But here’s the thing: when we talk of worsening air quality, we allude to outdoor or ambient air. Air purifiers, by scope and function, are meant to filter indoor air. Never mind the government’s Chaplinesque move to install Wayu (Wind Augmentation PurifYing Unit) devices across some Delhi intersections. Its capacity to purify air within a…

On a spectrum ranging from green to maroon, New Delhi achieved Vantablack status in the early hours of 8 November 2018. Different countries may have different parameters for measuring air quality index (AQI), but the colour codes are standard: green is good. Yellow, moderate. Maroon straddles anything from ‘hazardous’ to ’emergency’. But what colour do…

In Chennai, during Dussehra a 10-day festival, there is a tradition of inviting people for Golu, where people display dolls and serve a lentil snack called sundal. This Dussehra, a bank used Golu to reach out to customers. Bank employees placed a stack of dolls in a mini-truck and took it door to door to…

Amidst a cluster of stores at Delhi’s popular IT and computer peripherals market in Nehru Place is eWorld, an Apple-authorised reseller. The store is desolate. A resigned silence combines with the white interiors to create an eerie, sterile emptiness. Even as one enters, the staff show no enthusiasm to push products. Their inertia is the…

Noida-based Dish TV no longer looks like Dish TV. Dish TV was India’s first-ever private direct-to-home (DTH) operator, launching in 2003—almost seven years after the first DTH proposal was floated (and turned down). The idea then was simple: offer better quality, better pricing and better television services to subscribers via satellite, bypassing local cable operators…

Crucially, despite its claims of surrendering its tax-exempt registration in 2015, Tata Trusts has not paid taxes since. This has significantly weakened its standing in the matter. In 2018, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Indian Parliament stated that Tata Trusts spent its money in a way that not only violated the I-T Act but…