Stories from South Asia
MOHAMMAD RAHMANI IS NOT a Covid-19 denier. He wears a mask and practices social distancing. But the 24-year-old software engineer from Kabul, Afghanistan is deeply skeptical of Covid-19 vaccines. Online videos — created in Afghanistan and neighboring countries, then uploaded on […]
ON THE NIGHT OF April 23, Samridhi Diwan and her father drove around New Delhi, India’s capital city, from one hospital to another, searching for a facility that would admit Diwan’s mother, who was infected with SARS-CoV-2 and needed immediate medical […]
The official announcement of the upcoming withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan has put India on edge, raising fears that a power vacuum could destabilise the region. The deadlocked peace process with the Taliban and the growing geo-political uncertainty in […]
AREFA JOHARI WAS 7 years old when she was taken by her mother to a decrepit building in the back alleys of Bhendi Bazaar, an old market area in Mumbai. The overcrowded bazaar is largely populated by members of the Dawoodi […]
Sitting in a dimly lit cell, Mariyam described her journey from growing up as a Catholic in the south Indian state of Kerala to languishing in an Afghan prison as a member of the ISIS affiliate known as Islamic State […]
A week after a US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime in November 2001, a plane carrying a small delegation of Indian diplomats landed in Bagram airbase, north of Kabul, the born-again capital of the newly-liberated country. It marked New Delhi’s […]
WHEN IT WAS ANNOUNCED in late March that Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, was well on his way to recovering from Covid-19, there was some celebration 4,000 miles away in India, a former British colony. But it was not colonial […]
In September 2018, India’s LGBTQ movement secured a major victory. The Indian Supreme Court revoked Section 377, a colonial-era law dating back to 1860 that established homosexuality as an offense punishable with a prison sentence of anywhere from 10 years to life. The […]
espite the sweltering Sunday afternoon heat, 33-year-old Ammo Angom was hard at work in his small apartment kitchen in the western suburbs of Mumbai, putting the final touches on a seven-course meal. On this summer day, Angom opened his house […]
Asha Bhoye has lived her whole life among dense forest in the otherwise metropolitan city of Mumbai. As far as she knows, at least three generations of her family, tracing back over a century, have occupied a small, quickly depleting, […]