カテゴリー: Culture
George Harrison and Ravi Shankar were loyal customers. More than 70 years since it opened, this family business is still crafting instruments that last a lifetimeIn a dusty, crowded corner of south Kolkata, India, is a quaint 73-year-old musical instru…
A film charting Pat Farmer’s 4,600km dash across India piles on the platitudes, reducing an amazing odyssey to nippy travelogueThe Indian ascetic tradition can add another name to its ranks: former Australian parliamentary secretary and ultra-marathon …
Cantopop star says city has become a police state as young people fight for their lives “We are officially in a police state,” the Hong Kong Cantopop star and activist Denise Ho told a sold-out audience in Sydney on Sunday night.Speaking at the Sydney …
Vivek Oberoi movie will tell ‘true story’ of reprisals after February attack in which 40 Indian troops were killedBollywood is to make a movie based on the “true story” of Indian air strikes on Pakistan this year, its producer said, the latest patrioti…
As the country seeks to establish itself as a space power, audiences are developing an appetite for the extraterrestrial on the big screenIn 2014, India sent the Mars Orbiter Mission into space, and became the first country to send a satellite to orbit…
Nearly 300 bars and restaurants are squeezed into an area about the size of half a football pitch in the Golden Gai area of Tokyo. Everything is smaller and narrower in this warren of shacks, a sliver of old Tokyo in a modern metropolis Continue readi…
A welcome critique of global finance is admirably angry but fails to properly identify the crisis brewing in BeijingThe great dividing line in economics – ever since its birth – is how to think about money. Are money and the financial systems through w…
A blistering polemic exposes the country’s malaise under Narendra ModiAlmost a decade ago, I travelled to a small town in Gujarat, a state in the west of India, to hear Narendra Modi speak to a rally. It started late in the evening and a crowd had alre…
Leone’s character gives out phone number in the recent Hindi comedy Arjun Patiala – but the number actually belongs to a man in DelhiBollywood actor Sunny Leone has apologised after a man was inundated with calls when his phone number was used in her r…
New Amazon and Netflix dramas take in themes that India’s established cinema rarely touches, with millions of potential subscribers available ‘The three big ‘no’s in Indian cinema are sexuality, religion and politics,” says Anurag Kashyap. “And in Sacr…
The illustrated city: Gleaming skyscrapers are springing up, but a wander through this Indian city’s labyrinthine by-lanes still reveals glimpses of the pastUrbanisation and globalisation have swept sleepy Pune off its feet. This city in Maharashtra, w…
High walls around the neighbourhoods of the country’s embattled Hazara community in the south-western city of Quetta are designed to protect them from extremist militants. However, they also serve as a constant reminder of the threat they face from gro…
From heaving traffic and dense crowds to car-free and tranquil: that’s the vision for Chandni Chowk. But is it achievable?The Champs Élysées is one of the most famous streets in the world, but you could say the French were beaten to it by the Mughals. …
In conservative, authoritarian Almaty, a small techno event aims to create a safe space for activists and the LGBT communityIt is a rainy spring night in Almaty, and in a small back-alley club a young DJ is playing dark British techno while wearing a T…