Soumyadeep Chowdhury is Assistant Professor in Political Science at Adamas University, Kolkata and Allen David Simon is a postgraduate student at the University of Calcutta Were Indian electoral politics governed by Yashwant Deshmukh’s set axiom that ‘half a decent leader who can ensure half a decent job tends to be re-elected,’ the Narendra Modi led…
Sean Paterson is a member of the RSAA living in Guangzhou There has been much hand-wringing in the press about how Brits, especially those under thirty, are abandoning tea for coffee. The usual suspects blame Americanisation, but what many don’t realise is that the public are simply switching one Asian drink for another. Coffee is…
Javed Gaya is a lawyer from Mumbai, specialising in commercial arbitration law Majoritarianism in India: Roots and Consequences traces the origins of the strident nationalism that has captured the Indian narrative associated with the rise of Narendra Modi. But it seeks to explore how the building blocks of this nationalism were carefully put into place by successive…
Joanna Lillis is a Kazakhstan-based journalist and the author of Silk Mirage: Through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan and Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan One overcast morning in late 2016, I sat beside a flower-strewn grave on the terrace of a mosque in Samarkand, as mourners bowed their heads reverentially while a…
Caroline Eden is a writer and literary critic and author of the weekly newsletter Journey beyond borders Earlier this year, Green Mountains: Walking the Caucasus with Recipes, was published concluding my ‘colour trilogy’ set of books covering the food, history and culture of the Black Sea region, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Encompassing ten years…
Jack Roush is a PhD candidate affiliated with the London School of Economics Iranian History Initiative In early September, Iran hosted the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra for a concert at Persepolis, the 2,500-year-old remains of the Achaemenid Empire’s ceremonial capital. According to media affiliated with the Islamic Republic, the concert “gates of civilization” was intended to…
Sean Paterson is a member of the RSAA living in Guangzhou The best French meal I have ever had was, perhaps unsurprisingly, in a small bistro in the 3e arrondissement, but the runner-up was somewhere rather different: Tianjin, a port city in northeastern China. But this is not as unexpected as it might be at…
Bolor Lkhaajav is an international relations researcher and writer The phaseout of coal-fired power has been progressing in many countries and for a country like Mongolia – a major coal exporter and consumer – this means only one thing, a transition to clean energy must be pursued. Mongolia’s plan to reduce its overdependence on coal, in…
Daniel Kordan is an internationally renowned photographer who runs photography workshops, tours and expeditions around the world Around four billion years ago, Earth’s oceans formed – born from frozen water delivered by cosmic bodies and from condensed steam that fell as endless rain. From that moment, nothing on this planet has stood still. Today, oceans…
Anna Ansari is an Iranian-American cook and writer focusing on the intersection of food, family, and history The following is an edited excerpt from Silk Roads – A Flavor Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing (DK, 2025). It all started with a melon. The melon in question was an attempted souvenir from a three-week,…
