Exclusive

Publication

Byline

Location

Manu Joseph: South Bombay is the only part of urban India where life has gotten better-How did that happen?

New Delhi, Dec. 7 -- As far as I know, there is only one Indian city whose residents say life has improved in the last five years. That is South Mumbai, which is correctly pronounced 'South Bombay.' P... Read More


Manu Joseph: Publicizing causes for suicide is not just wrong, it's dangerous

New Delhi, Nov. 30 -- A dangerous thing the Indian news media does is attribute reasons for suicide. Any straightforward 'cause' cited for this form of death is at risk of being erroneous, apart from ... Read More


Manu Joseph: Why activists can't stand the middle path that Bill Gates would have the world take on climate change

New Delhi, Nov. 23 -- Some days ago, Bill Gates did the sort of thing that infuriates powerful activists. He said a doomsday was not coming. He did this in a single detailed article on his blog Gates... Read More


Manu Joseph: What's gotten into India's well-off-why are they finally out protesting?

New Delhi, Nov. 16 -- They stood holding English placards, some of which even had commas. They were serious, and they were angry. The upper classes of Delhi were protesting the abysmal air quality in ... Read More


Manu Joseph: Zohran Mamdani wants to fight inequality but can those who benefit from a system really bring it down?

New Delhi, Nov. 9 -- There is a kind of person the Western press often profiles with the headline: "The Meaning of. (name here)." Zohran Mamdani is that person. We may not know what being modern exact... Read More


Manu Joseph: Your attention span isn't getting shorter but many people want us to believe it is

New Delhi, Nov. 2 -- You may have heard, your attention span is abysmally short these days. It would appear that it is remarkable that you have reached the second sentence of this column. You were not... Read More


Manu Joseph: Why examining mental health can be pointless beyond a point

New Delhi, Oct. 26 -- A few days ago, Baek Sehee died. She was 35. Her memoir about her suspicion that she was mentally ill, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki, sold more than a million copies... Read More


Nobel prize-winning writers are often very hard to read-but that may be the point

New Delhi, Oct. 19 -- I was reading Laszló Krasznahorkai and I thought early humans must have invented entertainment to escape from that feeling. It felt like living in a moment where a voice mak... Read More


What Israel's war in Gaza reveals about the nature of cruelty and the myths around it

New Delhi, Oct. 12 -- Once again, the Levant is on the verge of peace. I know what to say about how long this peace would last, but I wish to be more hopeful than prescient, even though I am a columni... Read More


Manu Joseph: Jane Goodall may have helped us see ourselves in animals but have we taken it too far?

New Delhi, Oct. 5 -- Not very long ago, humans saw themselves as special animals because they could use tools. But in 1960, British scientist Jane Goodall observed that chimpanzees could use blades of... Read More