From young girls in cars to grandmothers in electric autos, women are quietly reclaiming the road—and with it, a deeper sense of freedom. There is a profound, poetic justice in the sight of a woman behind the wheel. For generations, the "driver’s seat" was the ultimate symbol of masculine autonomy—the one place where a man was the undisputed captain of his journey. But in 2026, that seat is being reclaimed by those who have always known how to navigate the most complex journe

Mahatma Basweshwar, the 12 th  century philosopher and social reformer, articulated a vision of society grounded in equality, dignity of labor, rational devotion and service to humanity. He was the prime minister who preferred pavement; he was the voice of the voiceless. His timeless wisdom is needed today to reshape the modern India. His principles of Kayaka (work as worship) and Dasoha  (sharing and service) remain profoundly relevant in addressing contemporary challenges

AI generated image Kolhapur: The state Cabinet’s approval on Tuesday of a proposal to alter the structure of the Maharashtra Medical Council has triggered strong backlash from the state’s medical fraternity. Many termed it as an attempt to curtail institutional democracy. At the heart of the controversy is the government’s move to replace the existing electoral mechanism with a fully nominated body. Doctors argue that if elections to the Council are effectively scrapped in f

Thane: In a tragic accident that claimed 11 lives within moments, a passenger van collided head-on with a cement mixer on the Kalyan–Ahilyanagar National Highway near Rayate village in Kalyan taluka, leaving the entire Thane district shaken. The impact was so severe that all passengers in the van died on the spot, turning multiple families’ lives upside down.   The accident took place on a bridge over the Ulhas River. The van was completely crushed, reduced to a mangled heap

AI generated image Mumbai: In a move aimed at modernizing urban governance and facilitating faster project clearances, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is set to launch an advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-driven facility dedicated to the city’s real estate sector. “The introduction of this AI-led facility marks a significant step towards streamlining processes and enhancing transparency in Mumbai’s real estate ecosystem. By leveraging technology, we aim to re

Open a research paper today and you may feel you are decoding a message rather than reading a sentence. A single paragraph can appear as a string of capital letters, each representing something important, yet together making the text harder to follow. What begins as simplification often ends in confusion. We encounter such abbreviations not only in scientific writing but also in news reports, government policies, corporate communication, and everyday conversations. Acronyms,

AI generated image Mumbai :  A quiet revolution is unfolding in Navi Mumbai’s Belapur – one that converts old clothes into new livelihoods - and transforms the lives of over 150 women participating in it.   The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC), has set up India’s first municipal Textile Recovery Facility (TRF) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0” – empowering many humble home-makers and other women to rewrite their futures.   Working

Latur: G. Thikanna, serving in the Andaman Police Department as an Assistant Sub-Inspector in Communications was posted on one of the most remote and lesser-inhabited islands in the world to complete a one-month tenure. This island lies about 140 nautical miles away from the capital city, far from his family and loved ones in Port Blair. Life there is challenging, with no mobile network and no regular power supply. The only source of electricity is a portable generator that r

Deceased belong to same family, six children included Nashik: Nine members of a family, including six children, were killed after their car fell into an open well in Nashik district, police said on Saturday. The accident occurred in the Shivaji Nagar area of Dindori town around 10 pm on Friday, an official said. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed grief over the deaths of children in the tragic incident, and said that he has ordered an immediate safety audit of open we

A new toll technology cannot become an excuse to ignore old flaws in road quality, contract recovery and commuter rights. Over the past 18 years, I have examined the toll tax system and identified numerous discrepancies. Globally, tolling is accepted as an efficient way to finance road infrastructure. In India, however, the model operates differently, with persistent concerns over transparency and the integrity of its accounting. To finance highways across the country, the ce

War widens every fault line, but the status of women bears the deepest fracture. War does not affect all bodies in the same way. It reorganises power, access, and survival along lines that already exist. Gender is one of those lines. When conflict begins, it does not create new inequalities. It sharpens the old ones and makes them harder to ignore. The philosophical case for taking this seriously is straightforward. If a society's baseline distribution of rights, resources, a

A liberalism that polices cultural expression risks becoming what it once claimed to resist. Two recent pieces of journalism - the first by eminent columnist Shobhaa De in ‘The Print’ (March 24), titled “Why Arjun Rampal saying ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ should worry Bollywood audiences,” and the second by Rahul Bedi in ‘The Wire’ (March 26), titled “Deeply Problematic: Military Veterans React to Senior Army Officer’s Lecture on Bhagavad Gita” - illustrate a section of our intellec

Mumbai: In a move that has sparked both commercial and cultural concerns, the Western Railway (WR) has ordered at least 55 iconic AH Wheeler (AHW) stalls across its Mumbai Central Division to shut shop from March 31 and vacate their premises within 72 hours, sources said. The directive follows the expiry of the five-year contract granted to these stalls from April 1, 2021. A notification issued on Saturday by Assistant Commercial Manager Yajush Acharya directed concerned stat

As we curate our content, the deeper question is whether content is quietly curating us. Few can manage a 90-hour workweek, but most would easily go beyond a 90-hour social media week. With our growing appetite for social media and instant commerce, the real question is no longer just how we consume, but how much. In an age where every swipe, click and scroll is engineered to hold attention, overconsumption is becoming less a habit and more a way of life. What once felt priva

Despite higher quotas, supply fails to reach ground Kolhapur: Despite official assurances and a 20 per cent increase in gas allocation for hotels and food processing units, operators in Kolhapur say supplies remain elusive. With distributors citing administrative curbs even as stocks are available, the crisis has pushed nearly 4,000 establishments to the brink — threatening 80,000 livelihoods and casting a shadow over the city’s tourism-dependent economy. The situation stands

Renaming hostels may soothe stigma, but it does little to fix the conditions that define students’ lives AI generated image Pune: Recently, the Social Justice and Special Assistance Department decided to excise the term ‘Backward Class’ from the names of its government hostels and rechristen them after revered historical figures. While the move to replace them with names that evoke dignity and achievement is, on the face of it, a step towards psychological emancipation, it is

As a gas shortage ripples through the city, its vast informal food economy has begun to unravel AI generated image Pune: The global energy shock triggered by disruptions to gas supplies from West Asia has begun to empty commercial LPG cylinders across India. But its effects are being felt most starkly in Pune, known for its student bustle and middle-class industriousness. The crisis has begun to choke Pune’s famed informal food industry as the severe shortage of commercial ga

In today’s world, humanity stands at a paradoxical crossroads. While we have reached remarkable heights in science, technology, and education, we simultaneously find ourselves staring into the depths of global instability. The rising tensions in the Middle East-particularly involving Iran, Israel, and the United States-are not merely political or military confrontations; they expose a deeper contradiction within modern civilization. On one hand, we celebrate innovation, globa

Mumbai: The war in West Asia has affected the commercial restaurants all over India. It has led to the shortage of the LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas) supply to local restaurants in Mumbai. One such restaurant experiencing this disruption of supply is the Stadium Restaurant located at Churchgate. Owned by an Iranian, the restaurant started in 1946 a year before independence. After 80 years, the restaurant is very well-known in South Mumbai and is mostly packed throughout the d

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, with Sant Trilok Darshan Maharaj, and others, during the foundation stone-laying ceremony of a new building of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), in Nagpur. | Pic : PTI Mumbai: The R ashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has traditionally relied on physical gatherings to preserve its cultural legacy. However, the organisation has also embraced technology with surprising agility over the past two decades. It successfully launched online shakhas. It created a dedica