Michael Thomas

As India prepares to celebrate Diwali, its national capital is facing another bout of incredibly toxic air.

In India and around the world, restaurants serving Indian food have distilled the cuisine of 29 states and seven union territories down to a fixed menu of standard dishes: dosas and dal (lentils), naan and chicken tikka, besides many variants of paneer (cottage cheese).

It’s been worn by everyone, from the Beatles to Jeff Bezos, but one of India’s most recognisable sartorial statements is still inextricably linked with its namesake, Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister.

India will today (Oct. 31) unveil the world’s tallest statue, that of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a leading light of the country’s long freedom struggle against the British.

In emoji-filled posts on their travel blog, Holidays and Happily Ever Afters, Vishnu Viswanath and Meenakshi Moorthy documented their trips across the US and around the world. On Instagram, where the software engineer couple had over 15,000 followers, Moorthy’s distinctive pink hair stood out against the scenic backdrops of the mountains and cliffs they climbed.

The annual Henley Passport Index reveals which country has the most powerful travel document in the world. And each year, India doesn’t even crack the top 50.

For most people, reading JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series is the ultimate escapism. But a professor at Kolkata’s West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) believes the wizards’ magical world isn’t really all that different from ours.

Sometime in 1930, a wealthy family living in Calcutta (now Kolkata) decided that using a horse to pull its carriage would be too conventional. So it got a zebra instead.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who died of cancer yesterday (Oct. 15), didn’t exactly retire after he left the company in 1983. Instead, he became a major philanthropist, acquired several professional sports teams, invested in space technology, and even founded his own space company.

On any given day in an Indian metropolis, foodies are spoiled for choice. There’s now Japanese-Peruvian cuisine, French patisserie, Mexican tacos, and more.

In the late 1980s, while exploring around the villages of Maharashtra’s coastal Konkan region, Sudhir Risbud came across a big square pattern engraved near the road to the beach town of Ganpatipule.

A spectacular collection of vintage photographs of India is going on sale in an online auction today (Oct. 10).

This post contains spoilers. 

India’s obsession with streaming services could be taking an unhealthy turn.

In 2015, India and Pakistan experienced heatwave conditions that ended up killing over 3,600 people in just three months. Now, research suggests this could become the new normal.

In August, the devastating floods that engulfed India’s southern state of Kerala overshadowed a unique botanical phenomenon that occurs only once every 12 years.

Chanda Kochhar, the CEO of India’s second-largest private lender and one of a handful of powerful female industry leaders in the country, has quit around six months after getting embroiled in a nepotism scandal.

On April 16, 1853, India’s very first passenger train set out on a 34 kilometre journey from Bombay (now Mumbai) to Thane, carrying 400 people. In the 165 years since then, the railway network in India has grown to become one of the world’s largest, covering over 151,000 km of tracks and ferrying about 24 million people every day.

India’s slowly changing attitudes to sex may have fuelled the demand for quirky items like flavoured condoms and love-making furniture, but misconceptions about safe sex and sexual health stubbornly persist.

India’s supreme court has scrapped a centuries-old practice that prevented women of menstruating age from entering a revered temple in the southern state of Kerala.

In 1948, after working at Hindustan Aeronautics, and then as a fill-in teacher and radio station newsreader, TS Satyan finally stumbled upon his dream job: staff photographer of the soon-to-be launched Bangalore-based English daily, Deccan Herald.

One of India’s longest-running and most politically polarising court cases entered a crucial phase today (Sept. 27).

An average Indian’s peak productive period lasts a mere seven years—less than half of that of a Chinese worker.

The weather gods are frowning at India again.