https://www.scmp.com/rss/324317/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com For several decades now, Indian governments have been obsessed with the idea of a middle class. In the 1970s, bureaucrats would tell foreign journalists that the Indian middle class numbered as much as the entire population of a European country. In 1985, Mani Shankar Aiyar, media adviser to the then-prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, told The Washington Post that India had a middle class of 100 million. By the 1990s, figures of 200 million were being offered up. In reality, till the late 1990s, the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2164551/old-values-die-how-will-indias-new-modi-loving-middle-class-shape?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2164551/old-values-die-how-will-indias-new-modi-loving-middle-class-shape?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Sep 2018 12:30:44 +0000 At Gaggan, voted Asia’s Best Restaurant for four years in a row, the signature dish is called Yogurt Explosion. Visitors to the two Michelin-starred Bangkok restaurant are always taken by surprise when they first see it. The dish consists of an oval shaped dollop of yogurt in a silver spoon. The magic begins when the yogurt enters your mouth. It turns out that it is not an ordinary blob of yogurt at all, but a little fully formed pillow, with a delicate membrane which bursts on contact with the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/2163195/mix-hakka-noodles-dosa-and-michelin-and-what-do-you-get?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/2163195/mix-hakka-noodles-dosa-and-michelin-and-what-do-you-get?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Sep 2018 12:30:30 +0000 It is a measure of the mood in today’s India that archaeology, genetics and racial purity have now been co-opted in a debate about current politics. Not since the middle of the 20th Century has racial purity been as important in the politics of a major nation. And yes, the term ‘Aryan’ is being bandied about with a worryingly familiar ease. The debate is centred on a genuine historical puzzle. In the early 20th Century, archaeologists discovered two ancient urban centres in the Indus Valley... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2162694/why-4500-year-old-skull-key-politics-indias-hindu-muslim-divide?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2162694/why-4500-year-old-skull-key-politics-indias-hindu-muslim-divide?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Sep 2018 11:00:45 +0000 When the mobile telephone revolution swept India – a country where landline phones used to be hard to obtain – there were whoops of joys. Mobile telephony, said the experts, would transform India. And it has indeed. At present there are 730 million mobile phone users in India. Of this, at least 340 million have smartphones with internet and video. The growth of mobile phones has outstripped nearly everything else. A 2016 study found that 88 per cent of all of India’s households had mobile... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2154436/indias-lynching-app-who-using-whatsapp-murder-weapon?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2154436/indias-lynching-app-who-using-whatsapp-murder-weapon?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Jul 2018 12:36:28 +0000 India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has faced a volley of abuse and a torrent of online trolling from supporters of her own party because of an incident related to the Hindu Right Wing’s campaign against “love jihad”. Now, that is a sentence I could never have written four years ago; just one more indicator of how much India has changed since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. But first, the facts: Love jihad is a term that has only slid into common usage in India over the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2152773/love-jihad-and-twitter-hate-dangerous-new-india-has-arrived-just?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2152773/love-jihad-and-twitter-hate-dangerous-new-india-has-arrived-just?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Jun 2018 04:30:15 +0000 An Indian actress who introduced the vibrator to Hindi cinema has become the latest target for the country’s notorious Twitter trolls. And she is loving it. Swara Bhasker’s own bio on Twitter describes her as “an armchair activist, Twitter warrior, troll destroyer, right-wing baiter, liberal hysteric”. The candour is admirable – and the bio is accurate. Consider a recent instance involving her latest film, Veere di Wedding. Though it is a commercial movie with star power (the actresses Kareena... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/personalities/article/2150953/vibrators-hindu-twitter-trolls-indian-film-star-swara?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/personalities/article/2150953/vibrators-hindu-twitter-trolls-indian-film-star-swara?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Jun 2018 10:03:28 +0000 Events have a way of surprising you. When it was announced that Donald Trump Jr.and Justin Trudeau would visit India at roughly the same time, Indians prepared to see what gaffes the younger Trump would commit. Trudeau, on the other hand, was expected to wow India with his charisma and youthful charm. It simply hasn’t worked out that way. The junior Trump stuck to business events and largely kept his mouth shut, Though there was one awkward moment when he said that people in India might be poor... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2134781/trump-jr-outshines-trudeau-thats-how-bad-india-canada-ties?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2134781/trump-jr-outshines-trudeau-thats-how-bad-india-canada-ties?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 Feb 2018 11:56:10 +0000 Last week masked men broke into a branch of the Union Bank of India in the city of Kanpur by drilling a hole in the wall. Once inside, they disabled the security cameras, looted the safe deposit boxes and left with cash and jewellery worth tens of millions of rupees. Newspapers and TV channels accurately described the robbery as sensational and shocking. But the people of India were far from shocked. Posts and messages on Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp asked why the thieves had bothered to the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2134527/how-rob-bank-india-without-rumpling-your-tuxedo?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2134527/how-rob-bank-india-without-rumpling-your-tuxedo?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Feb 2018 05:15:00 +0000 In the end, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), registered yet another victory in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat. But it was the kind of victory where the winners were more relieved than overjoyed. And the losers were not despondent but encouraged. Gujarat is Modi’s bastion. He made his reputation there as a charismatic chief minister with administrative skills and remains its favourite son, the most popular leader to emerge from the region in the past five... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2124823/modi-stays-afloat-gujarat-tide-may-be-turning?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2124823/modi-stays-afloat-gujarat-tide-may-be-turning?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:05:44 +0000 Something strange and bewildering is happening in India and nobody is sure where it will lead. Over the past two weeks, the media landscape has been dominated by the campaign against Padmavati, a Bollywood film which is ready for release – but cannot be shown because of protests. The film tells the story of Rani Padmavati (also called Padmini) who was the mythical Queen of Chittor in the Indian state of Rajasthan. The story, familiar to every pupil in India, revolves around an attack on Chittor... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2121282/rage-over-mythical-beauty-padmavati-shows-ugly-side-new-india?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2121282/rage-over-mythical-beauty-padmavati-shows-ugly-side-new-india?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Nov 2017 05:16:07 +0000 It is an instantly recognisable symbol of India. When filmmakers want to show they are shooting in London, they use Big Ben. In Paris, it is the Eiffel Tower. In Rome, it is the Colosseum. And when they want a symbol of India, it is always the Taj Mahal. Of course, the Taj is more than just a monument that symbolises India. It is also one of the wonders of the medieval world, an architectural marvel of extraordinary beauty. It was built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum to his... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2116322/what-controversy-over-taj-mahal-says-about-changing-india?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2116322/what-controversy-over-taj-mahal-says-about-changing-india?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Oct 2017 04:48:11 +0000 MORE THAN 250 people were injured and 38 died when violence broke out in parts of North India a week ago after a court found a popular guru called Gurmeet Ram Rahim guilty of rape. The guru’s followers ran amok, the local administration failed to control the violence (which had been widely predicted) and three days later, when Ram Rahim was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the verdict was not delivered in any court. Instead, the judge and his entourage flew to Rohtak jail to announce the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2109392/forget-charles-manson-why-indian-gurus-are-cult-above-west?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2109392/forget-charles-manson-why-indian-gurus-are-cult-above-west?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 Sep 2017 02:01:32 +0000 If you were going to protest against a dumpling, would you burn it in effigy or steam it in a tandoor? Ramesh Arora, a legislator from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), didn’t take the time to ask. Instead, he opted to lead a protest in Jammu against the humble momo – a dim sum-like snack popular across India that he says is “more dangerous than alcohol or psychotropic drugs”. WATCH: Indians protest against the ‘Chinese momo’ Arora claims the momo – which originates in China – is a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2101091/tandoori-momo-how-tibetan-refugees-reshaped-indian-cuisine?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2101091/tandoori-momo-how-tibetan-refugees-reshaped-indian-cuisine?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Jul 2017 05:30:34 +0000 “WHERE’S THE BEEF?” may have been a rhetorical slogan in US fast-food TV ads and presidential campaigns of the 1980s, but in present-day India it is now a deadly serious question that requires immediate attention. The government really is, actually, looking for beef. The decades-old rhetorical catchphrase first found international fame in 1984 when US Vice President Walter Mondale made it his own during his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency. Mondale, tapping into the popularity of the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2088866/why-world-needs-sit-and-take-notice-indias-war-meat?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2088866/why-world-needs-sit-and-take-notice-indias-war-meat?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Apr 2017 05:30:15 +0000