Longer pieces on policy, environment, history and literature — the arguments that need more room than a column allows, and the numbers that go with them.
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Radhanath Sikdar didn't discover Everest. He did something harder
Bengal believes he measured the highest mountain on earth. The Survey of India's own records show what he did, what he did not do, and how a legend came to carry his name. More…
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Mrs Mukherji, the Nazi from Calcutta
In March 1949 an Indian officer watched a Calcutta editor’s wife give the Nazi salute in a Düsseldorf court, and recorded, at second hand, a remark she was said to have made about Hitler. The file Delhi marked for destruction shows what the Government of India did next, and what her husband did not. More…
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No, Lenin did not die of syphilis
For a hundred years a rumour has outlived every document that contradicts it. The autopsy, the laboratory tests, the doctors' own notes and the Ulyanov family's deaths all point one way. More…
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The Noose and the Song
A story about the elephant trappers of Assam — the men who caught wild elephants by hand, tamed them with ropes and songs, and mastered a trade the state first licensed, then let vanish under them. More…
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রথীন্দ্রনাথ, জনগণমন এবং কপিরাইট
১৯৫০ সালের জানুয়ারিতে গানটি জাতীয় সঙ্গীত হিসেবে গৃহীত হয়। এক বছরেরও বেশি সময় পরে সরকারের হাতে সেটি রেকর্ডে তোলার আইনি অধিকার ছিল না — কারণ রবীন্দ্রনাথের পুত্র চুক্তিপত্রটি সংশোধন করে ফেরত পাঠিয়েছিলেন। More…
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Rathindranath, Janaganamana and copyright
The song was adopted in January 1950. More than a year later the Republic still had no legal right to press it onto a record — because Rabindranath's son had sent the agreement back with changes. More…
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Why the Government Loves Millets But Won't Buy Them
Millets carry a higher support price than paddy. What they do not carry is a buyer — and that is not an oversight. More…
