By Firoz Bakht Ahmed*  Urdu is where words become art and heart, soft as silk and deep as soul. To call a spade a spade, when internationally celebrated Urdu poet Wasim Barelvi stated, “Usoolon pe aanch aaye to takrana zaroori hai / Jo zinda ho to zinda nazar aana zaruri hai!” (Protest is a must when principles are trampled / If you are living, show you aren’t compromised), the packed-to-capacity Modern School auditorium rose to its feet. True, Urdu is sweetness, politeness and grace woven into words, as said by Josh Malihabadi. Urdu speaks when hearts feel. You indeed need a shayar like Ali Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi or Wasim Barelvi to tell you how beautiful this world is to live in — or how bad it is. All those connoisseurs of Urdu who thought the language was on oxygen or in a coma were proved wrong after witnessing a fully packed Modern School hall and an equally strong throng relishing the mushaira outside the state-of-the-art auditorium on the school’s basketball c...

By Ravi Ranjan*  The ongoing conflict between the Israel-America combine and Iran, set against deepening global tensions, is not merely a diplomatic crisis but a grave warning to humanity. Amid the destruction of trillions of dollars’ worth of natural resources and the sacrifice of countless innocent lives, a section of philosophers sees it as the approaching footsteps of a Third World War. Its roots lie not in immediate disputes alone, but deep within the frenzy of power, the blind race for resources, and the desertification of human sensibilities. In such times, the relevance of the Mahabharata only grows. 

By Dae-Han Song   Trump is infamous for his cavalier disregard for the truth. So, we, in South Korea, should inspect his words and claims critically. In fact, many of the claims in his recent 1 April (US time) address are false and constitute disinformation.  So, let’s cut through the fog of war:

By Biljana Vankovska   We are living through times where the architecture of global peace is not merely crumbling; it is being deliberately dismantled. The drums of global war beat louder than ever, drowning out the voices of reason. Across the globe, imperial power grinds forward, indifferent to human lives. In the face of such force, silence is complicity. We are compelled to speak, not because words alone will stop bombs, but because refusing to speak means surrendering our humanity.

By Vijay Prashad   In ‘Freedom Park’ (S’kumbuto) outside Pretoria (South Africa), there is a Wall of Names that honors the men and women who died in the fight to liberate South Africa from apartheid. Amongst these are the names of two thousand and seventy Cuban soldiers who died in Angola between 1975 and 1988 for the liberation of southern Africa. 

By Celina della Croce   On the morning of 26 March 2026, two crowds gathered outside of the federal courthouse in Manhattan where President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores sat awaiting their trial, set to begin at 11AM that day. On one side was a group of protestors gathered behind a large yellow banner that read “Free President Maduro and Cilia Flores.” On the other, separated by a metal barrier, was a smaller group, largely of Venezuelans cheering on the prosecution. Nearly the entire press presence was located on the anti-Maduro side: around the time the trial was set to begin and during the two hours leading up to it, there was roughly one journalist for every member of the opposition from outlets such as CNN , AP News, The Guardian , and BBC.

By Rajiv Shah  A recent report published in the British media outlet The Guardian , titled “Workers carved the largest modern Hindu temple in the west. Now, some have incurable lung disease,” took me back to my visits to the New Jersey mandir —first in 2022, when it was still under construction, though parts of it were open to visitors, and again in 2024, after its completion.

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan*  India’s claim to being the world’s largest democracy is increasingly being tested not only in its institutions, but also in its digital public sphere. The internet, once celebrated as a space for free expression and dissent, is steadily being reshaped into a tightly monitored ecosystem.

By Mohd Ziyaullah Khan*  The evolution of information has been rapid and irreversible. We have moved from an era of structured 24-hour news cycles —where trained editors verified facts—to a digital ecosystem in which smartphones deliver instant updates in real time. Today, every individual is effectively a publisher. While this democratisation of information has expanded access and participation, it has also blurred the line between truth and falsehood in unprecedented ways.