Today June 17 is the anniversary of the event that caused the creation of the Taj Mahal. On June 17, 1631, Empress Mumtaz Mahal died from complications while giving birth to her 14th child (a daughter named Gauhar Ara Begum) in Burhanpur. Her husband, Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, was so completely shattered by her death that court chroniclers noted his hair turned white from grief within months. To channel his sorrow and honour a deathbed promise to build her a monument of unma

On this day in 1963 US President John F Kennedy declared that segregation is morally wrong and that it is "time to act." While state-enforced segregation laws such as South African Apartheid or Jim Crow in the United States have been officially dismantled globally, racial and ethnic segregation still exists. Today, it primarily persists as de facto segregation—driven by systemic inequality, historical redlining, socio-economic divides, and deeply ingrained cultural prejudic

Imagine you are sitting around a campfire. The fire crackles, the sweet smell of smoke touches the air, the sounds of the night bush orchestra provide accompaniment to the rhythm of the storyteller's tales. His style is personal and intimate, as a friend, seated beside you. His stories are in plain speech, "no frills" as his younger years were never spent in school. His memory sharpened by the lack of any written diary and forged by the gauntlet of challenging experiences f

The New Israel Fund (NIF) is a United States-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) and philanthropic fund established in 1979. It is widely recognised as the largest foreign donor to progressive, left-of-centre civil society and social change causes in Israel. The organisation operates internationally, raising funds in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Australia to distribute as grants to Israeli non-profit organisations. Core Mission & Ideology The NIF explicitly anchors its

The Tuscan village of San Ginese is the setting for Moreno Giovannoi's resurrection of the grit, superstition and flawed characters, trapped in their deep-rooted grudges. The book is narrated by Ugo, an elderly migrant in Australia, who recounts the tales of his birthplace to "The Translator" (the author himself). Here we meet Bucchione, a man haunted by the "Angel of Sadness", "Tommaso the Killer", whose reputation precedes him. The "Two Imbecile Sisters" whose tragic, quiet

Andrew Darby reveals himself as an explorer, adventurer, artist, activist and detective. 'The Ancients' is more than a botany textbook; a narrative about "deep time" written by a man who found himself acutely aware of his own mortality. Darby suffered a stage-four cancer diagnosis in 2017 and pursued his "second life" with a passion to seek out the oldest living things on the planet—Tasmania's paleo-endemic trees. Darby treats these trees not as resources, but as survivors wi

Khaled Hosseini’s 'The Kite Runner' is an intimate story that spans decades of history; a harrowing yet lyrical exploration of betrayal and the long road to redemption, set against the turbulent backdrop of Afghanistan's shifting political landscape. The narrative exposes the internal struggles of the protagonist Amir, whose childhood cowardice creates never-ending guilt. The kite emerges as a symbol of cultural heritage and the ruthless competition, the means of fracturing t