World

A Beautiful Anarchy

Shougat Dasgupta

At their heart, WikiLeaks and its future spawns represent an alternative architecture for democracy, putting power in the hands of many rather than a few

More Cardboard Cutouts

Shougat Dasgupta

Indians are popping up on American television screens in new and still typecast ways, typically for the laughs they get. Watch awhile, though, and you know this is mostly about America coming to terms with emerging realities

“Do not let others define you”

Pallavi Polanki

The managing editor of TwoCircles.net, an English news website for Indian Muslims, speaks to Open on what makes his website unique.

Red China’s Party Blues

Sakshi Lee

In the People’s Republic, the Party is all pervasive. But its enormous influence and intense secrecy mask inner impulses of dissent that could yet shake things up

What in God’s Name is This?

Huma Imtiaz

Aasia Bibi has been sentenced to death under Pakistan’s dubious blasphemy laws. Her case could hasten the country’s slide towards a closed society.

Smashing the Silence

Anuradha Ananth

Tim Sebastian, once the iconic anchor of HARDtalk, is still doing what he does best—stirring things up with the Doha Debates.

God’s Own Theme Park

Vijai Maheswari

A visit to this war museum set up by Hezbollah—literally ‘God’s party’—in Lebanon reveals more than a little chest-thumping about its claimed ‘victory’ over Israel in 2006

The Dosa Man of New York

Atiya Hussain

Seven years on, another visit to the city’s most famous streetside dosa stall reveals a Thirukumar Kandasamy who has retained everything that made him great, except the modesty

India Gains, Desis Don’t

Hartosh Singh Bal

Candidates of Indian origin who go the ‘American way’ do better than those who don’t

Parody Central

Shougat Dasgupta

What Obama has done to America is visible in what its comedians are saying. Take, for example, two avowedly apolitical rallies recently held in the US capital