Author: Deshwale Editorial Desk

Most of us have that one thing at home we cannot bring ourselves to throw away. It could be a cup gifted by a friend, a plate passed down by a grandparent, or an old object that reminds us of a special time in our lives. It may not be expensive, but it means something to us. Now imagine that favourite cup slipping from your hand and breaking into pieces. Would you throw it away or try to repair it? In Japan, an ancient craft offers an unusual answer. It is called kintsugi, a traditional way of repairing broken pottery…

Have you ever seen a mother put a tiny black dot behind her child’s ear, even when the child is dressed in the finest clothes? Or noticed a blue eye hanging near the entrance of a shop, home or car? Perhaps you have seen lemon and green chillies tied together outside a business. These small things may look different, but they share a familiar thought: the wish to protect something precious from nazar, or the evil eye. In India, many of us have grown up hearing phrases such as “nazar na lage” or “kisi ki nazar lag gayi”. Sometimes, even…

Imagine a room built for ten people. Now imagine thirty living in it, sleeping, eating and waiting there, sometimes for years. This is daily life in many of the world’s jails. And the reason for it is often not what most of us think. The title suggests one single prison, but experts usually compare whole prison systems, country by country. They use a measure called the occupancy rate, which shows the number of prisoners as a percentage of a system’s official capacity. A score of 100% means every bed is taken, and anything above that means overcrowding. Around 11.5 million…

Walk into any yoga studio or open a wellness app, and you will see the same picture: seven glowing wheels along the spine, coloured like a rainbow from red to violet. Most people assume this diagram is thousands of years old. The real story is much shorter, and much more interesting. The word “chakra” means wheel or circle in Sanskrit. Early references to energy centres in the body appear in the Upanishads, but they look nothing like the seven-chakra diagram seen in yoga studios today. Later traditions gave very different counts. Buddhist texts from around the 8th century mention four…

Imagine hearing a song you love but not knowing its name. You cannot search for its lyrics, watch its video or instantly identify the singer. You wait for it to play on the radio again, ask a friend or visit a music shop. For many Indians, discovering something new once involved patience, curiosity and help from people around them. Before YouTube made music videos, film clips, interviews and tutorials available at the touch of a screen, India had its own ways of discovering entertainment and knowledge. Radio, cassette tapes, television, newspapers, magazines and conversations connected people with stories, sounds and…

Henkel India has taken another step towards building a more inclusive society by inaugurating a new Skill Development Center at Navkshitij in Marunji, Pune. Established as part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, the center aims to provide STEM education and vocational skill development for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Designed for students aged 10 years and above, the center offers an environment where learning goes beyond classrooms and focuses on practical, hands-on experiences that promote confidence, independence, and self-reliance. Along with educational facilities, the project also includes a solar-powered infrastructure, reinforcing Henkel India’s commitment to sustainable…

Take a careful look at your address. Now think about how many other people in the country might share some part of it. Almost every state has a Gandhi Nagar, a Station Road, a Shivaji Chowk. Many towns even share names with towns in other states. Before 1972, the clerk sitting in a post office untangled all this by hand, and sometimes the letter was written in a script that was hard to read. Fifty years ago, India’s postal department was struggling with exactly this mess. When the country became independent in 1947, it had 23,344 post offices, most of…

अपना पता एक बार ध्यान से देखिए। अब सोचिए कि देश में कितने लोगों के पते का कोई न कोई हिस्सा आपसे मिलता होगा। लगभग हर राज्य में गांधी नगर है, स्टेशन रोड है, शिवाजी चौक है। कई कस्बों के नाम तो दूसरे राज्यों के कस्बों से भी मिलते हैं। 1972 से पहले डाकघर में बैठा कर्मचारी इन सबको हाथ से सुलझाता था, और कई बार चिट्ठी ऐसी लिपि में लिखी होती थी जिसे पढ़ना भी मुश्किल होता था। पचास साल पहले भारतीय डाक विभाग इसी उलझन से जूझ रहा था। 1947 में जब देश आज़ाद हुआ, तब यहाँ 23,344…

Four victories apiece, two commanding performances and a place in the spotlight for Indian kabaddi. At the Commonwealth Kabaddi Championship in Ahmedabad, the men’s and women’s teams are showing how individual talent and collective effort can take a team forward. Every sport has moments when one player’s achievement becomes a team’s celebration. In kabaddi, these moments arrive in a matter of seconds. A raider crosses the line, defenders close in, teammates hold their positions, and suddenly a single move can change the course of a match. For India’s men and women at the inaugural Commonwealth Kabaddi Championship 2026 in Ahmedabad,…

Look at the back of your jeans. Just below the waistband, there is a small square of leather, or something that looks like leather. Most of us have seen it a thousand times. Almost none of us have wondered why it is there. It looks like a style choice. But that patch did not begin as decoration at all. Its story starts in the 1800s, in America, with a pair of work trousers. In 1873, a tailor named Jacob Davis and a businessman named Levi Strauss received a US patent for putting metal rivets on work pants. The rivets sat…