Netflix denied reports of self-censorship, but this may be our reality sooner than we think. Just like the free press, the free internet is also under threat. And this might deprive us of access to information and entertainment that our governments don’t want us seeing.

Cities with names that point to India’s real history are an embarrassment to those who wish to rewrite the past. Running out of time before next year’s election, renaming cities and building extravagant statues feels like a relatively low-risk, high-reward approach for the government to leaving a lasting impact.

Indian trolls are mostly sanskari or sleazy AF, but instead of squabbling among themselves, they get along just fine. In fact, they are two sides of the same coin, and more often than we know, the moral police turns out to be the pervert.

There’s an Uncle Crackers in every neighbourhood, housing society, and gali across the country. Each Diwali, he’s easily identifiable as the maniac standing in the middle of the street with lit bottle rockets in his hand.

Avni’s fate was sealed the moment she first came into conflict with humans. But there is no glory to be gained in hunting endangered animals, even if they’re supposedly man-eaters, and each life lost is a sign of the failure of our conservation efforts.

Netflix’s House of Cards began the march towards its finale with its lead actor markedly absent. Kevin Spacey has become persona non grata in a way other men accused of harassment, like Louis CK, have managed to avoid. It’s hopefully a sign of things to come.

I learned the lesson that it’s better not to tarnish the memories of the books I would read by torchlight after bedtime with a movie more goofy and ghastly. Written by RL Stine, the Goosebumps books were where younger readers were introduced to all of horror’s tropes as a genre.

For a country that aspires to build Smart Cities everywhere, turn its financial capital into Shanghai, and wishes to be at the forefront of global innovation and technology, incidents like the Amritsar and Kolkata train tragedies are inconvenient reminders of just how far we have to go.

The idea of the CBI raiding itself might sound farcical. But to understand what prompted India’s top investigation body to score an own goal, meet CBI chief Alok Verma and the agency’s second-in-command, Rakesh Asthana, who can’t see eye to eye.

India’s #MeToo movement might currently be limited to urban, educated women, but it’s still a start. Its momentum might soon enable women across the socio-economic spectrum to call out their predators. Let’s hope it percolates to women most vulnerable to violence.

Eminem and controversy go together like McDonalds and indigestion – the latter inevitably follows the former. Today, it’s easy to look at his body of work and dismiss it as an offensive collection of regressive ideas. But, maybe, there is another way to look at the controversial rapper.

Dear Chetan Bhagat, you don’t get to play the victim card at a time when women are coming forward to share their stories of real oppression. To whine about how the controversy about your “wooing” chats has prevented you from promoting your latest book only makes you look like a self-serving schmuck.

Millennials who grew up with video games, still form a huge chunk of the gaming population. I’m not a bespectacled, socially awkward, 12-year-old hogging the PlayStation in my friend’s living room anymore, but a productive adult who has a job and pays rent. It’s time adult gamers get their time in the sun.

Venom will go on to join Suicide Squad as an anachronistically, indisputably bad superhero film in what is a golden age for the genre. Comic book fans were excited that Venom was returning to screens over a decade after his last appearance. It wasn’t worth the wait.

Renting a house in Mumbai isn’t a happy fairy tale, it’s a horror story written by Stephen King at the height of his ’80s cocaine addiction. The stages of renting are inspired by the five stages of grief, because saying goodbye to half your salary every month is worse than a heartbreak.

India’s farmers have grown increasingly vocal in the last year, with their protests in urban centres primed to raise awareness among city-dwellers about what goes on beyond their cushy bubbles. But their patience may not last forever.

It’s the age of #PeakTV, and there’s a plethora of content out there that is intellectually stimulating, aesthetically pleasing, and artistically rewarding. But it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Acclaimed shows are like caviar – perfectly fine to treat yourself to, but sometimes you just want good old vada pav.

Sikkim is the last state in India to get its own airport and we’re not sure how we feel about it. We’re glad for the infrastructure upgrade, but are worried: What if we turn into the next Shimla, or even worse Goa?

A long-forgotten classmate announces he’s getting hitched, and from that point on, it’s likes, camera, action. Social media has turned the simple proposal into an affair more elaborate than the Royal Wedding and Modiji’s inauguration ceremony put together.

With a new ordinance, the practice of triple talaq might finally be on its way out. But the games, it seems, have just begun. The impact triple talaq has had on public discourse, and the number of voices on opposing ends, underscores the different facets of the conversation.

In a cruel and unusual case of “It Happens Only in India”, Shambhu Lal Regar, the man who committed murder on camera, has become a folk hero to jackasses across the country. Reports have emerged that he will now contest the Lok Sabha elections in Agra next year.

Game of Thrones, this rollercoaster of tits and dragons that we’ve been riding for the last few years, is a veiled allegory about the threat of climate change.

Alarm clocks are among humanity’s worst inventions. How did we all agree that we’d begin our day with a mechanical banshee shrieking and disturbing our beauty sleep? Enter the snooze button: the only thing that makes you feel like you still have control over your sleep cycle, when you don’t.

The results of the Kiddie Kangaroo elections were announced yesterday. The BabyVP won both crucial posts of class monitor and assistant monitor, while the NS-U/A bagged the nominal post of cupboard monitor.

Cricket and its players would benefit from mixed-gender teams. If players like Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, and Poonam Raut were on the same team as Virat Kohli, R Ashwin, and Hardik Pandya, they’d be eligible for the same lucrative contracts, playing for the same crowds, and benefitting from the same level of exposure.

Section 377 can only be traced back to the Buggery Act of 1533, an English law passed during the reign of Henry VIII. The medieval roots are quite fitting, as most supporters of the law seem to be time-travellers from that period.

It will take more than the historic 377 verdict to eradicate homophobia and transphobia from our workplaces. Just ask Harshini, a trans-person who now holds a corporate job, after years of being turned down by employers who held her identity against her.

Consent is, to a large section of the country, what Vijay Mallya is to the Indian authorities: impossible to grasp. Case in point: BJP MLA Ram Kadam, who offered to kidnap any girl who refused the proposal of any member of his constituency. For men like Kadam, a girl who says “no” is painting a target on her back.

Seven decades ago, one generation of freedom fighters drove British colonisers away from this country. Today, another generation has seen one of their lingering relics off for good. Menaka Guruswamy is one of the many participants who’ve helped win us the right to love who we want.

A family can be divided over an issue as serious as politics or as frivolous as what radio channel to play in the car. But have Amitabh Bachchan pop up on the screen, pose a trivia question with four options, and they’ll come together to solve it in a happy ending befitting a Yashraj film.

“Giving up smoking is easy… I’ve done it hundreds of times,” said Mark Twain, and truer words were never spoken. Quitting might yield health benefits in the distant future, but it’s turned the immediate present into a miserable hell.

Urban Naxals have been propped up as the nation’s greatest bogeymen. The ambiguous term now joins the country’s lexicon alongside “anti-national” and “tukde-tukde gang” as a catch-all epithet for those who express dissent.

Atishi Marlena is at the centre of a controversy once again, over the dropping of her “Christian”-sounding last name. The last time AAP’s Lok Sabha Candidate made news, it was for being dismissed from her special post as Delhi’s education advisor, when she was credited for turning around the course of the Capital’s public schools.

In a religious tinderbox like India, where copies of books like The Hindus are burned in the street, and makers of films like Padmaavat are threatened with violence by frothing fundamentalists, is life imprisonment for offending religious sentiments really what we need?

On the 20th anniversary of Blade’s film debut, it’s worth remembering his role in making superhero movies what they are today. He was the first black superhero before Black Panther, the first gritty franchise before Batman Begins, and Iron Man and Captain America owe their popularity to him.

Kerala is facing the worst natural disaster in decades. And yet, keyboard warriors far removed from the situation are focusing on discouraging others from donating toward relief efforts. Justifications range from Kerala being a Left-leaning state to the entry of women in Sabarimala.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee has passed away after a prolonged illness at AIIMS, marking the end of a simpler, gentler era in Indian politics. We bid goodbye to a leader who, more than anyone who followed him, embodied what the PM’s post stood for.

In every Indian gathering of intoxicated people, someone has to play “Summer of ’69”. I’ll bet you my Aadhaar number that there’ll come a point when everyone is triumphantly screaming, “Those were the BEST DAYS of my life!” That's the magic of #BryanAdams.

American propaganda continues with NASA announcing its Parker Solar Probe as the first mission to explore the surface of the Sun. Just like the internet, plastic surgery, and fire and the wheel, Indians were the first people to venture into the field of solar exploration.

Dog is a man’s best friend, and a biker’s worst enemy. Stories about being chased by dogs is to motorcyclists what having famous parents is to Bollywood debutantes – Can you even call yourself the genuine article if you don’t have any?

It’s been 15 years since we were introduced to Jadoo, Hrithik Roshan’s alien best pal in Koi Mil Gaya. But the family-friendly film takes a much darker note when Jadoo writes a letter describing the harsh reality behind the story we thought we knew.

There’s been a series of high-profile resignations at ABP News. The Indian media seems to be experiencing a dark period, as evidenced by our ranking on the Press Freedom Index. In these times, it’s important to hold on to the moments when the Indian media did display a backbone.

In India, reservation was originally meant to last for only 10 years. But it persists to this day, because here, even for traditionally dominant groups, being labelled “backward” is considered your best chance to get forward.

The Mission Impossible series always promises a thrilling break from reality, and addressing geopolitical issues has never been its selling point. Why, then, did the CBFC feel the need to completely cut out the scene with dialogues where the characters say Kashmir?

The similarities between Imran Khan and Donald Trump run deeper than just their non-political origins. Trump allegedly won his election after Russian meddling. While Khan? He owes his imminent victory to ahem, military aid.

Rakhbar Khan’s killing in Alwar by gau rakshaks proves that something is deeply wrong in the state of Rajasthan. And CM Vasundhara Raje, whose mealy-mouthed responses have emboldened the vigilantes, the love jihadists, and no-longer-fringe elements, is partly responsible for this.

Watching people navigate an ocean of bad choices using tools like Tinder and Hinge is as entertaining as watching an episode of Takeshi’s Castle. For couples in relationships, nothing is more amusing than other people’s misadventures in love.

According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, we’ve been living in the Meghalayan age that began with a drought 4,200 years ago. While that might cause excitement among nerds, it’s a reminder that we are ever closer to the global water crisis.

Given the BJP’s overwhelming strength of numbers in the Lok Sabha, the no-confidence vote was always a losing battle for Rahul Gandhi. However, by turning Modi’s hugplomacy onto himself, RaGa pulled off a Baazigar and snatched a sliver of victory from what could have been a complete defeat.

With the Kathua and Chennai sexual assault case coming to light, 2018 has proved to be a horrendous year for India’s child safety record. What will it take for us to ensure our children’s safety? Let’s start with acknowledging that there’s a problem instead of slipping into denial mode.

Ten years ago, a movie made sense of the chaos around us. Its most astute character was not the hero Batman, but the film’s arch-villain, The Joker. When he said “The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules,” you know he was prophesying the future.

Sacred Games is a high point for Indian fiction, but imagine if the second season were to be regulated by censors. In April this year, the I&B Ministry under Smriti Irani set up a 10-member committee to formulate rules for online platforms.

It doesn’t matter what game is being played, an unlikely upset burns brighter than an easy victory. No wonder then, that anyone who wasn’t French rooted for Croatia at the World Cup.

With 10,000 police personnel deployed in Lahore, over 300 arrests made, and high drama at the airport, Nawaz Sharif’s arrest is the most action-packed event for Pakistan since they lifted the World Cup in 1992.

You don’t need to know the players’ names to enjoy a game of football. But when France and Belgium play a game as dull as a matrimonial profile written by your sanskari aunt, you wish football could live up to its reputation as the beautiful game.

As the Lok Sabha passes a bill providing death penalty to those convicted of raping children, the question to ask is what it will have achieved. Our thirst for an eye for an eye will have been quenched, but the vulnerable will be no safer in this country after the noose snaps tight, than they were before it did.

It might seem shocking, given how some of our ministers think the internet was invented during the Mahabharata, but the Indian internet is actually a marvel – compared to the EU and USA, who are considering draconian copyright laws and doing away with net neutrality respectively.

The SC verdict is the perfect opportunity for you to plan your future, as the chief minister of the Capital, instead of reliving your past as an activist.

At a time when true crime shows and podcasts are ubiquitous, the way we “consume” a murder has changed. A few years from now, the Burari case might become a Netflix series, and the way we are following it now is dictated by our hunger for a true crime show.

The hare and tortoise scenario is becoming commonplace at the World Cup. First, Argentina lost to Croatia, and South Korea beat Germany. Now, Russia has reaped the benefits of Spain playing a style of football they were well-prepared to counter.

How do you say goodbye to something you’ve known your entire life? After all, plastic is almost like an honorary family member in most middle-class households. But, to paraphrase Spider Man, “With great awareness, comes great responsibility.”

In the World Cup match against Nigeria, Argentina, staring down the barrel at an ignominious first-round exit, had their moment of last-minute inspiration, and it saved their skins. Much like how we’ve all felt the rush of last-minute magic ahead of an examination, when we were students.

Whichever way you lean in the age-old debate of Delhi vs Mumbai, you have to admit the capital holds the edge in one area. Delhi HC’s order saving 16,500 trees from being chopped is a far cry from axe-happy Mumbai’s approach of felling 5,000 trees for Metro-3.

Nobody expected the World Cup group stages would throw up a dark horse, loyal to neither team nor nation, who would emerge as the leading goalscorer. For eclipsing the feats of legends like Ronaldo and Messi, Own Goal is our Person of the Week.

The PDP-BJP union was doomed from the start. And in the tradition of all tragic protagonists, the two former lovers have seen their dreams turn to ash. The brunt, however, will be borne by the Kashmiri people who are left, yet again, without a democratically elected government.

With Egypt unlikely to advance further than the group stage, Mo Salah’s World Cup campaign will come to an end on Monday, leaving millions of fans heartbroken. As a pick-me-up, here are three silver linings we can find in this result.

Rahul Gandhi is the equivalent of the poor kid who answered a question wrong on the first day of school, and was tagged as a dummy for the rest of the year. Joking about him is like craving McDonalds’ fries – even the high and mighty among us have done it at some point.

In today’s edition of Social Media Mountains-Out-Of-Molehills, the mother of the man “victimised” by Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli’s litterbug video spoke up, accusing the two stars for violating her son’s privacy – but was unwilling to accept her son as the wrongdoer.

For switching their loyalties from cricket to football faster than Ronaldo can fake a dive, cheering for a country they can’t point on the world map, and pretending to understand the offside rule, the Indian football fan is our Person of the Week.

It is a joy to watch innate talent weave its magic, and when that talent is paired with an underdog story like Afghanistan’s and Rashid’s, the tug of fan support cannot be denied.

For three days, Arvind Kejriwal and his ministers have been holding a sit-in protest in Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal’s office. What’s making the Delhi CM revert to his pre-politician, activist avatar?

With pet raptors and human cloning stretching believability in an already unbelievable series too far, the Jurassic Park franchise has become a badly written fan fiction version of itself, and The Fallen Kingdom is the franchise’s worst entry.

Jurassic World is not Jurassic Park, any more than your Colvin Klien shades from Colaba Causeway are close to the originals. Maybe the once-flourishing franchise should take a cue from the dinosaurs, and embrace extinction.

I know you all think that fake voters are not supposed to exist, but we do. We’re present at multiple booths at the same time, hiding in plain sight with our nondescript names. Maybe we wouldn’t if the lot of you didn’t treat Voting Day as a bonus holiday, and actually showed up to exercise your franchise.

If “Serve and Protect” had a face, it would be Uttarakhand policeman Gagandeep Singh’s bearded countenance. But Singh – who rescued a man from a rabid mob – is only the latest example of India’s actual heroes, who are penalised for doing their job.

In response to a query, the Election Commission stated that the finances of political parties were outside the purview of the RTI. It’s a bit duplicitous for a country with a laissez-faire attitude to privacy. It’s as if everyone’s privacy is to be jealously protected – except that of Indian citizens, of course.

The Congress has set up a crowdfunding website where citizens can pitch in to fill the party’s coffers before the 2019 elections, but what would really help is a sweet Kickstarter campaign. We took the liberty of putting one together.

It isn’t too difficult to understand why Solo: A Star Wars Story flatters to deceive. At the centre of it all is a disappointing, yawning, Harrison Ford-shaped void that is impossible for his successor Alden Ehrenreich to fill.

The OnePlus 6 launch was treated with the kind of anticipation you think would be reserved for the Second Coming of Jesus. While tech geeks have been creaming their pants, technophobes like me try to figure out what 2.8GHz octa-core processor means in plain English.

New Karnataka CM Yeddyurappa is back for thirds, and he isn’t going to let little things like a corruption record or the precedent set in Goa and Manipur get in his way.

Even though it’s been years since I sat for an exam, the moment my maid rings the doorbell at 8 am, I break into the kind of cold sweat I’d experience before entering an examination hall. Each time she empties the ashtray into the bin, she gives me a judgey glance and every beer bottle elicits a standard response, “Itni daaru!”

Since the 2014 election, a certain breed of citizens has watched from the sidelines as “their country” was swept by the BJP wave: the liberal optimist. A good liberal optimist remains ensconced in their ivory tower, is woke to global affairs but disconnected from the pulse of the nation, and is shocked by the Karnataka verdict.

If the country were a pot full of biryani right now, Karnataka would be the leg piece. And the voters are the ones who decide who gets this juiciest of morsels. Fame is fleeting, and for just one weekend, the voter of this southern state enjoys the tag being the weather vane for the rest of the country.

Taking a cue from the Red Fort, which will now be maintained by Dalmia Bharat, we should outsource the upkeep of all our monuments to private bodies. Hopefully Mortein will drive away Taj Mahal’s mosquitoes, and maybe Burnol can work as a balm for Chittorgarh Fort.

I know you better than you know yourself. I know your dirty, dark internet history. Let me run your life. We can be like Iron Man and JARVIS, just give up all your privacy to me.

The controversy over Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s portrait goes to the heart of how we choose to remember our historical figures. Jinnah has a complicated legacy – but we’ve just given him the same treatment we gave to Fawad Khan and the Pakistani cricket team.

If you believe in astrology, then read no further. These dark and gloomy horrorscopes shall strike fear into your heart.

Asaram, who was sentenced to life for raping a minor girl, is hardly the first godman to have perpetrated heinous crimes while masquerading as a saviour of the masses. He is in the illustrious company of Gurmeet Ram Rahim and Rampal. Despite their convictions, why has their hold over the public not weakened?

Those who have been demanding death penalty for Kathua rapists, might be forced to reassess the idea of what is justice in light of Sabrina Lal’s statements. Is it a primitive process of inflicting suffering upon criminals and purging society of its undesirables? Or is it an attempt to create a better world through reform and corrective action?

Person of the Week is no easy position to fill. It isn’t merely about making waves, but also about making us laugh. And for showing us that Krishna needed Google maps on the battlefield and Sanjay’s narration of the battle was probably interrupted by buffering issues, CM Deb snatches the victory.

How is a request for investigation into the death of a judge an attack on the judiciary? To imply that wanting to know how Justice Loya died is frivolous is a bit much coming from the Supreme Court, the custodians of our democracy.

The city of London is playing host to our Prime Minister this week, and he’s got a bunch of stuff to cross off his To-Do List, from hugging it out with Theresa May to delivering speeches where the most remarkable thing is his 56-inch chest.

Whining liberals are crying as if they’ve lost a hero of the calibre of PM Modi. But who is this Atishi Marlena, except for a topper from one of the country’s best colleges and a Rhodes Scholar from Oxford who drew a massive salary of ₹1, for her role as advisor to the Delhi government?

Six years ago, we were a nation that gushed out into the streets to protest and demand justice for the 2012 Delhi gang rape. But it has taken us months to muster that kind of outrage for the Kathua girl. Between 2012 and 2018, how did India change so much?

Kuldeep Sengar, the BJP MLA from Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, has been accused of rape by a minor girl. But he continues to smile because he knows something that his accuser or her family don’t – that no matter how serious the allegation, he will get away with it. Unscathed. His good name, unsullied.

MMA fans thumb their noses at WWE, skipping its dramatic storytelling for the UFC’s methodical brutality. Realism is important to them… so I fail to understand how they think falling off a 20-foot ladder hurts less because it was pre-planned.

Shahid Afridi is famous for two things – faking retirement and always doing the unexpected. For uniting past and present players of Team India on Twitter, he is a natural choice for Person of the Week.

Narendra Modi and Smriti Irani can’t seem to agree on what to do about fake news. But in the battle of fact vs fiction, it might already be too late.

What does the month of April hold for you poor sods? The planets are aligned – only to spell doom. Mercury will be in retrograde and your good fortune in the crapper.

Are you at that phase of your career when expectation levels are at zero and indulgence levels are set to max? Enjoy it. Save the existential angst for later in your career. The days of this happy, consequence-free existence that you’re too ignorant to enjoy right now, are numbered.