India

Book Review: She Refused to Break by Dhruti Mukesh Jain

Published

4 weeks ago

September 17, 2026

Book Review: She Refused to Break by Dhruti Mukesh Jain

There is a particular cruelty in losing the very thing the world has come to admire about you. In Dhruti Mukesh Jain’s She Refused to Break: She Was Beautifully Unbroken, that cruelty becomes the emotional centre of a story about a successful singer whose carefully constructed image of perfection is shattered by sudden facial paralysis. Published by Bigfoot Publications in September 2026, the novel follows a woman who must learn to understand beauty, ambition and identity all over again.

The novel opens at the height of its protagonist’s success. She is performing before thousands, celebrated online and surrounded by luxury, applause and an apparently enviable life. Yet the glittering surface conceals the insecurities beneath it. Her social-media persona is built around empowerment and confidence, even as she privately worries about maintaining the illusion of strength. Her devoted partner, Ved, is the one person who sees beyond the celebrity façade. The contrast between public triumph and private vulnerability gives the opening chapters their dramatic charge.

Then comes the rupture. After an extraordinary performance, during which she holds a climactic note for five seconds, her face suddenly ceases to obey her. The diagnosis is severe Bell’s palsy, or acute facial paralysis, caused by inflammation and compression of the seventh cranial nerve. What follows is not simply a medical crisis but an existential one. A woman who has made her face, voice and physical command part of her profession must confront a terrifying question: who is she when the body can no longer perform as expected?

Dhruti’s strongest achievement is the way she gradually shifts the meaning of “recovery”. The protagonist initially wants her old face and voice back. Eventually, however, she understands that healing cannot mean recreating the past. In one of the book’s most affecting passages, she returns repeatedly to the piano, relearning basic sounds—“Ah”, “Oo”, “Ma”, “Pa”—and refuses to measure progress by perfection.

The supporting relationship between her and Ved provides the novel with its emotional ballast. He does not merely protect her; increasingly, he learns to stand beside her while she confronts her own vulnerability. His insistence that falling is permissible but remaining down is a choice becomes one of the book’s central ideas.

The book’s most compelling insight is that resilience is not the restoration of an untouched self. It is the discovery of a self that can exist after everything has changed.

By the later chapters, the singer no longer hides behind scarves, cosmetics or digital perfection. She walks into the recording studio with her asymmetry visible and begins again. Her eventual artistic breakthrough is consequently more meaningful than a conventional comeback: she discovers a “new voice” rather than simply recovering the old one.

She Refused to Break is ultimately less a story about a singer defeating an illness than about a woman refusing to let illness define the limits of her life. Its final message is simple, familiar and, in this case, earned: sometimes becoming whole does not mean becoming as you were. It means learning to love—and live through—the person you have become.

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India

Explained: What is a special intensive revision of electoral rolls, and why is it in court?

Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and other opposition leaders filed a petition in the Supreme Court on October 12 challenging the special intensive revision of electoral rolls and seeking an audit of voter deletions, after police stopped their march.

Published

3 hours ago

October 12, 2026

Ankita

A special intensive revision is a house-to-house verification and update of electoral rolls by the Election Commission.

Opposition leaders filed a petition in the Supreme Court on October 12 challenging the exercise.

They allege large-scale deletions of voters, which are their allegations.

They want an audit by a committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge.

They also want the revision suspended until the court decides.

It asks for an independent committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge to audit deletions and modifications in the electoral roll databases, according to the same reports.

It also seeks an interim suspension of the ongoing SIR until the matter is decided, and seeks action against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, according to the reports.

The reports published on Monday did not describe the Election Commission’s response to the petition.

India TV reported that the court could take up the petition on Tuesday, October 13, but the reports did not confirm that the case had been listed.

The petition was filed after the leaders marched from Connaught Place towards the Supreme Court, according to The Tribune’s live blog.

Police stopped the march at a barricade on Bhagwan Dass Marg, more than a kilometre from the court, according to PTI reports quoted in the same live blog.

Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav climbed on a vehicle to address the crowd, according to the live blog. The march did not reach the Supreme Court.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Tejashwi Yadav, D Raja, Supriya Sule, Sanjay Raut and Dipankar Bhattacharya were among the leaders present, according to the Tribune live blog.

Police said more than 30,000 personnel were deployed in the capital, according to the same live blog.

The Delhi Metro shut entry and exit at six central stations, Patel Chowk, Janpath, Rajiv Chowk, Mandi House, Central Secretariat and Barakhamba Road, from 6 am to 4 pm.

Supreme Court of India (file image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

India

Explained: What is a flight diversion, and why did IndiGo divert to Hyderabad?

IndiGo flight 6E6115 from Delhi to Chennai was diverted to Hyderabad on October 11 after a passenger’s power bank caught fire; the crew put out the flames and all passengers were reported safe.

Published

13 hours ago

October 12, 2026

Shubham

A diversion means landing at an airport other than the planned destination, usually for safety, weather or technical reasons.

IndiGo flight 6E6115 was diverted to Hyderabad after a passenger’s power bank caught fire.

Hyderabad is roughly midway between Delhi and Chennai.

The crew put out the fire and the aircraft landed safely.

All passengers were reported safe.

The aircraft landed safely at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad.

All passengers were reported safe, and the reports mention no injuries.

TBS News reported that the aircraft carried 191 people, while The South First gave no passenger count, so the number is from one outlet.

IndiGo said the safety of customers and crew remains its top priority, and that the cabin crew acted promptly to control the situation before landing.

The airline apologised for the inconvenience and said it was offering refreshments and updates to passengers.

IndiGo said an alternate flight was being arranged to take passengers from Hyderabad to Chennai.

Zee News described the diversion as an emergency landing, but an airport official said no emergency or priority landing needed to be declared as the fire had already been put out.

Reports differ on the timing of the onward departure from Hyderabad, with one giving about 5:45 pm.

Power banks are lithium-ion batteries, and damaged or faulty cells can overheat and catch fire.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has advised airlines that passengers should carry power banks in hand baggage and not use or charge them during flights.

The cause of the fire has not been reported, and no investigation findings were available in the reports.

Passengers who see smoke or heat from a device should alert the cabin crew immediately.

A diversion is a decision to land at an airport other than the planned destination, usually for safety, weather or technical reasons.

IndiGo Airbus A321neo (file image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

India

Explained: What is Section 163 of the BNSS, imposed in Manipur’s Kamjong?

Nine people have been killed in fresh clashes between Naga and Kuki groups in Manipur’s Kamjong, Ukhrul and Kangpokpi districts, officials said, and the Chief Minister has appealed for peace.

Published

13 hours ago

October 12, 2026

Shivam

Section 163 of the BNSS lets a district magistrate restrict gatherings and movement to prevent disturbance.

The Kamjong district magistrate imposed it after fresh clashes between Naga and Kuki groups.

It bans gatherings of five or more people and carrying firearms or other dangerous objects in the restricted area.

Nine people have been killed in clashes in three Manipur districts, according to officials.

No fresh incidents were reported on Sunday, October 11.

Chassad is a Kuki-majority village in a predominantly Naga district, according to the same report.

That killing set off an exchange of fire between Kuki and Naga armed groups that continued on Saturday and left a man dead and about 10 houses burned, according to the reports.

On Saturday, suspected militants killed people in Kangpokpi district’s Tapon and Makui villages, and in Kamjong district’s Ningchou village near the Myanmar border, according to Daijiworld.

A man was also shot dead in a vehicle in Ukhrul district, according to the same report.

Accounts of the victims differ between outlets: one report lists six Nagas, two Kukis and a Gorkha farmer, while another says the dead were from the same family, so the breakdown is not verified.

Kuki-Zo organisations held security forces and a Naga armed group responsible for the death of the woman in Chassad, according to Daijiworld.

A Naga civil society body, the Working Committee JTC Manipur, blamed militants for another killing, according to the same report. These are claims by the groups and have not been independently verified.

Officials attributed other attacks to suspected militants and did not name a group, according to Daijiworld.

No fresh incidents were reported in the three districts on Sunday, October 11, according to the reports.

Central armed police forces and Manipur Police have intensified patrols and search operations, and additional forces were sent to Kangpokpi and Kamjong.

Manipur hills (file image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0