Last week, India’s Supreme Court rejected a repeat petition  for 2-3 days of monthly menstrual leave for female workers and students. Lawyer Shailendra Mani Tripathi had previously filed it in February 2023 and July 2024, and the most recent rejection was filed by Justices Surya Kant and Joymala Bagchi. They had based their decision on the assumption that, if menstrual leave was put into effect, women would face increased barriers in the workplace. Kant stated that  women who

I was driving in the suburban Newtownabbey area just north of Belfast recently. I went up past the Ballyduff estate, on my way to Larne or Carnlough, I forget. My attention was drawn to some flags on lampposts, at a crossroads, which I didn’t recognise. I have learnt to tune out the various assortment of flags. The Union Jack, The Ulster Banner, Orange Order flags, flute band flags, State of Israel, or even Danish flags. However, this flag drew my attention. They were four br

James Talarico calls his healthcare plan “Medicare for Y’all”. Four words that tell you everything about how he just won the Democratic Senate primary in Texas – his party hasn't won statewide here since 1994. Whilst his opponent campaigned against Trump, Talarico, the seminarian state legislator and former public school teacher, ran for something: popular progressive policies rebranded to the voters he will need to win over. Whether he manages that in November is another que

Perhaps the most renowned passage of Thomas Carlyle’s On Heroes, Hero-Worship & The Heroic in History   opens with the decree that ‘a man’s religion is the chief fact with regard to him’, a proposition through which Carlyle elucidates how an individual’s true faith often lies outwith their professed church creed. Separate from the divine teachings of any sect, Carlyle instead argued that an individual’s true religious persuasion lies in the set of core beliefs which they hold

It was dusk by the time I pulled out of Hasankale station and continued my journey eastward, chasing the evening sun over the Anatolian plains. The family I had shared a cabin and spinach börek with for the past twenty-four hours had just disembarked, leaving their seats all but empty; a scribbled goodbye note and trail of filo pastry remained in their place. They had waved goodbye from the station platform, dwarfed by a banner displaying a face I was now familiar with. The s

Drama in Northern Ireland’s devolved legislature reached a fever pitch in recent weeks. Minister for Education, Paul Givan, lost a symbolic vote of no confidence  in the wake of a “fact-finding mission” to Israel, using his department’s social media to share photos from a school in annexed West Bank territory.  The visit to Israel raises many questions, perhaps chiefly, was it necessary for the Minister of a devolved regional government to go on a so-called fact-finding missi

It was supposed to be a morning of celebration on their most holy of days. Instead, it became the epicentre of the day that antisemitism...

The assassination in Utah  of the Christian Conservative influencer, Charlie Kirk, has cast a chilling shadow over many in the United...

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan remain in a process of rapprochement, at the expense of Russia’s traditional dominance in the region. At the...

Glastonbury has become globally renowned for its music festival; a vibrant celebration of sound, spectacle, and social commentary. But...

Following the implementation of ‘safe access zones’ spanning 150-metres around abortion clinics, England and Wales are thought to be...

Last month, more than 1000 islamists held a shameful anti-democratic and anti-German demonstration in Hamburg, Germany. They paraded...