Vidyut Jammwal’s Hollywood Debut: How Kalaripayattu Could Give Indian Martial Arts a Global Stage As Vidyut Jammwal prepares to play Dhalsim in the live-action Street Fighter, his move into a major international franchise offers a story bigger than one actor’s career. It raises questions about…

Beyond Bollywood: Usha Mangeshkar's Recognition Connects India's Musical Traditions Indian music has rarely respected the boundaries that divide languages, regions and audiences.…

The Contributions, Sacrifices and Untold Costs of Migration Indian migrants help staff hospitals, build cities, power businesses and connect cultures across borders. Their work supports families and economies, but the rewards of migration are not shared evenly. From recruitment debt in the Gulf to the…

Jodhpur RIFF 2026: When Rajasthan’s Folk Traditions Meet the World Under a Desert Moon From dawn music at Jaswant Thada to late-night performances within the historic Mehrangarh Fort complex, Jodhpur RIFF returns from October 22 to 26 with Rajasthani folk traditions, Indian classical music and international collaborations. As the festival marks its 20th year, its […] Read More…

Bollywood Abroad: How Indian Cinema Became a Second Home for the Diaspora A song begins. Perhaps it is an old Kishore Kumar number. Perhaps it is a Shah Rukh Khan dialogue that an entire generation can recite. Or perhaps it is a contemporary film playing on a streaming service in a living room thousands of kilometres from India. For an Indian living abroad, the screen can do something remarkably simple. It can make a distant place feel close. A familiar song can suddenly bring back a wedding. A film showing an Indian family can remind someone of grandparents. A festival scene can recreate a childhood memory. And a language heard every day on screen can provide something increasingly precious for children growing up outside India: a connection to the sound of home. Bollywood is therefore much more than an entertainment industry for India’s diaspora. It can function as a cultural memory machine. Cinema travels with people Indian cinema did not become global because streaming platforms suddenly discovered India. The diaspora carried Indian films abroad long before Netflix, YouTube and smartphones. Indian communities established themselves across East Africa, the Gulf, Britain, North America, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Where communities went, cultural

From Ravi Shankar to Diljit Dosanjh: How Indian Music Found the World There was a time when the sound of India travelling around the world was largely associated with one instrument. The sitar. And, more specifically, with one extraordinary musician: Ravi Shankar. Then came Bollywood. Then A.R. Rahman. Then Punjabi pop. Then independent artists, hip-hop, electronic music, Instagram, YouTube and Spotify. Today, an Indian song can travel from Mumbai to Manchester, from Delhi to New York and from Punjab to Los Angeles without waiting for a record company executive in London to approve its passport. Indian music has entered the global conversation. But this is not really a story about one musical explosion. It is a story about seven decades of cultural transmission. Ravi Shankar opened an important door Indian classical music had international connections before the 1960s. But Ravi Shankar became one of its most important global ambassadors. His collaboration with Western musicians—particularly violinist Yehudi Menuhin and later George Harrison of The Beatles—introduced Indian musical ideas to audiences who had previously encountered very little of them. In 1967, Shankar performed at the Monterey International Pop Festival in California. Two years later he appeared at Woodstock. The Woodstock festival’s own

When Watching a Movie Is No Longer Enough For more than a century, going to the cinema meant sitting quietly in a dark room while a story unfolded on a screen. Then somebody apparently decided that sitting quietly was overrated. Today, moviegoers can watch a car chase while their seats move, feel wind during an action sequence, experience water effects during rain scenes and even encounter scents synchronized with what is happening on screen. Welcome to 4DX—one of the most unusual developments in India’s modern cinema experience. And in September 2026, the format received another push in India. PVR INOX opened three new auditoriums at its Soul Space Spirit property in Bellandur, Bengaluru, including a new 4DX screen. The addition took the property to seven screens and 1,143 seats. ScanX reported that this was the company’s eighth 4DX experience in Bengaluru. But the bigger story isn’t simply that Bengaluru has another premium cinema screen. It is about how India’s multiplex industry is trying to answer a difficult question: If audiences can watch almost everything at home, why should they still pay to go to a cinema? From watching the film to feeling it 4DX attempts to provide an answer by

Tansen Samaroh 2026: Can a 16th-Century Musical Legacy Still Speak to the Streaming Generation? Gwalior’s 102nd Tansen Sangeet Samaroh returns from December…

The Drishyam Effect: Why Audiences Still Love a Mystery That Makes Them Think Standfirst: In an age of spectacular action and instant…

From Global Pop to Indian Audiences: Why International Concerts Are Coming to More Indian Cities Chet Faker’s three-city India tour is another…

India’s Stand-Up Comedy Economy Has Changed Stand-up comedy has evolved from a niche urban performance scene into a multi-platform entertainment business, with…

Indian Cinema Enters a New Pan-India Phase September and October 2026 are bringing an unusually varied Indian theatrical calendar, with Hindi, Tamil,…