Editorial

The End of An Era

HOW TIME FLIES! As the year rolls to its last days, we are reminded of the incredible journey that the DW team has taken so far. We have completed two years of publishing, and while it feels that only yesterday we published our first issue with Mr Analjit Singh on the cover, as we look back at the l...

Cover Story

A TIME TO BUILD UP

Here’s a look at 2013 through one retirement, an appointment and our obsession with both which says as much about us as it does about the two heroes. Our two newsmakers give us much hope—they make us believe that this a time for India to do better and strive for greater glory Hero Number 1 Sac...

UPDATE

Talwars Named Accused

Arushi Case Ends VERDICT// ‘Circumstantial evidence’ provided by CBI sealed the fate of Dr Rajesh Talwar and Dr Nupur Talwar in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case in the end of November closing perhaps one of the most prominent murder cases in recent times. In its order, the court discussed 26 poin...

Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal

Named Accused in Sexual Harassment Case HARASSMENT// Tehelka founder-cum-editor Tarun Tejpal was arrested for sexual assault on his junior colleague (who resigned following the incident) in November, in Goa, sending shock waves across the country. On November 30, Tejpal was interrogated by Goa poli...

Five Year Jail Term for RJD Chief

Mixed Reactions in India VERDICT// RJD chief Lalu Prasad was given five-year jail term in the fodder scam case. In December, Lalu Prasad moved the Supreme Court seeking bail. An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice P Satahsivam, before whom the matter was mentioned by senior advocate PH Parekh ...

Cyclone Phailin Sweeps Across Coastal Odisha

State Recovers DISASTER// Very Severe Cyclonic Storm Phailin (sapphire) was the strongest named cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, caused substantial damage in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, India, in early October 2013. It was also the most intense cyclone that crossed Indian coast after the 1999 Odisha c...

Social Agenda

The Year That Was

And a quick look ahead I have a confession to make. As an observer for all things social, I’m often asked to predict the course of social media as it unfolds on the consumer and business landscape. Here’s the truth—I’d probably be in better shape trying to predict the USD-INR exchange rate ...

Platform1

Living in the Age of Autocorrect

Nowadays every time I need a laugh, I fall back on autocorrect options ALL OF US have encountered this slightly irritating person at some point in our lives. Someone who claims to know the words in our mind better than we do so that when we begin speaking, he will prompt the next word, all this in ...

Looking Back

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

Kalki Koechlin talks about the art and craft of performance; both on the stage and on screen... A magazine recently pegged Kalki Koechlin as one “among the foreign actresses struggling to create a niche for themselves in Bollywood”. Apart from being problematic at several levels, the sentence i...

Platform2

A Personal Handicap

The scion’s stories... ends up being just terrifying IN THE PAST month, Rahul Gandhi addressed campaign meetings in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, the quintet of states that saw elections. He brought up a whole range of issues— his mother, father, grandmother, the a...

Good Karma

SHADY SIDE OF SPIRITUALITY

When good karma goes bad In a popular couple, poet Kabir writes: “Guru Govind dou khade, kaake laagoon paye Balihari guru aapki, Govind diyo milaye.” I have god and my teacher, both standing in front of me, whose feet should I touch first? The lord then tells him to touch his guru’s feet fi...

Reading Room

Helium

Jaspreet Singh’s eagerly awaited second novel is rather unusual, disturbingly beautiful and hard hitting RHEOLOGY IS the study of the flow of matter, primarily in liquid state, but also as soft solids or solids under conditions in which they respond with plastic flow rather than deforming elastic...

The Elephant Catchers

Key lessons for growth THOSE WHO hunt rabbits are rarely able to rope in elephants, writes Subroto Bagchi in The Elephant Catchers. Elephant catchers come at a price that may raise eyebrows and change the status quo in your existing set-up. The difficulties of ‘catching an elephant’ is an euphe...

Hitchhikers Guide

Waylaid in Taiwan

Much like its favourite pineapple pastry, Taiwan is a perfect mix of two cultures It was a first for me. Everywhere at the airport in Taipei, people with varying expressions were taking ‘selfies’ with their mobile phones. Had I but known it then, selfies was a kind of leitmotif of my trip. Wher...

Reel life

A Causality Theme

Meet India’s hottest new independent director Somewhere from the middle of 2013 there was a vague-ish buzz about a certain ship—or was it about a film about a ship? Slowly, sit-downs and chin-wags later, the context was clearer. Apparently, the vessel, the film called Ship of Theseus had sailed...