View Articles

August 13, 2026, was a day when Cleo, muse of history, wept. For one of her greatest devotees, Professor Sumit Sarkar, foremost of the eminent historians of modern India, breathed his last. Eighty-seven years old, Prof. Sarkar lost his long battle with illness on that day. He is survived by his wife, eminent historian Tanika Sarkar, and his son, Aditya Sarkar. The loss of Prof. Sarkar is not merely the loss of a person. It is as if an institution whose constant presence we had taken for granted for so long a time suddenly crumbled. With his demise, the ever-vanishing ranks of those intellectuals who believe that the task of the intelligentsia is not limited to publishing papers and writing monographs for career advancement sitting in ivory towers thinned yet again.

Facial recognition technology offers fast identity verification and improved security. It also creates major risks like privacy loss, mass surveillance, and misidentification due to algorithmic bias. It is both a boon and a bane. Benefits of facial recognition comprise speed and convenience, public safety, efficiency and health, and automation. Harms and risks of facial recognition include loss of privacy, insecurity and bias, data securities vulnerabilities, and government surveillance, racial and gender bias leading to wrongful arrests, and non-consensual data collection. These vulnerabilities threaten personal privacy because facial data cannot be easily changed or encrypted once leaked.

There are actors who become stars, stars who become superstars and, once in a generation, a performer who becomes something larger than cinema itself.

Indian cinema entered 2026 with a paradox. The theatrical business is producing extraordinary blockbusters at one end and equally spectacular failures at the other, while a large middle class of well-made, meaningful films struggles to find an audience. The lesson from 2025 and the first half of 2026 is not simply that “masala” is back. It is that audiences are increasingly willing to pay for an event—provided the film delivers scale, emotion, novelty or an irresistible story.

MUMBAI: Two decades on, the burning of coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express remains one of the most fiercely contested mornings in independent India's history. The Sabarmati Report, the 2024 Hindi thriller starring Vikrant Massey, Raashii Khanna and Riddhi Dogra, tries to dramatize that morning and its long, bitter aftermath through the eyes of a fictional television newsroom. It is a film built on real bones with invented flesh — and separating the two is essential to understanding both the movie and the history it borrows from.

Anubhav Sinha, better known for his commercial hits, has added a feather to his cap with Assi, a powerful court room drama on gang rape with an entirely refreshing narrative as he pits the public prosecutor and the defence in a low profile real life interaction in crowded court room bristling with petitioners.

Performances of Dick Parry, the brilliant saxophone player appears to have somewhat low key response for him. His sax lines were brilliantly crafted. Millions loved it. But they did not know his name. Yet it became one of the most recognizable sounds in rock music history. The Soul Committee, a local band gave him his first professional stage. His death this week has given a big jolt to millions of his fans throughout the world.

The New Pope, a sequel to the Young Pope, is streaming on Netflix, I sat down to watch and realised from its sharp, elevated and intellectual screen play, the serial was not about the Pope or the Catholic church, but more about the world we live in today dominated by the likes of Trump who assert their military and political power over the world and also within America.

While wishing acting legend Naseeruddin Shah a Happy Birthday on turning 76 and looking so young, we celebrate his cinematic career with this article by mentioning that as JRD TATA in the OTT serial TITAN the Story, he looked, walked, talked like the legend JRD TATA. I was immensely pleased by his portrayal of the great industrialist who built modern India.

Sir Garfield Sobers, 89, is no more. He died a week ahead of his 90th birthday. He was indisputably the world's best left arm all-rounder batting left, bowling left fast/spin. His greatest cricketing achievement, the first to score a highest individual score of 365 not out against Pakistan, the first to hit six sixes of six balls.