- This series from Kunal Purohit on FactChecker goes behind the headlines and digs into the realities of hate crime in Uttar Pradesh.
- “The best possible way of improving upon our electoral process and bringing in greater trust in it is in a continuing and constructive critique of India’s EVM through a scrutiny of the election process including technical assessments of the devices used,” writes Srinivasan Ramani in the Hindu. “But there should be no place for an uninformed dismissal of the EVM as a part of the discourse as this will only increase distrust in our democratic process.”
- Over two pieces, Indian Express reporters Parthasarathi Biswas and Lalmani Verma look into the reasons that the sugar cane industry is ailing, in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
- In this Rajasthani village, residents leave out feed for thousands and thousands of visiting demoiselle cranes – but the popularity of the practice is causing a bit of trouble, writes Uddipana Kalita in the The Hindu.
- “When we first write, we have to remove the venom that has been sitting in our bodies and minds – accumulated from years of having to deal with Savarna fragility, criticism, bullies etc,” writes Vijetha Kumar in Firstpost. “Don’t Savarnas have bullies in their lives? Maybe. But caste doesn’t live in your bodies like it does in ours and sometimes its scars take a long time to fade. Often, they don’t fade at all.”
- Stray dogs have been disappearing from South Indian states. Shiba Kurian and Theja Ram find out what’s going on in The Newsminute.
- “Google began by unilaterally declaring that the world wide web was its to take for its search engine. Surveillance capitalism originated in a second declaration that claimed our private experience for its revenues that flow from telling and selling our fortunes to other businesses. In both cases, it took without asking.” John Naughton speaks to Shoshanna Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capital in the Guardian.
- Farhad Manjoo, in the New York Times, has a proposition for journalists: You don’t have to quit Twitter. “Instead, post less, lurk more.”
- “If you have an infant daughter, she is expected to live 81.1 years, and so she will be here for 2100, a year that is no longer mythical. She may see the world’s largest naval base, in Norfolk, swamped by rising seas,” writes Dan Zak in the Washington Post, exploring what it is like to live in the time of climate change. “During her lifetime, the oceans will acidify at a rate not seen in 66 million years. One research team suggests that by her 29th birthday, there will be no more saltwater fish.”
- Peter Martin, on Bloomberg, explores the vast police state of Xinjiang that is at the heart of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
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