The Taj Mahal is often seen as a testament to love that transcends time, as an example of finding signification in monuments, and culture, other than its religious associations.

Political thinker Anne Paludan proposed a theoretical framework on refugees wherein they explained the concept of new vs traditional refugees. new refugees are culturally, racially and ethnically vastly different from their hosts, come from countries less-developed than the host country, and are likely to lack kin and/or potential support groups in their country of resettlement. they are more likely to experience difficulty during the acculturation process and settlement in the new country. traditional refugees, on the contrary, are culturally and ethnically similar to the people in their host country, come from countries in similar stages of development, and are more likely to be welcomed and assisted by family and friends who speak their language and cushion their adjustment.

"The aesthetics of Dalit literature have too often been characterised by words like ""obscene"" ""denuded"" ""repetitive"" and ""propagandist"" ""bare"", marking it as a non-literary textual field, too focused on polemical content to have aesthetic and literary merit."

Aura is Walter Benjamin's term—a Marxist from the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory—for the distinctness bestowed upon the physicality of an object by virture of the specificity of its place in time and place, for example through its history, or the physical traces that the passage of time has marked it with.

"Chinese artist, thinker and activist, Ai Weiwei is most famously known for his photographic artwork, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995). It incorporates what Ai has called a “cultural readymade.” The work captures Ai as he drops a 2,000-year-old ceremonial Han dynasty urn, allowing it to smash to the floor at his feet. Not only did this artifact have considerable value, it also had symbolic and cultural worth. The Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) is considered a defining period in the history of Chinese civilization, and to deliberately break an iconic form from that era was considered equivalent to tossing away an entire inheritance of cultural meaning about China. With this work, Ai began his ongoing use of antique readymade objects, demonstrating his questioning attitude toward how and by whom cultural values are created.

Some were outraged by this work, calling it an act of desecration. Furthermore, many believed that it reinforced prejudices regarding the absence of cultural worth present in East-Asian and Chinese artefacts. Ai countered by saying, “Chairman Mao used to tell us that we can only build a new world if we destroy the old one.” This statement refers to the widespread destruction of antiquities during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and the instruction that in order to build a new society one must destroy the si jiu (Four Olds): old customs, habits, culture, and ideas. By dropping the urn, Ai lets go of the social and cultural structures that impart value. Furthermore, his piece of work was meant to challenge Chinese authoritarianism which for Ai had tarnished the values embodied by traditional Chinese culture. "

Self incrimination, in law, refers to the provision of evidence or making statements that implicates or connects an individual accused of crime to the crime. Usually, countries do have some protections (on paper) against compelled self-incrimination, such as the right to remain silent, Article 20(3) of the Indian Constitution, etc. For the purposes of the debate, acts that would constitute self-incrimination would include confessions by individuals during police interrogations, testifying against oneself in court trials and agreeing to plead guilty in exchange for a lower sentence or sympathetic treatment from the courts (plea bargains).

Anmol is in grade 12 of high school. In school, Anmol has always been an average student, but he is incredibly passionate and talented at history. Anmol's mother raises him as a single mom, and has had to work three jobs to provide for him, forcing her to give up her dream of going to a dance school. Now, as Anmol is nearing graduation, his mother wants him to work to help pay off loans and not go to university, at least for a few years. Anmol had reluctantly agreed, but he applied to universities anyway, without informing his mother. Anmol got accepted into his dream school with a need-based scholarship that covers most of the school fees, and now, he is rethinking his mother's wish.

(Put a screenshot of the tweet in context slide 1) Research has shown that corvids (members of the crow family) sometimes leave behind trinkets (little things) at familiar spots. There is no conclusive evidence that identifies the cause for such behaviour. On the one hand, these acts can be read as ""gifts"" of gratitude that reciprocate the care humans show corvids in a show of symbolic kinship between the human and the non-human. While on the other hand, ascribing meaning to seemingly random acts like this risks reducing non-human ways of being to anthropocentric frameworks. Note: Anthropocentrism derives from the Greek anthropos meaning ""human"" and Greek kentrikos ""pertaining to a center""."

Ayush Verma is a deeply ethical individual. While foraging through a forest, Ayush happens to come across two surely-deadly traps some distance away. In a bizzare situation that (you think) will never happen in real life, a tiger cub is ignorantly ambling towards one trap, while a human baby is crawling towards the second. Ayush has to make a choice.

"Thoureau's Walden is his reflection on the meaning of life as he places himself within natural surroundings, divorced completely from people. Written in a secluded cabin in a woodland, Walden theorises about individual self-reliance and spiritual discovery, and contains emperical observations and metaphysical reflections based on natural phenomena. He writes, ""I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily... reduce [life] to its lowest terms."

Maheshism is a philosophy that finds value in being indecisive, in trying to see the good on both sides of the spectrum.

"Futurity (the quality of being able to have or imagine a future) and hope remain contested ideas in the domain of queer theory. While theorists like Lee Edelman have argued for a dismantling of an investment in the idea of futurity. For Edelman, futurity is inextricably intertwined with "reproductive futurity," by which he means a way of organising communal relations that replicates the heterosexual social order such that "the Child remains the perpetual horizon of every acknowledged politics." This means that the Child becomes the pivotal metaphor for futurity. This emblematic innocent Child is in need of protection and it is in his name that the queer is abjected because the queer threatens this very innocence. If the fight for the Child becomes synonymous with a fight for the future itself, "queerness names the side of those not fighting for the children". An investment in the hope of a better future---which is always deferred---takes away from the politics of the present, excusing current oppression. Queerness then is to be experienced firmly in the present. On the other hand, José Esteban Muñoz declares that "queerness is not yet here," framing queerness as the domain of the future, as a longing for something that has not yet been realised. Therefore to invest in the ideality of hope is to break away from a stagnant present, acknowledging the different potentialities promised by the future. He writes, "the here and the now is a prison house. We must strive to... think and feel a then and there".

Heteropessimism is the idea that heterosexuality is steeped in disappointment, embarrassment and regret. This looks like women being consistently humiliated by their own straight experiences even as they do continue to participate in a series of straight encounters. It claims that heterosexuality can never be equitable, redemptive, or satisfying for women. Heteropessimism then entails a renouncing of one's personal emotional affiliation with heterosexuality, importantly without relinquishing it as a practice. Asa Seresin writes that "the structure of heteropessimism" is anticipatory, designed to "preemptively anesthetize the heart against the pervasive awfulness of heterosexual culture as well as the sharp plunge of quotidian romantic pain."

"The Irish struggle for independence during 1916-21 ultimately led to the creation of an independent Irish state. However, in exchange for its independence, the old IRA’s (Irish republican army that fought for Irish independence) leadership agreed to allow Northern Ireland to remain under British rule.

During the 1960's in Northern Ireland, Protestants were given preference in jobs and housing, and local government constituencies. Several peaceful demonstrations from the Catholic Northern Irish who wanted independence were met with violence from Britain. The Irish republican army (IRA) at this time was a paramilitary movement that fought for an independent Irish republic. They wanted to free Northern Ireland from British rule. However, in 1969 there were growing differences within the group that led to a split creating an Official IRA and a Provisional IRA.

The official IRA wanted to establish a united socialist Ireland through peaceful means by emphasising on democratic activism. They argued for working class unity over religious differences. The Provisional IRA wanted to establish an Irish republic that was founded on Catholic identity. They advocated for a more violent approach and are open to achieving their aims through armed struggle."

"Mahatma Gandhi's conceptualisation of passive resistance was premised on the idea of ""soul-force"". He explains the concept as such- ""If I do not obey a law that I don't like and accept the penalty for its breach, I use soul force. It involves a sacrifice of the self"". He states that using soul force requires immense courage as the person has to be ready to let go of violence and must prepare to face consequences of challenging oppressive structures peacefully. Gandhi believed that violence would never accomplish the goal of an independent Indian republic and would unfairly force individuals to fight structures that are inherently more powerful than them. While his idea was accepted by many Indians who were involved in the civil disobedience movement, many felt that his concept of ""soul-force"" was privileged as it assumed equitable value to life ascribed to all individuals irrespective of gender, class and caste. They argued that some within the Indian society are more privileged and are hence able to justifiably ""sacrifice the self"" without facing severe consequences. "

Rahul is the oldest adopted son of a rich business tycoon, Yashvardhan Raichand, a conservative, authoritarian patriarch and Nandini, a nurturing and loving mother and docile wife. Rahul knows he is adopted. When Rahul falls for Anjali, a spirited and lower-middle class woman, Yash, on finding it out is enraged because he had already arranged Rahul's marriage to the more lucrative, profitable, and respectable Naina. Hurt by his father's treatment of Anjali and his refusal to accept Rahul's choice, Rahul leaves his family for London. Living there as an immigrant, Rahul and Anjali struggle to instill their culture in their child, as Rahul deeply regrets his separation from his mother.