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A survey of the broad themes that animated Bollywood in 2016 reveals that biopics are here to stay—but only the sanitised ones. Demonetisation did affect collections, especially at single-screen cinemas, but even before the decision, the Hindi movie trade had learnt that audiences and their money were not so easily parted if the film wasn’t […]

George Michael, the British pop singer who died Dec. 25 at the age of 53, has described his younger self, the man who rose to international stardom as the bronzed, hunky frontman of the duo Wham!, as a kind of fictional alter-ego—not unlike the Ziggy Stardust avatar that David Bowie created, or the mysterious, androgynous […]

The world’s fastest-growing major economy has a serious problem when it comes to getting women to join the workforce. India’s female labour force participation rate is just 27%, one of the lowest in the world. The dismal number is the result of persistent gender inequality, as well as a lack of technical skills and jobs […]

Three decades ago, as China was recovering from the trauma of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution, it gradually started opening up to Western culture. The first performers to get through the door were Wham!. In April 1985, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley took to the stage in Beijing at the People’s Gymnasium in front of 15,000 […]Read More

Fake news has claimed another victim—and even prompted a bit of sabre-rattling by the defence minister of a nuclear-armed nation. On Dec. 23, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Pakistan’s defence minister, unexpectedly sent a terse reminder to Israel about Islamabad’s nuclear capabilities: Israeli def min threatens nuclear retaliation presuming pak role in Syria against Daesh.Israel forgets Pakistan […]Read More

On Dec. 2, 2016, Mexico’s environment minister Rafael Pacchiano Alamán faced the thousands of participants and delegates who traveled to Cancun for the 13th conference of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, and opened the high-level meeting by addressing the elephant in the room. “Warnings have been made on all the problems that this […]Read More

This story is part of a series called Craigslist Confessional. Writer Helena Bala has been meeting people via Craigslist and documenting their stories for nearly two years. Each story is written as it was told to her. Bala says that by listening to their stories, she hopes to bear witness to her subjects’ lives, providing […]

The White House is about to be occupied by a divisive personality, and that, in large part, is precisely why Donald Trump was elected US president in the first place. Many Americans felt their existing institutions were outdated and out of steep with their needs, and that only a major personality like Trump could shake […]

Seinfeld went off the air in May 1998, but the NBC hit series remains a cultural touchstone for many, in part because a comedy ostensibly about nothing would almost by definition wind up largely drawing on the hilarity of everyday situations. But in the same vein as Curb Your Enthusiasm, the follow-up hit from Seinfeld […]

If you want to put something personalized on your gift list this year, there are more options than mugs printed with family photos. How about custom make-whatever-you-can-imagine, through 3D printing? (Jordan Coelho for Quartz) Shapeways, a major online marketplace for 3D-printed products, allows users to upload unique designs and make them available for anyone to […]

As the festive season approaches, our attentions turn to Christmas dinner. But it is also the season of overeating and feeling stuffed. So, before you reach for just one more roast potato, let’s consider what really goes on in our digestive system when we consume large amounts of food. Our digestive system runs from the […]

A seemingly innocuous tweet intended to tug at the heart strings and sell insurance induced a storm of racist comments on Twitter. The tweet in question was posted by State Farm on Wednesday (Dec. 21) and depicts a black man down on one knee proposing to an excited white woman, accompanied by text that reads: […]