Dispatches from Kolkata

Fountain pens might seem part of a vanishing world but a group of pen enthusiasts seen signs of hope in India. Sandip visits a Fountain Pen festival in Kolkata.

Some hailed it as a brave new financial revolution. But where there’s big money to be made, and made fast, there will also be people playing fast and loose. Just as crypto grew by leaps and bounds in India, so did crypto crime.

There’s a new focus this election season in India, a new type of influencer, the ‘Netizen.’ But what does this really mean for the democratic process?

An Indian institution turns 90 at the end of this week.It’s not a bricks and mortar institution. It’s one of India’s most prolific writers - Bond, Ruskin Bond.

It’s election season in India and time for two months of marching bands and rallies, but not much talk about economic and healthcare rights. In fact, in India economic rights became known as “directive principles of state policy.” Sandip Roy questions what that actually means.

As the Indian heat descends on Kolkata, Sandip considers how our perceptions about the rituals of summer have changed.

Nepal’s constitution protects sexual minorities. Most recently after a long struggle Nepal registered its first same sex marriage, something India next door has refused to do. And now Nepal’s tourism industry is set to cash in.

The very word vacation has its roots in vacare or to be unoccupied. But in reality vacations are anything but unoccupied. Sandip recounts the woes of waking up at the crack of dawn to make your checklist items while on vacation.

Sandip explores a 100-year-old history of Bengali comics and what they gained and lost from their encounter with Laurel and Hardy and Tarzan and Tintin.

A new food fight has erupted in India. And it’s about one of the most famous dishes to come out of India, one that every other Indian restaurant in the west usually must carry.