• English - Fiction

    The Fifth Protocol

    June 28, 2025 - By 

    Neel Kashyap Part 1: The Minister Who Knew Too Much The monsoon had arrived early in New Delhi, but the rain did little to cool the simmering corridors of power. The South Block offices glistened under streetlights, guarded by protocol and paranoia. At 2:03 a.m., a white government Scorpio pulled into the back entrance of the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs. Inside, Minister Prabir Kundu sat motionless, his lips taut and fingers trembling over a brown leather file embossed with the Ashoka emblem. He shouldn’t have had this file. But he did. Earlier that evening, Kundu had received an anonymous courier…

  • English - Fiction

    Shadows of the State

    June 23, 2025 - By 

    Ravi Srinivasan Part 1: The Letter and the Leak It started not with a murder, but with an envelope—sealed, unmarked, and slipped under the newsroom door of The Dakshara Daily on a monsoon-drenched morning. The building still smelled faintly of damp paper and printer ink when Ananya Raghavan picked it up. She was the first one in, as always, her raincoat dripping near her desk, the hiss of boiling water already building in the pantry behind her. She slit the envelope open with a metal ruler, her journalist’s instinct prickling even before the contents were revealed. Inside: a single typed…