblessness, productivity cults, and work anxiety, but also other forms of inequality, leading to a mental health crisis in the country. - By Sadaf Vidah

The MX Player web-series Aashram (2020) follows a similar blueprint in tackling India’s fascination with seductive, flawed godmen—mysticism, sex, violence, and masala—without daring to truly examine the deeper roots of society’s discontents. - by Harshita Murarka.

The pandemic threatens to be the last nail in the coffin for many of India’s great circus troupes. By taking their act online, Rambo Circus hopes to keep an acrobatic balance for the show to go on. - By Barkha Kumari

Writer, translator, and editor Aruni Kashyap discusses his remarkable short-story collection His Father’s Disease, building the shaky bridge from Assam to Delhi to America, and the indissoluble bond between the personal and the political in literature.- by Karan Madhok.

In recent years, journalists have been attacked, intimidated, and the likes of Gauri Lankesh and Shujat Bhakari murdered. Nikita Chatterjee explains how violence, government pressure, paid news, and more have shackled India’s press freedoms and landed a major blot upon our idea of democracy.