Author: Shruti Joshi
New Delhi [India], January 26: Republic Day 2026 didn’t shout. It didn’t need to. A few words, an old verse, and a familiar reminder did the job. Republic Day has a habit of being misunderstood. Too often, it’s reduced to parades, protocol, and a day off work. January 26, 2026, gently corrected that illusion. Prime Minister Narendra Modi framed Republic Day not as memory, but momentum. A living marker of India’s freedom, its Constitution, and the democratic values holding this improbable nation together. No grand announcements. No chest-thumping. Just intent. The centrepiece of the Prime Minister’s Republic Day 2026 message…
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 24: Natalie Portman’s Arco didn’t arrive waving a superhero cape or humming a nostalgic Disney tune. It slipped into the conversation quietly, carrying something far more disruptive: ideas. And not the pastel, easily digestible kind. The kind that sit at the dinner table, linger after the credits roll, and—according to Portman herself—spark awkwardly profound conversations with children about climate collapse, responsibility, and the future we keep postponing. That Arco has now found itself in the Oscar conversation for Best Animated Feature feels less like a victory lap and more like a cultural eyebrow raise. Animated films…
London [United Kingdom], January 24: Emily Dickinson still feels modern because she never tried to be legible. That’s the part people keep circling without saying out loud. She didn’t smooth the edges. She didn’t explain herself. She didn’t care if you “got it,” and she definitely didn’t care if you liked her. “Tell all the truth but tell it slant—” wasn’t a clever line. It was an operating principle. That alone puts her closer to the present than most writers embalmed by syllabi. She wrote like someone who understood the mind is not a neat place. Thoughts interrupt each other.…
New Delhi [India], January 24: Jaun Elia did not arrive in India quietly. He arrived amplified. Through a microphone that was not his. For most Indian readers under thirty-five, Jaun Elia did not come from libraries, serious Urdu study, or the long lineage of Progressive Writers. He came through Kumar Vishwas. That is not an insult. That is a logistical fact. Cultural transmission rarely cares about purity. Vishwas didn’t reinterpret Jaun. He recited him. He named him. He repeated him on stages that reached places where Urdu poetry had not travelled in decades. Small towns. College auditoriums. Televised mushairas. You…
For years, homes were treated like showroom checklists. Neutral sofa? Check. Minimal lighting? Check. A marble countertop nobody actually uses? Naturally. Somewhere along the way, living spaces became less about living and more about impressing people who don’t pay the EMIs. That era is quietly—and slightly smugly—ending. As 2026 settles in, interior design is undergoing a philosophical pivot. Homes are no longer designed to look expensive; they’re designed to feel intentional. Personalised layouts, tactile materials, local craftsmanship, and story-driven décor are replacing cookie-cutter “luxury.” The modern home is becoming an experience, not a catalogue spread—and yes, it has opinions. This…
Alessandro Dotti, Group Chief Executive Officer of Zonair3D and Royden Correa, Chief Executive Officer, Zonair Projects India Pvt. Ltd. (Z3D India) New Delhi [India], January 24: Zonair3D, a Spanish clean-air technology company, has renewed its long-term commitment to India with a plan focused on local growth. The company aims to make advanced indoor air purification more accessible in institutions, businesses, and high-end homes. This move comes as more people and organisations in India pay attention to indoor air quality and preventive health. Zonair3D’s strategy in India focuses on making its proven clean-air systems more available by working with local partners.…
In ordinary, civilian life, society has made a fairly clear judgment without ever holding a formal meeting about it. Guns are treated as dangerous, uncomfortable, and in need of constant control. Bows, arrows, and swords, meanwhile, live comfortably in museums, sports, hobbies, stories, and backyard conversations about “cool historical stuff.” This isn’t because people are inconsistent. It’s because these tools interact very differently with normal life. Bows and swords existed alongside daily routines. People farmed, traded, raised families, and argued with their neighbors while these weapons were present. Most of the time, nothing happened. That mattered. Their presence didn’t turn…
Menswear didn’t collapse in 2026. It simply stopped asking for permission. Somewhere between oversized knits, thrifted denim, pearl necklaces worn without irony, and shoes that look like they were chosen for comfort rather than approval, Gen Z men have decided something radical: fashion is not a rulebook, it’s a language. And languages evolve when people start speaking honestly. This shift didn’t announce itself with a manifesto or a runway rebellion. It arrived subtly — in metro stations, cafés, college campuses, startup offices, music gigs, and Instagram feeds that look less curated and more confessional. The result? A generation of men…
Cambridge (Massachusetts) [USA], January 24: Taylor Swift has been explained to exhaustion. Charts, eras, reinventions, crowd sizes, revenue numbers. None of that is especially illuminating anymore. What actually matters is quieter and a little less flattering: she learned how to stay present without pretending growth is tidy. Most pop careers stall because the artist clings to a version of themselves that once worked. She didn’t cling. She adjusted. Repeatedly. Sometimes awkwardly. Early on, she was dismissed as temporary. A teenager with a guitar, a country accent that came and went, emotions that sounded pulled straight from a notebook you wouldn’t…
New Delhi [India], January 24: Mirza Ghalib is treated like a relic. Framed. Sanitised. Quoted on calendars and WhatsApp forwards as if he were some polite uncle who happened to rhyme well. That version is convenient. It’s also false. The real Ghalib was argumentative, broke, vain, deeply insecure, intellectually arrogant, emotionally reckless, and almost permanently irritated with the world around him. Which is precisely why he still matters. Especially now. Especially here. India has a strange habit of embalming its thinkers. Once they’re dead long enough, we bleach out the mess and keep the aesthetics. With Ghalib, we kept the…