Editors Pick

Published on Oct 17, 2022 03:44 PM IST

Apart from his stories, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, created a number of delightful puzzles, one of which I have loosely adapted for you.

Problematics | Once upon a time in the wheels

There is a gem of a puzzle hidden in old cinema shots of a moving stagecoach.

Published on Oct 10, 2022 12:34 PM IST

Problematics | Operation dessert mix

This week, there are only three elements and still no compulsion, but I give you A, B and C all the same. I picked these words out of three different dictionaries. Here are the puzzles:

Updated on Oct 03, 2022 01:45 PM IST

Problematics | Spot the cheetahs at the roundtable

This puzzle involves eight big cats released into a national park.

Published on Sep 26, 2022 12:42 PM IST

Problematics | Scores to settle on cricket pitch

This week on, everyone who solved one or both of last week’s puzzles gets acknowledged here, in the online version of Problematics, while the print version lists those who solved both. Here are this week's puzzles:

Updated on Sep 19, 2022 06:43 PM IST

Problematics | Births and dates with new puzzles

We are familiar with mathematical tricks in which you think of a number and I tell you what it is. In this variation, let’s use dates instead of numbers.

Updated on Sep 12, 2022 12:08 PM IST

Problematics | When nobody gets to work from home

Can’t wait for your next article in Problematics, Sunaina Shivrain tells me from Faridabad. Mondays will be less mundane, writes Nupur Joshi from Faridabad. Thank you for your response, and let’s keep this going. This week’s puzzles coming up:

Updated on Sep 05, 2022 04:13 PM IST

Problematics I Let the puzzles, games begin

Every week, we bring you one or more mildly challenging puzzles, which means they are neither too easy nor too hard

We launch today with both kinds of puzzles, with more to follow in the weeks to come. (iStock Photo)

Updated on Sep 05, 2022 12:26 PM IST

India’s 1st CEC carried out a ‘great, fateful experiment’, writes Ashok Lavasa

Sukumar Sen, who took over as the first CEC on March 21, 1950, was given the herculean task of conducting the first election in a country

Sukumar Sen, India’s first chief election commissioner and conducted the first general elections of Independent India in 1951-52.(Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 04:14 PM IST

ByAshok Lavasa

Story of the lions that form India’s national emblem

The national emblem is considered as the symbol of authority of the government and all official communications have the state emblem on them

The emblem is the graphic representation of the Lion Capital that originally graced the top of the Ashok Stambh or Ashoka Pillar at Sarnath. It has the national motto, Satyamev Jayate (truth alone triumphs), written below it.(HTPhoto)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 04:28 PM IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | ByHT Correspondent

The unique goals and challenges of Indian secularism

Virtually all commentators agree that India is secular — which seems unarguable given the word’s inclusion in the Preamble

Dr Jaime Torres Bodet Director General of UNESCO Jawaharlal Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad arriving at Parliament House for the session of the Indian National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO.(HT Photo)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 05:14 PM IST

ByDeepa Das Acevedo

How Ambedkar, Constituent Assembly dealt with the caste conundrum

Crucial to addressing the problem of caste, the Constituent Assembly noted, was recognising that it posed a problem distinct to that presented by religion

C Rajagopalachari (R), then governor general of India, with law minister BR Ambedkar on June 14, 1948 .(HT archives)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 05:12 PM IST

ByMadhav Khosla

The importance of an independent judiciary, writes Madan Lokur

The freedom of the judiciary, and the top court, has been sought to be compromised on several occasions in the past. But it has always bounced back

Chief Justice HJ Kania Administering the Oath of office Rajendra Prasad first President of the republic of India in the Durbar Hall Rashtrapati Bhavan.(HT Photo)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 05:24 PM IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | ByMadan Lokur

HT Archives| Policy of controls takes away creative genius of people: GD Birla

The achievement of Indian industry thus is not small. It built itself up against heavy odds when there was no encouragement.

Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi with GD Birla at Boulogne station on the way to England to attend the Round Table Conference as the representative of the Indian Nationals.(HT Archives/ Getty Images)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 04:35 PM IST

Hindustan Times | ByGD Birla

In Partition’s shadow, Constituent Assembly adopted secular charter

Jawaharlal Nehru’s announcement in May 1942 that an elected Constituent Assembly would draft a Constitution for free India took Inder Kumar Gujral by surprise

Jawaharlal Nehru addressing a meeting of a committee of the Constituent Assembly in New Delhi, 1949.(Alamy Stock Photo)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 04:40 PM IST

ByVikram Raghavan

Preamble embodies Constitution’s vision

The content of the Preamble not only embodies events that predate the adoption of the Constitution but also incorporates citizens’ experiences

A photo of the drafting committee of the Constituent Assembly with its chairman BR Ambedkar in the centre.(Alamy Photo)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 04:42 PM IST

ByAnurag Bhaskar

Machines that printed first copies of the Constitution sold as scrap

As for the lithographic plates, they were also “auctioned to scrap dealers long ago”, Survey of India (SoI) officials said.

The Monarch model of the printing machine that printed the first thousand copies of the Constitution of India(Photo Credit: Survey of India)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 04:43 PM IST

Hindustan Times, Dehradun | BySuparna Roy

Framers put forth a plural, secular basis for citizenship

The secular model of acquisition of citizenship served many objectives

A view of the Constituent Assembly on December 10, 1946.(HT Archive)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 05:12 PM IST

ByShadan Farasat

Constitution was the first canvas of modern masters

Each of 22 chapters of the document is headed by an illustration painstakingly crafted by Nandalal Bose and his team at Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 05:10 PM IST

Hindustan Times | ByDhamini Ratnam

Greatest strength of India’s Constitution

The framers of our Constitution displayed remarkable foresight while drafting its amendment provisions.

Jawaharlal Nehru addresses the Constituent Assembly in 1947.(Getty Images)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 05:15 PM IST

ByRaju Ramachandran and Shankar Narayanan

People who steered India’s founding document

BR Ambedkar was the head of the drafting committee and India’s first law minister.

Preamble Constitution of Republic of India

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 04:49 PM IST

New Delhi | ByHT Correspondent

BN Rau: An idealist and a staunch constitutionalist

In such accounts, the roles played by political leaders assumed importance, and the scope for recognising a bureaucrat like Rau remained severely limited.

An image from March 1951 showing BN Rau working at the UN.(HT Archives)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 04:51 PM IST

ByArvind Elangovan

15 remarkable women who helped shape India’s future

The demand for a body to form the Constitution was an old one but it was only in 1934 that the Congress adopted a resolution to create a Constituent Assembly

Eleven of 15 women members of Constituent Assembly(special arrangement/meera velayudhan)

Updated on Nov 26, 2024 05:08 PM IST

Hindustan Times | ByDhamini Ratnam and Dhrubo Jyoti

The man who chronicled Mahatma Gandhi

Mahadev Desai joined Gandhi at 25 as his secretary and maintained diaries that offer a rare insight into the mind of the most secular leader India has seen

Mahatma Gandhi with Mahadev Desai (right) at the All India Congress Committee meeting in Bombay, August 8, 1942, the day that the Quit India resolution was moved.(National)

Updated on Oct 01, 2023 08:43 PM IST

Hindustan Times | ByNachiketa Desai

Birla House: A visit to the Mahatma

Formerly the house of noted industrialist Ghanshyam Das Birla, the home where MK Gandhi spent his last 144 days is now a museum

Gandhi, a day before his assassination at Birla House, New Delhi.(National Gandhi Museum)

Updated on Oct 01, 2020 08:00 PM IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | ByDhrubo Jyoti

‘I kept feeling that Bapu would wake up any minute’: Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee

Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee spoke about her father’s stint in Hindustan Times, her grandparents, and the changing face of Delhi

Tara Bhattacharjee at her residence in New Delhi.(Amal KS/HT)

Updated on Oct 01, 2023 09:00 PM IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | ByKumKum Dasgupta

A tribute to Mahatma Gandhi by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr

On January 30, 1958, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, wrote an article for Hindustan Times on why India’s Father of the Nation belonged ‘to the ages’

Dr Martin Luther King, Jr stands next to a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in his office in 1966.(Bob Fitch Photography Archive, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries)

Updated on Oct 01, 2023 08:32 PM IST

Hindustan Times | ByDr Martin Luther King, Jr

Hindustan Times and the Mahatma

When Gandhi inaugurated the Hindustan Times press in 1924, he knew it was time for a paper that reflected sentiments and the shared national agenda of Indians

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi inaugurated the Hindustan Times press in 1924.(KK Chawla/HT Archives)

Updated on Oct 01, 2023 09:03 PM IST

Hindustan Times | ByDhamini Ratnam

Essential reading on MK Gandhi

Swami Anand, who persistently urged Gandhi to write his autobiography, introduced the readers to sociological insights about castes and communities

Gandhi after his release from prison, 1924.(gandhi museum)

Updated on Oct 01, 2023 09:33 PM IST

Hindustan Times | ByTridip Suhrud

A biographer’s journey: In search of the Mahatma

The Collected Works had all the known letters that Gandhi himself wrote; but virtually none of the letters that he received or responded to.

Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru spinning, Delhi.(National)