Priyanka Borpujari

If you know where to look, you can find gateways between worlds: on one side, the Tokyo of endless bustle, while on the other, a pocket of green space that will stun you with its stillness as profoundly as Harajuku will with its dynamism.

Not being allowed to take the Communion while growing up, my first experience was with late Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The world’s third biggest economy seems to have emerged from the pandemic comparatively unscathed. I spoke to health workers who survived the frontlines about how, and at what cost: one doctor attributes Japan’s “success” to the public’s compliance. Another put it more bluntly: “We did not succeed. We merely got lucky.”

Japan’s foreign residents continue to be separated from their families — some for nearly two years — amid new travel bans.

“Within the Olympics village, people were tested almost daily and almost everyone was vaccinated. Outside the bubble, the situation was completely the opposite. So there is a clear double standard here.”
The sound of sirens across Tokyo has increased noticeably during August. After a year of keeping the pandemic in check, Japan’s health system faces its sternest test yet, with record breaking numbers of daily cases.

All across public spaces in Tokyo, one phrase, on a red and brown banner, has become part of the dizzying cityscape: “Tokyo 2020: United by emotion.” The highly-controversial, most-expensive, postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics stirred up mixed emotions among Japanese.

A US navy personnel remembers it as sputtering hot oil on his face. A man faced it for 60 nights of the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland. Churchill was "strongly in favor of using poison gas against uncivilized tribes."

The legality of the use of teargas—from being used in WWI and WWII, and then being partially prohibited—has been long contested, based on its chemical composition, with a dose of political manipulation. So how did a military weapon go from being used in wars to streets?

“I am glad I am not out on the street under the hot sun, holding a placard that reads, ‘beware of heatstroke’ – something that I saw an older man being assigned to do.”
Small joys and many disappointments: the experiences of volunteers of 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

"I was 15. Čáslavská was the center of the conversation among my friends. At that age, all I could think about was this beautiful woman who was doing amazing things on the floor," said 72-year-old Nobumi Hiramatsu.
Those 1964 Tokyo Olympics were meant to symbolize something of a rebirth for Japan. But those who came of age with the Games do not share the same enthusiasm for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The plight of foreign residents barred from the country is under the spotlight as 11,000 sportspeople from around the world converge on the capital. A professor based in Japan says the situation does not bode well for universities that have been trying to attract overseas students.

In May 2021, the Embassy of Japan in India was forced to issue an apology on behalf of a Japanese music video, that relied on humorous yet stereotypical tropes of Indian people. The video angered the Indian diaspora in Japan. However, in their effort to “safeguard Indian culture,” the Indian men harassing a Japanese YouTube star instead exposed their own misogynist biases.

Though the Japanese government has provided 800 ventilators and 800 oxygen concentrators to India as emergency aid, Indian residents in Japan were also trying to do the same on an individual basis. They first tried to ship oxygen concentrators from Japan without success, and then from Indonesia, which resulted in delays, and finally from within India with success, frustrating those desperate to help out their family and friends back home.

To what extent can religious traditions and institutions be part of disaster risk and recovery (DRR) efforts? With a growing number of disasters caused by natural hazards, there is a greater opportunity to tap into an institution that usually commands significance in the everyday lives of a vast number of people across the world. This paper seeks to understand the various ways in which majority religious institutions have so far been involved in DRR efforts, and in what way they can fill existing gaps; as well as proving to be the space for long-term healing.

Karela is the crocodile-skinned vegetable nemesis of Indian children, but for one writer it has come to symbolise home.