The Latest: Top stories of the day
1. The Supreme Court has backed Kerala liquor ban and has asked other states to curtail alcohol consumption.
2. Centre approves Rs 5,000-crore drought relief package for Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra.
3. At least 22 killed in suicide blast in a Pakistani government office.
4. ISIS man who was close to Paris attacks ringleader killed in US airstrike.
5. The world’s richest got poorer this year, but Amazon’s Jeff Bezos did not.
The year’s best reads
1. Aditi Vatsa's September 30 report in the Indian Express from Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, about a man being beaten to death over rumours of consuming beef led to months of intense debate in India over growing intolerance under the Modi government.
2. Aman Sethi writes in the Guardian about "love jihad", the right-wing conspiracy theory that organised gangs of Muslims are seducing Hindu women in order to convert them to Islam. A year after the frenzy, however, most so-called love jihad cases turned out to be false, foisted on Muslim men by members of organisation such as the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other Hindutva bodies.
3. As Arvind Kejriwal ends the year accusing Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of corruption in Delhi’s cricket board, read Praveen Donthi’s profile of Jaitley published in May in the Caravan as well as Hartosh Singh Bal’s piece on how the Finance Minister courts influence in the media.
4. A photo of drowned toddler Aylan Kurdi showed the world the plight of Syria and its refugees desperate for shelter. Taken by Turkish photographer Nilufer Demir, it has already become an iconic moment of photo journalism which, like the 1970 photo of a napalm-burned Vietnamese girl, illustrates the immense damage caused by war.
5. John Oliver technically isn’t a journalist – he’s a comedian. But it’s a testament to how journalism is changing that episodes of his show, Last Week Tonight are widely shared for their funny yet often deeply researched take on the daily news. In 2015, Oliver commented on Modi’s visit to the US, explained how Greece has ended up on the brink of economic disaster, interviewed Edward Snowden and even let rip an expletive-laced rant against the terrorists who carried out the November attacks in Paris.
6. In the New Yorker, Samanth Subramanium profiles the rise of a brave rationalist movement in Bangladesh and the often violent backlash from religious conservatives.
7. Seymour Hersh’s explosive article in the London Review of Books claimed to expose that US claims about how Osama Bin Laden was killed were made up, in order to help President Obama politically and shield Pakistan, which had, in fact, cooperated closely with the US in trying to nab Laden. The story was criticised widely but still became so popular that it crashed the LRB website.
8. Graeme Wood’s widely-read article in the Atlantic explains that the Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths but a religious group with carefully considered beliefs.
9. A New York Times profile of Hamid Mir, Pakistan’s most famous television journalist, who lives in fear of being assassinated.
10. Is cricket a team game, asks Siddhartha Vaidyanathan in the Cricket Monthly .
Bonus raspberry read
Thomas Friedman’s column in the New York Times has been widely mocked. His critics had a field day, though, when Friedman actually suggested in March that the US arm the Islamic State.
1. The Supreme Court has backed Kerala liquor ban and has asked other states to curtail alcohol consumption.
2. Centre approves Rs 5,000-crore drought relief package for Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra.
3. At least 22 killed in suicide blast in a Pakistani government office.
4. ISIS man who was close to Paris attacks ringleader killed in US airstrike.
5. The world’s richest got poorer this year, but Amazon’s Jeff Bezos did not.
The year’s best reads
1. Aditi Vatsa's September 30 report in the Indian Express from Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, about a man being beaten to death over rumours of consuming beef led to months of intense debate in India over growing intolerance under the Modi government.
2. Aman Sethi writes in the Guardian about "love jihad", the right-wing conspiracy theory that organised gangs of Muslims are seducing Hindu women in order to convert them to Islam. A year after the frenzy, however, most so-called love jihad cases turned out to be false, foisted on Muslim men by members of organisation such as the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other Hindutva bodies.
3. As Arvind Kejriwal ends the year accusing Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of corruption in Delhi’s cricket board, read Praveen Donthi’s profile of Jaitley published in May in the Caravan as well as Hartosh Singh Bal’s piece on how the Finance Minister courts influence in the media.
4. A photo of drowned toddler Aylan Kurdi showed the world the plight of Syria and its refugees desperate for shelter. Taken by Turkish photographer Nilufer Demir, it has already become an iconic moment of photo journalism which, like the 1970 photo of a napalm-burned Vietnamese girl, illustrates the immense damage caused by war.
5. John Oliver technically isn’t a journalist – he’s a comedian. But it’s a testament to how journalism is changing that episodes of his show, Last Week Tonight are widely shared for their funny yet often deeply researched take on the daily news. In 2015, Oliver commented on Modi’s visit to the US, explained how Greece has ended up on the brink of economic disaster, interviewed Edward Snowden and even let rip an expletive-laced rant against the terrorists who carried out the November attacks in Paris.
6. In the New Yorker, Samanth Subramanium profiles the rise of a brave rationalist movement in Bangladesh and the often violent backlash from religious conservatives.
7. Seymour Hersh’s explosive article in the London Review of Books claimed to expose that US claims about how Osama Bin Laden was killed were made up, in order to help President Obama politically and shield Pakistan, which had, in fact, cooperated closely with the US in trying to nab Laden. The story was criticised widely but still became so popular that it crashed the LRB website.
8. Graeme Wood’s widely-read article in the Atlantic explains that the Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths but a religious group with carefully considered beliefs.
9. A New York Times profile of Hamid Mir, Pakistan’s most famous television journalist, who lives in fear of being assassinated.
10. Is cricket a team game, asks Siddhartha Vaidyanathan in the Cricket Monthly .
Bonus raspberry read
Thomas Friedman’s column in the New York Times has been widely mocked. His critics had a field day, though, when Friedman actually suggested in March that the US arm the Islamic State.
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