EYES ON THE SKIES

How Indian UFO investigators are searching for alien life with science, meditation

A GRAVE NEW WORLD

A short preface

THE BLUE BOOK OF SECRETS

Were UFOs ‘weaponised’ by Joseph Stalin as black propaganda amid the Cold War?

‘Hubris to suggest we know what we are looking for'

INTERVIEW PUSHKAR GANESH VAIDYA

Antonio Banderas On An Actor's Pain And Glory

After an Oscar nomination and a Cannes win, Antonio Banderas is going back to his Spanish roots—and, theatre

Sachin Tendulkar - Would Have Been Nice If We Had A WTC In My Days

Sachin Tendulkar, former cricketer

Covid-19 Worsens Centre-State Relations

The pandemic has worsened the already strained relations between the Centre and state governments

How The Pandemic Will Be The Game Changer For Robotics In India

The need for robots was never felt more than during this pandemic—for companionship, domestic help or medical assistance. The race is on to create more socially intelligent robots, and Indian players are populating the field

HUNTER'S LOVE AND LOSS

Beautiful Things: A Memoir By Hunter Biden

Doctor steady

Mantra could bridge the global disparity in access to robotic surgeries

A mighty roar

Will Newton director Amit Masurkar score another Oscar entry with his next, Sherni?

ALL HEAT, NO DUST

The Gehlot-Pilot tussle is again on the boil, but political constraints prevent both from drastic moves

Machine's learning

Covid-induced automation in industries can be a double-edged sword

Mughlai chicken à la robot

These entrepreneurs are redefining our culinary future, bot by bot

Citizen bane

India claims he is still Indian. Fugitive diamond trader Mehul Choksi claims he is an Antiguan citizen. Dominica has to decide and, possibly, set a precedent for runaway fraudsters

Mehul Choksi - How India Bungled In Dominica

After failing to get fugitive Mehul Choksi deported from Antigua, and stumbling into the local political mess and institutional complexities of the Caribbean, Indian agencies are regrouping and hatching new plans to nab the diamond trader

In Britain, there is national amnesia about the Empire

Even though William Dalrymple's City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi (1993) is a travel memoir, for some of us it is also a lesson in history. For historian Dalrymple, the shift to travel writing came in the 1990s when he discovered the ill-fated love story between James Achilles Kirkpatrick, East India Company resident at the Court of Hyderabad, and Khair un-Nissa, a Persian noblewoman. And thus was born White Mughals (2002), which brought alive a lesser-known world when the east and west easily consorted in the age of the Empire.

The boy who would be king

Abhimanyu Mishra is the epitome of the new-gen chess player and is on course to becoming the youngest grandmaster ever

The campaign against the administration is run by Kerala

FOR MORE THAN a month now, Lakshadweep administrator Praful Khodabhai Patel has been in the eye of the storm. Lakshadweep residents, including several BJP leaders, are unhappy over a slew of decisions taken by his administration. Patel, a former minister of state for home from Gujarat and a close confidante of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, denies there is any “saffron agenda” in his decisions. And, the fears of the islanders are unfounded, he says. Excerpts from the interview:

SWADESHI SOCIAL

Local social media players are disrupting a market dominated by global tech giants. New government regulations could accelerate the churn

SOUTHERN DELIGHT

Tamannaah Bhatia is method-acting her way into the big league

LIFE OF PAI

Meet Srikanth Pai, the man who helped develop India’s drug of choice to fight the black fungus

LOTUS AND LOOTERS

After the crushing assembly poll loss, a hawala scandal and multiple bribery charges threaten the credibility of the Kerala BJP

Framing the scars

Life, loss, hope and betrayal—as seen through the lens of photographer Taha Ahmad in his series on partition

FORGOTTEN CHILDREN

From losing parents to Covid-19 to being abandoned and abused, children have been silently suffering this pandemic. While the government has woken up to the issue, there is a huge need for children-specific Covid-19 management policy

The Military Made The Virus - Li-Meng Yan

As Biden wants to investigate the origins of Covid-19, China asks him to look closer to home

Bat Or Human?

Indian scientists see substance in lab leak theory

A royal mess

Despite Huma Qureshi's impressive performance, Maharani fails to thrill

Chasing a likely lab leak

A scientist couple from Pune, Dr Monali C. Rahalkar and Dr Rahul Bahulikar, has been on an online expedition to trace the origin and course of the virus behind the pandemic. They made two interesting discoveries. Here, they recount their exciting journey

Quiet efficiency

Chinese officials say life in Wuhan is back to normal, but they refuse to talk about the virology institute, a key player in China's advancements in life sciences