The defacement of a graffiti mural in Dhaka has reignited debates over Bangladesh’s cultural identity. Why does Rabindranath Tagore, whose Amar Sonar Bangla is the national anthem, remain a contested figure amid religious nationalism, political upheaval and cultural intolerance?
Tanvia Barua12mins read
Nepal’s 2026 disaster season has exposed a cascading Himalayan crisis, as landslides, glacial collapse, flash floods, record river levels and avalanches move rapidly across interconnected mountain and river systems, affecting Nepal and downstream India.
El Niño warming in the Pacific disrupts Asian weather, causing severe rainfall deficits that threaten India's monsoon, agricultural output, and food markets.
India stands at a critical juncture in its demographic journey. With a limited window to harness its demographic dividend, the country faces pressing challenges in employment, healthcare, education and urbanisation. A large working-age population can drive growth only when supported by productive jobs, skills and social security. The question is whether India can turn its demographic advantage into sustainable economic opportunity.
Brent crude oil has crossed $100 a barrel as the US-Iran conflict intensifies, raising fresh concerns over Strait of Hormuz disruptions, global oil supply, shipping costs and India’s crude-oil import dependence. With geopolitical tensions threatening key energy chokepoints, the oil price shock could put pressure on India’s import bill, rupee, inflation, petrol and diesel prices, transport costs and household expenses.
The Himalayas share water, hazards and infrastructure risk across borders — but the information required to anticipate those geographical risks remains fragmented by geopolitics.
A sudden flash flood at the Nepal–Tibet frontier has exposed the fragile hydrological connectivity of the Himalayas, as a suspected ice-rock avalanche, cascading river surge and damaged infrastructure raise a larger question for India: how prepared are downstream systems for transboundary Himalayan hazards?
Manipur’s Census has become a contest over citizenship, indigeneity and political representation. Behind the demand for an NRC first lies a sharper question: who gets counted as belonging to the state?
In 2019, Icelanders held a funeral for Okjökull, a glacier lost to climate change. But why mourn something that was never alive? From Indigenous ecological rituals to the emerging idea of “eco-grief”, the death of a glacier raises a larger question: can humanity learn to grieve the natural world before there is nothing left to save?
When does scrutiny become a public trial? And why does the burden of being a 'first' fall so heavily on those who are Black? Jason Arday’s death has reopened a raw debate over race, accountability, Cambridge and a media culture that may have stopped seeing the person behind the story.
For Gen Z, dreams rarely stay in one place. They evolve with love, ambition, and loss, leaving many searching for a sense of home. Through Chander, Preeti, and Sudha, Musafir Café explores this emotional journey with remarkable sensitivity, asking whether dreams ever truly find belonging—or whether they are destined to remain eternal travellers.
He climbed six years’ worth of impossible into six months, then the mountain that once let him pass took him back. Nirmal “Nimsdai” Purja, the Nepali-British former Gurkha and Special Boat Service commando who rewrote the limits of high-altitude mountaineering, died on 30 July 2026, aged 43, when an avalanche struck Broad Peak in Pakistan’s Karakoram range, killing him and nine companions who had climbed up together and did not come down. Born to poverty in the shadow of Dhaulagiri, he became, in 2019, the first person to summit all fourteen of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks in a single unbroken span of six months and six days — a record that stood until 2023 — before going on to lead the first winter ascent of K2 and set a string of further speed records over the years that followed. This is not a mountaineer’s tribute, but the grief of an ordinary admirer who never met him, and never stopped watching him climb.
Sri Lanka, Economics: The Aragalaya protests in 2022 that led to the eventual resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa—came to symbolise the collapse of Sri Lanka's economy and political establishment. Three years later, the World Bank has restored the country to the ranks of upper-middle-income status. Yet the country's recovery story remains far more complicated than the statistics suggest.