• Crime - English

    Raktarekha

    July 8, 2025 - By 

    Niharika S. Rao The Lok Sabha was unusually loud for a Tuesday. It was Budget Week, and the chamber buzzed with tension as news channels lined up outside, their OB vans broadcasting red-tickered hysteria. Inside, Home Minister Veer Pratap Singh stood tall in a beige Nehru jacket, sleeves rolled to the elbows like a man ready for war. His voice thundered across the hall, echoing with the force of someone who had weathered revolutions and riots. “And let it be known,” he declared, slamming his hand on the podium, “this government will never bow to blackmail. The truth will be…

  • English - Fiction - Suspense

    The Republic of Shadows

    July 5, 2025 - By 

    Meher Aftab Part 1: The Flag That Doesn’t Wave The sun hung over the capital city of Ruvana like a bloated wound, casting a hazy orange over the skyline of glass ministries and concrete ghosts. Somewhere between the Parliament dome and the military cantonment, truth had gone missing. And Naveen Rahatkar, senior political correspondent for The Varshana Ledger, was beginning to smell its corpse. He sat in the pressroom of the Central Secretariat, watching the white-and-saffron flag of the Republic of Varshana flutter on the giant LED screen. Outside, the real flag was limp, unmoving despite the breeze. Symbolic, he…

  • 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…

  • English - Fiction

    THE RED CORRIDOR

    June 20, 2025 - By 

    Mohit Bansal The Death in Dhaulpur The bullet tore through the morning stillness like a scream no one wanted to hear. It was just past 8 a.m. in Dhaulpur, a dusty town carved out of the political belly of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Outside the town hall, Ramveer Bharti was standing atop a makeshift podium, his kurta slightly wrinkled, voice echoing over loudspeakers that had seen too many rallies. A crowd had gathered—farmers in faded dhotis, students with angry eyes, a few women clutching cloth bags, and some just there for the free tea. But they listened. Because when Ramveer spoke,…