India
Eastern promises
Many suspect mystics have exploited naive westerners in search of spiritual enlightenment over the past century, Philip Hensher discovers
Down in the woods today
With rewilding projects multiplying worldwide, brown, black and grizzly bears are making a bold comeback. But how much bear can we bear?
Travellers’ tales
In the absence of their own written records, they have been ‘invented’ and misrepresented in Europe ever since their arrival in the Middle Ages, says Klaus-Michael Bogdal
Proud to be British
Sunder Katwala, of Indian-Irish heritage, analyses the whiteness of the Remain vote, seeing Britain’s pro-European movement as a case of cosmopolitanism without diversity
Adrift in Berlin
Feelings of dislocation are at the heart of Amit Chaudhuri’s award-winning novels. Friend of My Youth (2017) followed a writer’s…
Seize the moment
Barney Norris’s third novel opens with a wedding in April. The couple tying the knot don’t matter; it’s the occasion…
Shooting star
Tanjil Rashid on the polymathic Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who spearheaded a new school of Indian cinema
A lethal disdain for the poor
Dictating to the Estate is a piece of community theatre that explains why Grenfell Tower went up in flames on…
Why does India get a free pass for supporting Russia?
When Russia invaded Ukraine the Indian government rapidly launched ‘Operation Ganga’. This was not a military operation, nor did it…
Strait talk
What the Ukraine war means for China — and Taiwan
Back with a vengeance
If you were a teenager before 2005, one reminder of tuberculosis in British life is that small circular scar on…
The rise of Indian cancel culture
In 1975, India’s prime minister Indira Gandhi suspended democracy. The so-called ‘Emergency’ was largely of her own making, giving her…
India is going to keep polluting. They can thank China
Mumbai India is the last major global polluter to set a date to go carbon neutral. In a surprise announcement…
Let’s hope the Third World prevails at COP26
On Tuesday, I chaired a session at Policy Exchange addressed by Tony Abbott, the eloquent former prime minister of Australia,…
China is the latest victim of Pakistan’s Islamist problem
Nine Chinese engineers were killed in an explosion near Pakistan’s Dasu hydroelectric dam last Wednesday. The government initially said that their…
Has India’s second Covid wave peaked?
While the Indian variant continues to dominate the headlines, India itself seems to have dropped out of the news a…
Portrait of the week
Home ‘I think we have got a good chance of being able to dispense with the one-metre-plus from 21 June,’…
Trail of tears
Why India is reluctant to lock down again
India’s Covid crisis
We’re running out of beds, oxygen, medicines – and hope
The Spectator’s Notes
Like almost everyone else writing on the subject, I have no idea whether Boris Johnson told colleagues in October that…
How concerned should we be by the Indian variant?
In recent weeks there has been a lot of new-found optimism in Britain with regards to Covid: case numbers, hospitalisations…
Joe Biden’s skewed climate change priorities
It’s not hard to see why politicians like Joe Biden and Boris Johnson want to talk about climate change. First…
Internet connection
Dear Sir, I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust…
Merkel’s vaccine nationalism threatens India
You might have thought that Europe’s leaders would be wary of handing Brussels greater powers, given the various mishaps of the…
India’s selective Covid crackdown
India’s Covid crisis is raging out of control. Over the past two months, the country has witnessed a staggering ten-fold increase in infections.…
