On All Cylinders

Stopping LPG black market requires commercial supply restoration, market pricing, distributor audits Officially, there’s no shortage of LPG. Anecdotally, cylinders are selling for twice the official price. That means we have a black market in gas now. This is not surprising when LPG supply to commercial kitchens has been curbed. There’s logic behind govt’s order:…

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Iran, Persia and me

‘Epic Fury’ could learn from real epic  How do I and my fellow Parsis react to the present insanity involving our original motherland, nucleus of  two far-flung Zoroastrian empires, Cyrus the Great’s Achaemenid and the later Sassanian? Obviously we didn’t support the repressive regressive Ayatollah Khomeini who in 1979 ousted Pahlavi Reza Shah. The tall,…

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Chinese Checkers & Trump’s Iran War

In the prevailing logic of great power competition, Iran seems to have a valuable function for China. For every dollar US spends, defending commercial shipping lanes in Red Sea, from Houthi anti-ship missiles, and for every multi-billion-dollar carrier strike group tethered to Persian Gulf, to deter Iranian aggression, there’s resource unavailable for deployment in Indo-Pacific….

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The “I” in Individual

Harish Rana has been in a coma-like state for 13 years. During this time, his parents loved him and cared for him every day. But they also asked the courts many times for permission to stop the medical tubes that were keeping him alive. They felt it was kinder to let him go peacefully. Supreme…

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Running on All Cylinders

GOI says there is no shortage of cooking gas (LPG). But many people say something different. Some gas cylinders are being sold for twice the official price. This usually means a black market has appeared. Why is this happening? Recently, GOI reduced LPG supply to restaurants and other commercial kitchens. The idea was simple: until…

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The ‘I’ In Individual

Our liberties make us & society stronger. Groupthink doesn’t. But state & even some courts don’t get it Harish Rana has been in a vegetative state for 13 years. All this while, his parents have loved him, cared for him. For years, they have also pleaded for permission to withdraw the tubes clinically feeding him….

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Turning the tide on digital fraud

For years, India’s digital growth story came with a silent footnote: the faster we moved money, the faster criminals went after it. As transactions accelerated through UPI, fintech apps and instant payments, so did the sophistication of fraud. Now, for the first time in years, there is evidence that the state is not merely reacting;…

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Why is no one fighting poverty? The dangerous logic behind the war with Iran

At a time when millions of people around the world struggle with poverty, food insecurity, lack of education, and inadequate health care, a new war has once again engulfed the Middle East. This war did not emerge from a collective decision of the international community. It began when the United States and Israel launched coordinated…

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Escapism Done Right

Feed your brain fine things, the result will be resilience. Feed it junk, you’ll grow sillier by the minute  Dalgona coffee. Sourdough bread. Craftcore. Retro bingeing Malgudi Days and Mad Men. Rereading Ghalib and Premchand, Austen and Shakespeare. These were some of the ways we sought distraction during Covid. Today, there is a war going…

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