In the light of recent reports on grading system for artists, some stakeholders point out on the need to expand the debate on culture.

Assam’s Nati dance tradition is set on the path to regaining respect.

Bhagavatula Sethuram strives to keep alive the tradition of Yakshaganam through its Kuchipudi origins.

Amrita Lahiri speaks to Anjana Rajan on her upcoming recital as a Madhobi Chatterji Memorial Fellowship recipient.

After years of absence, male dancers seem to be back on the stage with talent and conviction. With this new trend, dance seems to have made a step towards gender equality

She talks about the eternal appeal of margam

Celebrated choreographer Kumudini Lakhia and her students talk about give and take in art. Chitra Swaminathan records the interaction.

Soorya’s Parampara dance festival featured recitals by a new generation of classical dancers, following in the footsteps of their gurus.

In her passing, Mohiniyattam has lost a crusader who widened its repertoire and gave it a new aesthetics rooted in Kerala

Employees bemoan that everything today has been reduced to chasing numbers and results

Sustainable growth in the manufacturing sector will remain a challenge

These urban legends prevent firms from getting sustainable advantage

Learning and development programmes are more than mere skill updates – they can be the key to employee retention

Global shortage of 400 million kg of tobacco spurs export demand for the crop; premium leaves fetch farmers in Prakasam and Nellore districts a record ₹210 a kg during e-auctions

Traders claimed the central government's decision to impose 40% duty on the export of onions till December 31, 2023 will adversely affect the onion growers and its export

The association also urged APEDA to exempt imported raw cashew nuts from Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) clearance in customs.

The Board is expected to help develop and grow the spice’s market in India, which controls over 62% share of the turmeric world trade

After dominating the region’s electoral stage for almost a decade, turmeric has lost its sheen; the PM’s announcement of a National Turmeric Board has not satisfied farmers, who also ask for MSP

The government subsidised the sale of a few commodities to improve domestic supply and arrest the sharp spikes in retail prices of wheat, rice, edible oils, pulses, tomato, and onion

They have to declare stock position of paddy and rice every Friday

Traders are allowed to export this quantity till March 31

Centre has permitted 24,400 MT shipments to the country amid ban on exports ‘till further orders’; exporters allege selling price being set too low, triggering windfall profits for selected UAE importers

Karnataka Agriculture Price Commission headed by Prakash Kammaradi submitted a report on the legally backed MSP to the government in 2018

Union Minister for Food and Consumer Affairs Pralhad Joshi has announced that States can buy rice from the Food Corporation of India at ₹2,800/quintal without participating in e-auction.  

Polyp's latest cartoon, from our June magazine.

In his Is Atomic Design Dead? presentation at Smashing Conf New York, Brad Frost discussed the history of design systems and today's situation especially in light of very capable AI models than can generate code and designs. Here's my notes on his talk.

• Websites started as HTML and CSS. People began to design websites in Photoshop and as the number of Web sites and apps increased, the need for managing a brand and style across multiple platforms became clear. To manage this people turned to frameworks and component libraries which resulted in more frameworks and tools that eventually got integrated into design tools like Figma. It's been an ongoing expansion...
• There's been lots of change over the years but at the highest level, we have design systems and products that use them to enforce brand, consistency, accessibility, and more.
• Compliance to design systems pushes from one side and product needs push from the other. There needs to be a balance but currently the gap between the two is growing. A good balance is achieved through a virtuous cycle between product and systems.
• The atomic design system tried to intentionally define use of atoms, molecules, organisms, templates, and pages to bridge the gap between the end state of a product and a design system.
• As an industry, we went too far in resourcing design systems and making them a standalone thing within a company. They've been isolated.
• Design system makers can't be insular. They need to reach out to product teams and work with them. They need to be helping product teams achieve their goals.
• What if there were one global design system with common reusable components? Isn't that what HTML is for? Yes, but it's insufficient because we're still rebuilding date pickers everywhere.
• Open UI tracks popular design systems and what's in them. It's a start to seeing what global component needs for the Web could look like.
• Many pattern libraries ship with an aesthetic and people need to tweak it. A global design system should be very vanilla so you can style it as much as you want.
• The Web still has an amazing scale of communication and collaboration. We need to rekindle the ideas of the early Web. We need to share and build together to get to a common freely usable design system.
• AI models can help facilitate design system work. Today they do an OK job but in the future, fine-tuned models may create custom components on the fly. They can also translate between one design system and another or translate across programming languages.
• This methodology could help companies translate existing and legacy code to new modern design systems. Likewise sketches or mockups could be quickly translated directly to design system components thereby speeding up processes.
• Combining design system specifications with large language models allows you to steer AI generations more directly toward the right kind of code and components.
• When product experiences are more dynamic (can be built on the fly), can we adapt them to individual preferences and needs? Like custom styles or interactions.
• AI is now part of our design system toolkit and design systems are part of our AI toolkit.
• But the rapid onset of AI also raises higher level questions about what designers and developers should be doing in the future? We're more than rectangle creators. We think and feel which differentiates us from just production level tasks. Use your brains, your intuition, and whole self to solve real problems.

We tend to ignore the view of people around us. We also tend not to value the potential around us. The result is someone like the S&P grades us negative and gives us Gyan!

Delhi-Jaipur-Pushkar, and a fleet of BMWs, what’s not to like?

A village in Darjeeling turns out, surprisingly, to be the perfect setting for Land Rover’s 70th anniversary celebrations

The best cameras in the market, and why Sony gets the top spot among the Nikons and Canons

Ace couturier Raghavendra Rathore on his eponymous label completing 25 years, expanding his brand and plans for the future

Montblanc Summit 2 comes with a range of features — and oozes style

The BMW Z4 is effortlessly fast, and easy to ride

Gone are those days when eating out meant digging into a steak with buttery potatoes on the side. Increasingly in the big cities, restaurants are offering a host of healthy food

From cameras to smartphones, these gadgets are worth the wait in the next year

A visit to the restoration project site of an ancient harbour in Kerala, steeped in history, is peppered with anecdotes and delicious local fare

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge , 2024.

Toronto : Canadian Scholars, 2024.

Bloomington, IN : Solution Tree Press, [2024]

New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, 2024.

Dorchester, Mass. : National Association for the Education and Advancement of Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese Americans

Kannada actor Kishore hopes the response to ‘Kantara’ will encourage Kannada filmmakers to explore new content in different ways

In its complaint lodged before the Yeshwantpur police, MRT Music had alleged that popular songs and audio clips of the film were illegally used to promote Mr. Gandhi as hero and a mass leader