India – parsian news

Joram review – old and new worlds collide in pressure cooker man and baby-hunt

Director Devashish Makhija slowly ramps up the tension with a sharp eye for oppressive realism and social satire as a father tries to out run his oppressors in this gritty thrillerWhere many thrillers programmatically crank up tension with every scene …

Director Devashish Makhija slowly ramps up the tension with a sharp eye for oppressive realism and social satire as a father tries to out run his oppressors in this gritty thriller

Where many thrillers programmatically crank up tension with every scene and every beat, Devashish Makhija’s third feature feels different; this manhunt is weighed down by an almost agonised oppressiveness. Joram’s protagonist Dasru (Manoj Bajpayee) is barely able to choose a course of action until compelled out of desperation, and his police pursuer Ratnakar (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) is not much better. There’s no escape in this pressure cooker from omnipresent societal exploitation and cynicism – with only Makhija’s compassion for the marginalised to compensate.

A tattooed member of the “scheduled tribes” from the eastern state of Jharkhand, Dasru lives in exile as a Mumbai labourer. When Phulo Karma (Smita Tambe), a tribal leader from the same region, pitches up on his construction site electioneering, she recognises him from his former life: a jungle rebel fighting against the appropriation of local lands by her husband’s iron-ore mining outfit. Dasru is bewildered when he comes home to find his wife Vaano (Tannishtha Chatterjee) brutally murdered and trussed upside down, forcing him to flee into the streets with his three-month-old daughter Joram in a sling.

‘I am here, get used to me’: in India, a woman out running is about more than just exercise | Sohini Chattopadhyay

Pounding the pavements is a way to challenge the patriarchal view of a woman’s place and claim a space in the public sphereOne blistering April afternoon in Kolkata, I was walking home from a reporting assignment when I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Fold…

Pounding the pavements is a way to challenge the patriarchal view of a woman’s place and claim a space in the public sphere

One blistering April afternoon in Kolkata, I was walking home from a reporting assignment when I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Fold your umbrella!” a man instructed as I turned, the index fingers of his hands mimicking a closing motion, “You’re taking up the space of three people.”

The Kolkata summer is savage – burning hot, witheringly humid. An umbrella is a basic, effective safeguard in this heat.

‘I am here, get used to me’: in India, a woman out running is about more than just exercise | Sohini Chattopadhyay

Pounding the pavements is a way to challenge the patriarchal view of a woman’s place and claim a space in the public sphere

The Kolkata summer is savage – burning hot, witheringly humid. An umbrella is a basic, effective safeguard in this heat.

‘Jail crushes you slowly’: Kashmiri journalist reflects on prison ordeal

Fahad Shah, whose case was a symbol of harassment of region’s media, says he has different outlook after months behind barsDuring his more than 600 days behind bars, Fahad Shah, a Kashmiri journalist, had begun to lose hope that he would ever see freed…

Fahad Shah, whose case was a symbol of harassment of region’s media, says he has different outlook after months behind bars

During his more than 600 days behind bars, Fahad Shah, a Kashmiri journalist, had begun to lose hope that he would ever see freedom again. It was in February last year that Shah, 34, the editor of the Kashmir Walla, one of the last remaining independent news websites in the region, was arrested on charges of “glorifying terrorism” and publishing “anti-national content”.

What followed was a crushing 21 months for Shah as his high-profile case became a symbol of the growing harassment faced by Kashmiri journalists. He was granted bail in one case, only to be swiftly re-arrested and hit with new, more draconian charges.

‘A matter of survival’: India’s unstoppable need for air conditioners

Access to sufficient cooling could further drive up the already rampant inequality in the countryFor Muskan, the arrival of summer in Delhi is the “beginning of hell”. As temperatures in her cramped, densely populated east Delhi neighbourhood often soa…

Access to sufficient cooling could further drive up the already rampant inequality in the country

For Muskan, the arrival of summer in Delhi is the “beginning of hell”. As temperatures in her cramped, densely populated east Delhi neighbourhood often soar above 45C (113F), she dreams of only one thing: air conditioning.

During the day, in the tiny, windowless kitchen where she cooks for her family, she often feels like she will collapse from the heat and her health deteriorates. Nights are even more painful. Sleep becomes almost impossible in their single-room apartment.

iPhone manufacturers in India halt production due to Cyclone Michaung

Foxconn and Pegatron temporarily shut factories near Chennai because of torrential rains that have claimed at least four livesTaiwan’s Foxconn and Pegatron have halted production of Apple iPhones at their factories near Chennai in southern India becaus…

Foxconn and Pegatron temporarily shut factories near Chennai because of torrential rains that have claimed at least four lives

Taiwan’s Foxconn and Pegatron have halted production of Apple iPhones at their factories near Chennai in southern India because of heavy rains, sources close to the matter said on Monday.

In Tamil Nadu’s capital Chennai, the state’s largest city and a major electronics and manufacturing hub, at least two people died and the runway of one of the country’s busiest airports was submerged after torrential rain as the city braced for a severe cyclone expected to hit in the next 24 hours. Two others had died elsewhere. Cyclone Michaung was expected to make landfall on the coast of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh around noon on Tuesday, the country’s weather office said, with sustained winds of 90kph to 100kph (56mph to 62mph), gusting to 110kph.

Indian police accused of harassing Sikh activist in UK before his sudden death

Family of Avtar Khanda question UK authorities’ account that his death was reviewed by police and that there was no foul playA Sikh activist in Birmingham complained that Indian police were verbally harassing him by phone and threatening his family in …

Family of Avtar Khanda question UK authorities’ account that his death was reviewed by police and that there was no foul play

A Sikh activist in Birmingham complained that Indian police were verbally harassing him by phone and threatening his family in Punjab months before his sudden death in June, a Guardian investigation has found.

The death of Avtar Singh Khanda, which family and friends have said was suspicious, coincided with a plot that was playing out across the Atlantic where, US prosecutors have alleged, an Indian government official with close ties to Indian intelligence was ordering the murder of high-profile Sikh activists in Canada and the US.

Greenhouse gas emissions soar – with China, US and India most at fault

Satellite tracking data shows many countries and firms do not provide accurate figuresElectricity generation in China and India, and oil and gas production in the US, have produced the biggest increases in global greenhouse gas emissions since 2015, wh…

Satellite tracking data shows many countries and firms do not provide accurate figures

Electricity generation in China and India, and oil and gas production in the US, have produced the biggest increases in global greenhouse gas emissions since 2015, when the Paris climate agreement was signed, new data has shown.

Emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, have also risen, despite more than 100 countries signing up to a pledge to reduce the gas, according to data published on Sunday by the Climate Trace project.

Greenhouse gas emissions soar – with China, US and India most at fault

Satellite tracking data shows many countries and firms do not provide accurate figures

Animal review – Ranbir Kapoor plays one of the vilest protagonists in cinema history

Kapoor plays the scion of a wealthy family whose violence is the result of a craving for love and validation, in a regressive Bollywood blockbusterAlready topping the box office in India, Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s bombastic action film is high on shock tac…

Kapoor plays the scion of a wealthy family whose violence is the result of a craving for love and validation, in a regressive Bollywood blockbuster

Already topping the box office in India, Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s bombastic action film is high on shock tactics and low on substance. His first two features, the Telugu-language Arjun Reddy (2017) and its Hindi remake Kabir Singh (2019) were both megahits – and also attracted criticism for making heroes out of misogynistic, violent men. Far from stepping back from this, Animal sinks even further into regressive depths, resulting in one of the vilest protagonists to have graced the big screen.

Vijay, played by Hindi cinema royalty Ranbir Kapoor, is the only son of a wealthy family. He grows up in the shadow of his father Balbir Singh (Anil Kapoor), whose attention is wrapped up in his steel company. Zigzagging between different timelines spanning Vijay’s childhood to his autumnal years, Animal charts how his cravings for love and validation leads to a cycle of bloodshed with his inner turmoil basically a pretext for an onslaught of increasingly gory shootout sequences. At one point, Vijay quite literally murders hundreds of ruffians, all in the name of protecting his father. The swaggering, gratuitous violence aims to disturb, yet the execution of the action scenes is entirely forgettable and derivative, a poor man’s version of The Godfather or Scarface.