Counterview

By Martin Macwan*  In alcohol-prohibited Gujarat, which holds India’s only Mahatma Mandir—built at a cost of ₹215 crore and spread over 34 acres—‘liquor-hooch’ is nothing surprising. The cost of Mahatma Mandir does not include the land price; according to current market rates, the land alone can be valued between ₹600 and ₹1,500 crore. If one-bedroom flats were built on the site while observing all regulations applicable to a 15-storey tower, around 13,000 slum dwellers could be housed there.

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan   After eleven years at the helm of the BJP's digital machine, Amit Malviya is gone. The party has said little about why. But his removal comes at a politically revealing moment, when India's digital battlefield has changed, young voters are challenging established political narratives, and misinformation has become one of the biggest threats to democratic discourse.

By Rezgar Akrawi    A few days ago, TIME revealed how an artificial intelligence system went out of control and attacked other systems. Days later, more than 1,100 engineers at major artificial intelligence companies signed a joint petition calling for the development of technical tools and international governance mechanisms to regulate the pace of its development.

By Vikas Meshram*  Of all poetic forms, the ghazal is special. It holds love, separation, pain, and joy with a gentle power that few others match. In just two short lines, a sher can conjure an entire world of feeling. That is why this form has moved readers and listeners across continents for centuries. Born in the deserts of Arabia, enriched in Persian, refined in the Urdu of the Mughal courts, and later embraced by Hindi and Marathi, the ghazal absorbed something from every language and culture it touched. Yet at its core it remained unchanged: a simple, honest way of speaking about the heart.

By Ravi Ranjan*  Uday Prakash stands as one of contemporary Hindi literature's most significant figures, renowned for his distinctive style, social concerns and sharp satire. His short story "Kapatakala ka kavi" (Poet of the Age of Deceit) appears deceptively simple—the tale of an elderly poet's everyday confusions. Yet beneath this surface lies a profound philosophical narrative exploring the shifting relationships between human beings, time, memory and experience.

By Harsh Thakor*  Denis Compton, who died on April 23, 1997 at the age of 78, was far more than a great cricketer. He was a national figure who infused cricket with a vitality and charm that helped restore the game’s place in the public imagination after the Second World War. In those difficult post‑war years, he almost single‑handedly rekindled affection for cricket, becoming a symbol of joy, flair and possibility. His batting elevated the art to a realm of poetry, blending audacity with imagination in a way few have ever matched. Rarely has the sport witnessed a batsman so unorthodox yet so consistently productive; his inventiveness expanded the very vocabulary of batting.