By Rao Farman Ali. As the sun sets over Pampore, casting long shadows across the patchy fields, Abdul Hamid Wani sits on his haunches, looking at the small, crimson pile in a wooden tray that represents a year of his life, his hope, and his struggle. It is a sight that brings to mind an old couplet, a nightingale's plea to a stone for a single blade of grass.

By Arjun Janah. Will we meet, beyond the mountain, The ones we loved and lost? Will we hear the songs familiar—Or will this all be lost?

By Dr Rashid Ali. So why was well-known Italian scholar of Hindi, Francesca Orsini, deported from India?

By Narendra Pachkhede. And who speaks for Gaza?

By Ajith Pillai. Much of my free time between the age of thirteen and twenty was spent in the neighbourhood park with a group of friends. We called ourselves the ‘Crime Syndicate’ .

Author Anne Lamott praised the work effusively: “I love this book so much—the wisdom, the welcome, the quality of Padma’s writing, the depth of her shared experiences, and, oh my God, the recipes. This book makes me feel as if she is gently and boldly cooking right beside me,”

By Amit Sengupta. Then something like a smile passed fleetingly over what had once been her face.  

By Amit Sengupta. The happiness she feels every time she knows he is near, and the correspondence, the letters they exchange over time, makes the bonding stronger. The final scene, when he leaves Buenos Aires and she says goodbye to him at the train station, is of absolute love — a different kind of love.

By Huneza Khan. And yet, Arundhati Roy allows a sliver of something softer. Tenderness flickers beneath anger and unguarded defiance. Butterflies stirred inside me.

By Narendra Pachkhede. The Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit on Gaza: a televised triumph? A reality show dressed up as a fake peace accord?

By Isabel Allende. Perhaps we are in this world to search for love, find it and lose it, again and again. With each love, we are born anew, and with each love that ends we collect a new wound. I am covered with proud scars.’

Anuradha Kumar. A murder is only part of everything else that happens in a small town over certain years. It’s never properly resolved. A murder was a dramatic way for me to ask questions. And there are still so many questions.

By Ajith Pillai. Is the AI bubble bound to burst? A recent case tells a story.

By Samina Salim. Damage, desolation, desperation; too much for too long. Today I write dream, I write bloom, I write freedom.

By Ajith Pillai. Does this suggest that people, citizens of a nation, brainwashed over the decades to accept totalitarian authority silently, have lost their will to protest?

By Amartya Acharya. It's all in that ‘perhaps’, and thus we needed more. We didn't need Dylan depicted as ‘A Complete Unknown’. Rather we needed to understand the mindset that makes him Like a Rolling Stone.

By Ajith Pillai. Political Science Fiction: The government’s Mahasamadhi Bill as forced Euthanasia for millions of the jobless and poor. Only the rich could live and flourish. The advertising blitz that accompanied it was persistent. ‘Death is not Elimination; It’s an Elevation’ -- was the official slogan that haunted citizens 24/7.

By Sarita Chouhan. Like a weaver weaving warp and weft. It's repetitive. Meditative. Mystic.

By Ramsharan Joshi. The libraries in these schools are extraordinary. Public libraries offer memberships to 6-month-old babies! I saw this in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, Canada. Even 4th and 5th graders are used to ‘heavy books’. In summer, children are encouraged to read and write, and discover their  independent minds.

By Narendra Pachkhede. His music was steeped in jazz and cabaret; his dialogue was in the Beiruti dialect, his wit was mordant. He wrote not of cedars but of unpaid rent, not of timeless landscapes, but of shifting alliances. He did not so much mock Lebanon’s hypocrisies as make them speak.