Amanat Khullar

When Gurleen Kaur came out as queer to her friends three years ago, she was all too familiar with her family’s expectations—that she marry a man someday. That was still a possibility for the 27-year-old, which would likely then lead to the full-package large celebration with all her friends and family present. But Kaur also knew she would likely not get any of that fanfare if she married a woman.

In late August 2020, when the US was witnessing nationwide protests against anti-Black racism, another minority community—Asian Americans—came under threat in Texas when a letter titled “return back to your country” arrived at the doorstep of an Irving resident. The message was clear—a threat to “shoot mercilessly” immigrants of Chinese and Indian descent.

When Kirti Krishan returned to his home in Patna in January after having spent over six months in Beijing, he was thrilled to be able to eat dal and rice again. Having finished the first semester of his management programme at Peking University, the 23-year-old was delighted still when his vacation was extended due to the spread of Covid-19 in China.

US president Donald Trump has tested positive for coronavirus. He and his wife Melania were already in quarantine after one of their advisers also tested positive, and although the president will have the best possible medical care, he’s 74, likely overweight, and generally in a higher-risk category.

Growing up in Texas, Priya Tahim felt like she didn’t have a voice. A second-generation immigrant and the middle daughter of South Asian and African parents, Tahim said sharing feelings was an alien concept in her household, causing her to struggle with her emotions.

The first time I thought about Irrfan Khan’s mortality was when his character, Ashoke Ganguli, died fairly early of a heart attack in The Namesake. Ganguli, a soft-spoken immigrant in America, expressed more with his eyes than he did with words—a trait he shared with the man who played the part.

India has been under a nationwide lockdown since March 25 to contain the spread of Covid-19, with some restrictions being eased on April 20 in regions that aren’t hotspots.

Zyma Islam noticed her sleep began to change soon after the lockdown began.

British prime minister Boris Johnson is in intensive care after his Covid-19 symptoms worsened on Monday (April 6). He has received oxygen treatment at a hospital in London, but has not been put on a ventilator.

In bright red text, an advisory on ‘Social Distancing’ began flashing on India’s health ministry website under ‘Novel Corona Virus’ on Monday evening, urging people to maintain a distance of one meter between customers and avoid non-essential travel. This measure, the document explains, is to “stop or slow down the rate and extent of” coronavirus transmission, which has so far infected at least 137 people in India and killed three that we know about.

Here, in the chilly air of the morgue, where the sharp smell of formaldehyde cuts through the odour of blood and the buzz of an overworked air conditioner drowns out the howls from without, they are finally equal.

The climate talks in Madrid may have failed to achieve much, but a solution to the Indian capital’s apocalyptic winters might just be in sight, with a little help from the industry.

On a day when India’s capital city continued to be engulfed in toxic post-Diwali smog, a new study provided a peek into the country’s bleak future if greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow at high rates: a spike in temperatures, and with it, a rise in mortality.