Caste has been haunting India since independence. The caste system is intrinsically complicated; it is dependent on ethnicity, marriage, and family ties, but it lacks a clear set of rules. There are hierarchies within hierarchies, grey areas in classification, and even notions that you can change caste. It’s a topic that has birthed new religions, conversions, grassroots movements, and violence. Time and time again, leaders and voters alike assume that the archaic institution

Deng Xiaoping opened China to globalisation in 1978 (BBC, 2010) to encourage investment and trade and since then China has become a major economic superpower, challenging the global hegemony of the USA. China’s influence is constantly expanding; its position as the workshop of the world (Franceschini, 2014) has outpaced the Western superpower’s ability to compete, as Asian powers produce items more efficiently and cost-effectively. As of 2025, China remains the second largest

Welcome to the restaurant: The most fashionable item in your home is not hanging in your wardrobe; it is sitting in your kitchen cupboard. There are an average of twenty-five thousand monthly searches for the Kardashian–Jenner kitchens (Beesley, 2022), where opulent fruit displays and boutique-style pantries serve as status symbols. Dakota Johnson's iconic lime bowl has thirty-one million views (Architectural Digest, 2020); The influencer Nara Smith receives millions of likes

New Batman movie alert? Unfortunately, the Dark Enlightenment has more to do with reality than blockbuster movies. In a nutshell, the Dark Enlightenment, also known as NRx, functions as an anti-democratic  movement that utilises governmental changes to enthrone a powerful leader or ‘ CEO ’ to call the shots (Rosenfeld, 2024). The ideas surrounding the movement stem from individuals like Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin. Yarvin, under his pseudonym ‘Mencius Moldbug’, frequents his

The “Madman Theory” is a concept in international relations wherein an actor leverages perceptions of irrationality to extract concessions. The rationale for this strategy is that irrationality prevents predictions of behaviour while also inducing fears of escalation, thereby allowing the “madmen” to gain leverage in negotiations. The notion itself is old, with Machiavelli (1996: 213) noting in 1517 that it could be “a very wise thing to simulate madness”; however, the modern

The idea of immortality has been prevalent in humanity for thousands of years, whether in mythology or literature. Still, it is only now, in the current digital age, that it may actually be achieved. From Artificial Intelligence (AI) that can mimic your loved ones to companies that are exploring ‘mind uploading’, the idea of digital immortality is now more than simply a science fiction concept. Tech companies, such as Replika and Eternime, preserve aspects of our being: perso

While debates about inequality typically focus on corporate greed or tax policy, inflation is an underevaluated mechanism that systematically advantages asset holders over wage earners and savers. This essay argues that inflation, properly understood as an increase in the money supply rather than a rise in prices, redistributes wealth from the poor to the rich through predictable channels that remain largely overlooked in mainstream discourse. Inflation is commonly misunderst

Often when people think of philosophy, they think about existential questions that no one really has an answer to, but is this really the case? What really is the point of philosophy, and why introduce it at such a young age? A good example: France Philosophy has been mandatory in French secondary schools since 1809 (BBC News, 2013). Napoleon made education more accessible after the French Revolution in order to fight against the nobility’s supremacy. With the French Revoluti

Once the largest country in Africa, covering approximately 2.5 million square kilometres, Sudan has endured decades of internal conflicts, civil war, authoritarian rule, and international interference. It contains a vast amount of ethnic and religious diversity, which makes it internally fragile and geopolitically significant, making it difficult to unite its people under a common goal and form a national identity. Conflicts in the region have torn the nation apart, resulting

A demonstration in Kathmandu on 8 September 2025 ©AFP - PRABIN RANABHAT On the 8th of September, a call to action on a discord server had college and university students take to the streets in Nepal in a nationwide protest movement. A revolution against a government flaunting its wealth and corruption online ensued.  Thousands of students and young adults were reportedly protesting the social media ban across the country   (Beech and Loke, 2025)  when what started as a peacef