Pankti Mehta

The world on your plate: Fine-dining restaurant brands from the US and UK, such as Hakkasan, Yauatcha and Serafina, are opening in Mumbai before London, Paris and New York, lured by the growing and less-competitive market.

On the counter: You cannot hope to make a delectable dish without fresh, authentic and high-quality ingredients. But procuring them consistently in this city calls for meticulous planning and creativity, say top chefs.

Let education not be special: Educators and activists are mooting abolishing the concept of special schools and making the differently-abled part of mainstream education.

Playwright Girish Karnad refused to back down on his uncharitable comment on Nobel laureate VS Naipaul Friday that his “writings on modern India should be classified as fiction”.

A draft BMC policy in 2013 envisioned one day-care centre for seniors in every municipal ward in Mumbai — which would mean a total of 227 across the city and suburbs. But only a handful exist.

Many of Mumbai’s burgeoning party-goers (and party-throwers) are tired of the regular drill and are finding newer ways to, well, raise the bar. They’re holding competitions for creative cocktails, organising crazy drinking games and throwing in some drama to make happy hours at home, happier.

What started as a challenge between friends has turned into an annual contest where participants race to visit all of India’s 29 Unesco heritage sites in one calendar year

A Mumbai-based filmmaker’s directorial debut tells the tale of a 150-year-old tradition followed in Bihar where the birth of a girl child is greeted with the planting of 10 mango trees.

Never pay for a gym membership again! New apps in Mumbai and Delhi let you mix workouts at various gyms and fitness studios, and pay-as-you-go.

Design's on you: These websites let you design your own clothes, jewellery, furniture, car accessories — and sell your work too!

An art project that could change rural India: Bangalore couple Akshatha Shetty and Piyush Goswami have given up their homes and most of their possessions to drive non-stop through India's hinterland, taking on projects that deal with healthcare, education, access to water, female infanticide, untouchability etc., at each stop. They write daily dispatches on their fantastic blog, Rest Of My Family.

When sharing photos and stories of your child on social media, how much is too much? Does social media lead to hyper-competitive parenting?

Watch happy stories of Indian LGBTQ people coming out to their parents: "It's mostly the government that has a problem with homosexuality". Watch these surprising, inspiring tales of LGBTQ people from across India's states and economic classes coming out to their parents.

It's all fun and fame when you're a celebrity lookalike — until the star takes a misstep. Meet the original 'Junior SRK', who went blank after watching Fan; Baba Ramdev's doppelganger who moves in disguise to avoid Ramdev's enemies; Salman's Afghani humshakal who had to deal with the star's controversies; Sachin's lookalike, whose career spelled finished when he announced retirement.

Getting married? Sell tickets to your wedding and have foreign tourists attend with a new start-up.

Medical marijuana battle: 'Legalise cannabis' call finding support in India.

No more theplas — the luxury Indian traveller is finally evolving. It’s almost downmarket to holiday in Switzerland now, or any place your parents and grandparents are likely to have seen. Instead, India’s young, urban luxe travellers are paying lakhs to live in an igloo, take a Michelin-star food tour, or charter a private plane and get the VIP all-access experience at a European music festival.

Meet the new-age Indian bai, who now accepts all sorts of assignments, right from cleaning and cooking to babysitting and eldercare, via an app on her smartphone. A look at how home-service apps are changing the way the unorganised sector works — and adding dignity of labour to the workforce.

In India, where having a child has not traditionally been a matter of choice, there’s a growing number of women who are choosing to be child-free — and as research has found, protecting their careers is often last on the women’s lists of reasons for it.