It was meant to be a one-stop solution to the identity conundrum of over a billion Indians. Aadhaar, the massive 12-digit biometric authentication platform, was…
EXOTICA
It’s time to stop using Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ as a guidebook for the Congo
Joseph Conrad sailed up the Congo River more than 100 years ago and yet the novella based on his experience remains the African guidebook for…
SECOND INNINGS
After a stormy 2016, Softbank has smartly but cautiously picked up the pieces in India
After lurching from one disaster to another in 2016, Japan’s Softbank is hitting all the right notes this year. Be it the whopping $1.4 billion…
COUNTING DOWN
Kim Jong-un has already launched more missiles this year than his father did in his lifetime
North Korea launched yet another missile today (Aug. 29), this one flying over Japan before landing in the sea. Sending a rocket over mainland Japan…
WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?
Young people in China have started a fashion movement built around nationalism and racial purity
The Han Clothing Movement, a youth-based grassroots nationalist movement built around China’s majority Han ethnic group, has emerged over the past 15 years in urban…
TASTY
Mumbai’s favourite pastry shop is building a national following, one gooey brownie at a time
For a number of sweet-toothed Indians (myself included), no trip to Mumbai is complete without a brownie from Theobroma. For over a decade, the patisserie…
FLOATING WORLD
Airbnb sent an inconceivably bad marketing email as Hurricane Harvey pounded Houston
In an unfortunate marketing slipup, Airbnb sent a “floating world” themed marketing email to users on Monday (Aug. 28) as Hurricane Harvey continued to engulf…
AN APPLE A DAY
Americans have stopped buying red delicious apples. The Chinese are just getting started
The Red Delicious apple: that forlorn fruit at the bottom of a brown paper bag, the banana’s bruised bedfellow on a bodega counter. When I…
WATER WAYS
There’s a better alternative to building a border wall: restoring the Rio Grande
The United States and Mexico have shared their current international border for nearly 170 years. Today they cooperate at multiple levels on issues that affect…
WASHED OUT
FEMA’s flood insurance program is drowning because of climate change
Record flooding from Hurricane Harvey in Texas has brought renewed attention to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), low-cost flood insurance policies offered by the…
WOW
See what Hurricane Harvey looks like from space
Hurricane Harvey is the most powerful storm to hit the United States in more than a decade, and with new imaging technology, scientists and the…
FULL DISCLOSURE
Trump says he timed sheriff Joe Arpaio’s pardon to ride on Hurricane Harvey’s TV ratings
Eyebrows rose when US president Donald Trump pardoned controversial Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio on the evening of Aug. 25, as Hurricane Harvey was bearing down…
