If you’re planning a summer getaway, booking early may no longer be optional. A mix of rising jet fuel prices, geopolitical tensions in West Asia and flight reroutings is pushing airfares to record highs, with longer travel times and fewer cost-efficient options. Airlines are adjusting pricing to offset higher operating costs, while travellers are becoming more flexible with routes and destinations. Here’s what the current disruption means for your travel plans, and why the window for cheaper fares is quickly closing.
From palace stays to farm retreats: India makes its mark on TIME’s 2026 list
From a restored 350-year-old palace in Madhya Pradesh to a remote Himalayan lodge reachable only on foot, a regenerative farm stay in Rajasthan, and an experimental cocktail bar in Delhi, India’s diverse travel experiences are finding global recognition. These places have found a place in TIME’s World’s Greatest Places of 2026.
Kashmir in bloom: Asia’s largest tulip festival returns
Spring has arrived in the Kashmir Valley, and with it, one of its most anticipated seasonal spectacles. The Tulip Festival in Srinagar, set against the Zabarwan hills and overlooking Dal Lake, has opened with a record 1.8 million tulips across more than 70 varieties this year. As the garden blooms ahead of schedule, here’s everything to know — from the best time to visit and ticket details to what makes this vibrant, short-lived season one of India’s most striking travel experiences.
Travel perks, hidden charges and changing rules: What your money can get you
From hotel loyalty programmes evolving into full-fledged lifestyle reward ecosystems to airport lounge access benefits being tightened or linked to spending, the way travellers extract value from their money is shifting. At the same time, rising input costs — including the ongoing LPG shortage impacting restaurants — are surfacing in unexpected ways, with some eateries attempting to pass on costs through questionable add-on charges.
India’s metro network is among the world’s largest
The most dangerous thing on your plate is your phone
Somewhere along the way, eating stopped being instinctive and started becoming performative. We examine the act of photographing, filtering and sharing meals as more than just a habit. It’s a behaviour reshaping how we relate to food itself. Drawing on research and expert insight, the story explores how social media feeds, oscillating between extremes of indulgence and restriction, are quietly influencing eating patterns, body image and even mental health.
Scrolling, comparing, feeling worse: What social media is doing to young users
In the previous weeks, we looked at how governments around the world were reconsidering children’s access to social media and the evolution of technology to enforce them, and platforms’ adaptations. Now, a new global report links prolonged screen time — particularly passive, algorithm-driven content consumption — to lower life satisfaction, with teenage girls among the most affected.
Meta wants your audience — even if it lives elsewhere
But talking about social media, it’s not all negative. It is a brilliant tool for money-making if you know how to milk it right. With Meta’s new Creator Fast Track programme, the company is inviting digital creators with large followings on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube to start earning on Facebook too, offering guaranteed payouts, a reach boost and faster access to monetisation tools. The move signals a bigger platform battle for creators, where audiences may live on one app, but income opportunities are increasingly being built across many.
Imtiaz Ali and the business of millennial longing
As Imtiaz Ali marks over two decades in Hindi cinema, his films read less like love stories and more like a quiet decoding of the millennial psyche — a generation that spends to feel whole, yet often feels unmoored. From Rockstar to Tamasha, his characters capture the emotional undercurrents behind today’s biggest consumption trends — from slow travel and therapy culture to dating apps and passion-driven careers. In this piece, we explore how Ali’s cinema anticipated the desires driving India’s most powerful spending cohort, even as the cultural spotlight shifts to Gen Z.
What we watched this week: Dhurandhar: The Revenge
Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar: The Revenge is finally here! Arriving as a full-blown “mass event,” the Ranveer Singh-starrer leans into scale, spectacle and pre-release hype. While Singh’s feral screen presence anchors the film’s sprawling revenge arc, the absence of key characters and underwritten supporting roles dilute its emotional heft. The sequel taps into visceral anger and blockbuster ambition, even as it begins to feel overstretched and reverse-engineered by the end.
Stories where fiction and murder collide
Oh, and in case you missed it — Utah-based Kouri Richins, a mother of three who self-published a children’s book titled Are You with Me? after her husband’s “unexpected” death, has now been found guilty of his murder. It’s one of several chilling cases where writers were later accused or convicted of killing, with their own words appearing to cast an unsettling shadow over the crimes.
