Ajay Jain. Photograph Ajay Jain Sapere Aude, Sincere et Constanter Ajay Jain is a writer, photographer, and traveller. He has written sixteen books across genres including travel, business, fiction and memoir. He also runs Kunzum, an independent bookstore in New Delhi. He holds degrees in mechanical engineering, business management and…

S.B. Easwaran, a former journalist who has worked in Gujarat and New Delhi, now lives in Sakyong, a small village in the eastern Himalayas. His poems have appeared in Prosopisia (an Indo-Australian journal), Interlitq, Drunk Monkeys, and Prometheus Dreaming. Sudeep Sen Secretsfor David Lynch (1946-2025) A speckled monarch reverses into…

US Defeat in Iran will lead to the unification of the Persian-Sphere by Richard Steinhardt Let us set aside, now and forever, the ridiculous idea of a Greater Israel. The United States and Europe are not powerful enough to colonise more of North Africa and West Asia or eliminate its…

Himalayan view. Photograph Sudeep Sen by Sudeep Sen It was good to wake up to the silence of the Himalayas this morning. The shifting grey palette of the clouds was an antithesis to the recent tsunami of stimuli. The pleated, opalus ridges hid their pine-green veneer in obfuscating skies. The…

It did not spin like a normal coin, losing energy to the friction of the wood. It spun with a velocity that defied Newtonian physics, gaining momentum from the very air it displaced. Illustration WordPress by Yogesh Patel The penthouse was less a residence than a vaulted reliquary, a glass-and-steel carbuncle grafted onto…

Heiko Khoo’s Karl Marx Walking Tours. Photo credit Heiko Khoo ‘For me, the key question is to reinvigorate a culture of discussion and debate’ Interviewed conducted by Phil Hall, Paul Halas and Gordon Lidl Phil Hall: Hi, Heiko. Thank you for joining us. How are you doing? Heiko Khoo: I’m very well,…

Roadside mango Snack in Mexico. Photograph Miguel González Freshness without friction is boring by Arun Kapil Manek Chowk doesn’t ease into the day. It detonates. Heat rises off cobbled stone. Diesel coughs. Metal shutters slam open. Somewhere behind you, something is already frying. In front of you, fruit – piled…

Alexandrian Tramway in the Rain. Photograph Mohamed Hozyen Ahmed, Public Domain  By Adel Darwish Founded by Alexander and once governed by Cleopatra, Alexandria became a beacon of learning and cosmopolitan exchange. Today, in the name of development, the city’s physical memory is being dismantled — and the Ramleh tram is…

S Jaishankar in Vienna (2023). Photograph Dean Calma / IAEA, Wikimedia Commons “We are very much wedded to strategic autonomy because it’s very much a part of our history and our evolution. It’s something which is very deep, and it’s something which cuts across the political spectrum as well.” —…

The USA and Iran at High Noon Will Lindsey Graham Get His Rocks Off? by Richard Steinhardt What would unleashing a war against Iran do? It would be a tremendous act of self-mutilation. The arteries of global energy trade would narrow and launch the Western economic system into a severe…

The beautifully pedestrianised centre of Abingdon in 1969. Thank you town planners. Photograph Tony Hall This horrific geopolitical act would plunge us back in time to Abingdon in the late 1960s By Richard Steinhardt If the USA attacks Iran, Iran will destroy the oil installations in the Arabian Gulf and…

An Amexican Quilt. Generated by WordPress The Coming Break up of the USA by Phil Hall Mexico, not the UK, not Canada, not Germany, not China, is the USA’s most important partner: its most important trading partner to the fertile south with a border thousands of kilometres long. And 50%…

Not all brains work perfectly and survive life’s turbulent journey. Photograph by Amel Uzunovic The Brain Dear Reader Have you ever thought about your own brain, this mysterious organ, controlling all your actions, intentions, emotions, memories and feelings? Sitting up there in your skull, working to make your legs walk,…

by Roger Murphy He watched the story unfold in the papers. The first report appeared the day after he arrived, the last just as he left. The whole tragedy spanned the two weeks he spent in Cork, sorting through his mother’s effects and tying up the loose ends of her…

As you get on the bus, there is no fuss. A seat with priority is there. Photograph Phil Hall Poems by John Grant I Do Like a Ham Sandwich I do like a ham sandwich with slices of tomato, But a sandwich of roast chicken, no stuffing.That’s the way to…

by John Grant I’m a little gnomeSitting on a stoneWaiting for the national elf to phone.“I am the most important national elf!There is no one more important than myself.But I have a little problem that is quite upsetting my life.Someone broke into the palace;Stole off with my fairy wife.“My elfin…