Subterms
On April 5, India responded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to light earthen lamps for nine minutes at 9 pm. Earlier on March 19, he appealed for a 14-hour “people’s curfew” three days later. On March 25, Modi imposed a national lockdown over 1.3 billion people, the biggest such exercise in the world. Bringing […] More
In India, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government has a tendency for doing things like a “surgical strike.” In 2016, at just a few hours’ notice, Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed the 500 ($6.50) and 1,000 rupee notes from circulation. The move, known as demonetization, sent shockwaves throughout India and hit everyday citizens hard, particularly […] More
Since December 2019, India has witnessed a series of protests against the new Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the government’s decision to create a National Register of Citizens (NRC). The CAA proposes to give fast-track citizenship to religious minorities of three neighboring countries, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. However, it blatantly excludes Muslims while failing to […] More
Ever since the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) enacted the Citizenship Amendment Act that discriminates specifically against Muslim asylum seekers, India’s Muslim minority has been protesting and agitating. It is reacting against what it perceives to be majoritarian tyranny that has been exacerbated by the rise of the “Saffron brigade.” Muslim protests would not have […] More
Until recently, elections in Delhi were not a big deal. In fact, the act that governs the National Capital Territory of Delhi grants very limited autonomy to the city administration. Some derisively call elections for the Delhi government to be a glorified municipality contest. That derision may be misjudged. The Delhi election is a key […] More
Citizenship is fundamental to any republic, and the executive branch has the right and obligation to keep track of the number of citizens and non-citizens residing in its territory. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the recently passed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in India are worthy goals. However, considering the historical forces that have […] More
Over the past five years, India has seen several changes around the creation and dissemination of data. The Indian government has come under fire for withholding data on crucial issues like unemployment, as well as changing statistical methodologies to ascertain key metrics, calling into question the reliability of the source data itself. In a country […] More
Indian journalist Manu Joseph recently wrote a column in which he questions major intellectual advances in history, claiming they were nothing but delusional ideas of schizophrenics. He asks, rhetorically: “What if many things that we call philosophies today had emerged from a mental disorder? What if influencers are influential chiefly because of their mental anomalies? […] More
