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Ideas Society

In India, Weaponizing Marriage Laws To Subjugate Muslims

The forced abortiona of a Hindu woman married to a Muslim man should be treated like murder by the state. Yet, not much is being said about it, or other ways new laws are used to disenfranchise Muslims.

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Ideas Society

‘Cancel Culture’ In India Looks Like Old-Fashioned Bigotry

Hindu nationalist groups want to force the cancellation of Netflix shows that celebrate inter-religious romance with Muslims — it’s both censorship and ethnic prejudice.

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Geopolitics Society

How Women Are Driving India’s Massive Farmer Protests

A growing number of women — farmers, students, ASHA workers and others — have joined the demonstrations. Others support the effort by staying home to tend family farms.

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In The News

A Village Wedding On The Militarized Indo-Pakistan Border

Despite decades of violence and tension between opposing army outposts, villagers caught in between have no choice but to keep living their lives.

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Society

Urban Village Life: How Delhi’s Lal Dora Villages Survived

Demarkated by the British for tax purposes, these villages have since been swallowed by India’s massive capital city, but continue to stand apart in terms of zoning and design.

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Ideas Migrant Lives

Nothing Quaint About India’s COVID Exodus To Countryside

The pandemic has prompted many city workers to seek refuge back in the countryside roots. For the government, it’s an extra challenge, but also an opportunity for long-term rural development.

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Eyes on the U.S. U.S. Election 2020 - Views From Abroad

How India’s Hindu-Muslim Strife Could Help Trump In Texas

What is happening in India is casting a long shadow on the forthcoming U.S. elections.

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In The News

Xi And Modi: The Psychological Duel Between Asia’s Strongmen

-Analysis- NEW DELHI — It was mid-September 2014, India was abuzz with the visit of Chinese president, Xi Jinping and his wife, folk singer Peng Liyuan. Televisions channels played an extended video loop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi sitting on a swing with Xi on the banks of the Sabarmati River, while excited anchors foretold an era of Sino-Indian peace, forged between the two strongmen who had come to power within two years of each other. Six years later, the Modi-Xi relationship lies in tatters, as do ties between New Delhi and Beijing. With Chinese soldiers having marched across the […]

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Ideas Society

India’s Liberals And The Misguided Appeal Of Religious Nostalgia

Hindutva is a menace of Indian society, and to confront it head on, liberals need to stop celebrating the supposedly tolerant Hinduism of yesteryear, historian Partha Pratim Shil argues.

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In The News

In India, A Manual And Movement To Talk Openly About Menstruation

-Analysis- CHENNAI — “What is this?,” my curious seven year old asked, picking up a pack of sanitary napkins, as I found just the right position to take a picture to accompany an article on a menstrual hygiene movement in Chennai. I paused for a minute, and replied, “These are like thin diapers that girls wear for around one week every month.” I was caught off guard, and mentally kicked myself for the diaper reference. He looked suitably impressed with the design on the package and inspected the pads as well. We don’t have cable TV so he hasn’t been […]

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In The News

A Female Voice Busts Into ‘Man’s World’ Of Moroccan Rap

With edgy lyrics and an attitude that’s too legit to quit, rapper Houda Abouz — aka Khtek — is pushing against the grain and gaining a substantial following.

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In The News

Fisherman Are Easy Bait To Feed India-Pakistan Conflict

When Pakistani fisherman Abdul Karim Bhatti, who had been a prisoner in India for seven months, was flown home to Karachi, Pakistan, at the end of July, his family didn’t rejoice. They were receiving his dead body. The only information they received was that he died on July 1 at the B.K. Hospital, Bhuj. Or so stated the death certificate, a bilingual document in English and Gujrati, issued on July 9 by the government of the state of Gujrat. No postmortem was carried out. The Indian maritime security forces had arrested Bhatti, along with other fishermen, on January 8 and […]

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In The News

India-China Standoff: Dalai Lama, A Not-So-Secret Weapon

The Narendra Modi government has largely ignored the Tibetan leader, who lives in exile in India, but the country’s military leaders now say support for the iconic monk could be the perfect way to push back on China.

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Future Green Or Gone Society

Toxic Cities, Expendable Lives: The Waste Crisis In India And Beyond

Unless we question the socio-economic structures associated with the production of waste and waste management, we’ll never dig out of the waste crisis.

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Geopolitics Society

Punjab Postcard: A Street Artist Paints Old Left In New Light

Artist Balvir Singh and his murals of revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Lenin have helped rekindle socialist ideas in his home state of Punjab.

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Economy

How India Is Failing Its Most Essential Workers

From salary cuts to protective equipment shortages, frontline workers are having to protest and plead just to get their basic dues.

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In The News

Developing The COVID-19 Vaccine Is Only Half The Battle

Even if researchers’ quest for the coronavirus vaccine concludes quickly — and that’s a big if — the solution would still need to me manufactured, packaged, paid for and distributed.

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Ideas

A Better Way To Read India’s Rising COVID-19 Numbers

How is the pandemic panning out in the world’s second most populous country? Science editor for The Wire, Vasudevan Mukunth, offers some statistical insight.

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In The News

Police Violence Is A Major Issue In India Too

So far there’s been little obvious effort to hold authorities accountable for the rising number of people — especially Muslims, Dalits and other minorities — who die while in police custody.

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Economy Ideas

Why Modi’s Big-Money Stimulus Package Isn’t What It Seems

-Analysis- NEW DELHI — In a discussion on NDTV about the contents of the third tranche of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”s stimulus package for the economy, Yogendra Yadav, one of India’s most respected psephologists, called it “entertainment.” Yadav is a gentle human being who goes out of his way to avoid giving offense, above all on TV. So “entertainment” was the most civilized word he could think of. I will be a little more blunt. Not just the third tranche, but the entire “stimulus package” advertised by Modi on May 12 is a gigantic confidence trick being played upon a […]

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Ideas Society

India And The Poisoned Chalice Of Islamophobia

Anti-Muslim attitudes are ‘eating away at the idea of India’ and finding expression even among the country’s cosmopolitan elite.

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In The News

The India-China Conflict And The Ghosts Of 1962

For some, anti-Chinese rhetoric following the killing of 20 Indian soldiers is conjuring up memories of a dark and mostly forgotten chapter in India’s history.

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In The News

How The Pandemic Could Shake Up India’s Political System

The coronavirus crisis could reshape how the country’s leadership goes about its business.

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In The News

India-China Clash: Border Maps And Facts On The Ground

Zooming in on the territory in question and the shifting history between Asia’s (and the world’s) two biggest nations.

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Ideas Society

From India To Oxford: How Black Lives Matter Hits Home For Me

An activist and Oxford professor of anthropology of South Asia recounts her experience, and reflections, during a Black Lives Matter protest in the UK.

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In The News

COVID-19 And The Case For Taxing India’s Rich

To mitigate the high economic costs of the pandemic, it’s time to demand greater contributions from those who can afford to pay.

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Ideas

COVID-19 And The Fault Lines of India’s Unequal Society

The pandemic and the response to it threaten to exacerbate entrenched economic and social disparities.

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Economy

For The Economy, Lockdown Is Worse Than War

A view from India on the prospects of major upheaval in the short-term and the possibility of a lasting economic depression.

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In The News

Giving Delhi’s Toilet Museum The Time And Attention It Deserves

The facility’s peculiar focus may seem a bit funny at first. But as visitors are quick to discover, having access to hygienic toilets is no laughing matter, especially in India.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Beyond Resistance: What India Needs Now Is A Revolution

As the ‘center’ continues to shift rightward — in India and elsewhere — people need to do more than just push back against the powers that be.

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In The News

Indian Women In The Military: Time To Give Them Real Power

The government had said that ‘rural Indian men’ would not take orders from a woman commander. It’s just a cover for the sexism of the ruling class.

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Geopolitics Society

India’s Anti-Muslim Violence Is Part Of An Ugly Pattern

By now, many across Delhi, and Sikhs across the world, are retriggered by memories the pogroms of 1984.

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In The News

Coronavirus, A Two-Way Street For India’s Economy

While there are significant supply chain concerns across sectors in the short-term, others see this as yet another distant opportunity to take some business away from China.

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In The News

Why Sending A Female Android To Space Is A Problem

India’s space program will use a female android named Vyommitra to test the crew module ahead of its first crewed flight. Why did the robot have to be female? And where are the real women astronauts?

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In The News

Caste To Citizenship Law, An Indian Rapper Finds His Voice

CHENNAI — Twenty-six-year-old Arivu’s small room, on the fourth-floor terrace of an apartment in suburban Chennai, is as lively as his music. It is in this room that Arivu shot his now iconic rap song “Sanda seivom”, which effortlessly rips the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens apart. Pictures of Ambedkar and Buddha are looking over him and an ektara (the instrument) standing tall. “It was a gift from the Tata Institute for Social Sciences when I recently visited them,” Arivu says. “I intend to learn to play it and even use it in my rap.” A single […]

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Future Society

The Case For Banning Facial Recognition Systems Altogether

With automated electronic surveillance systems, suspicion does not precede data collection but is generated by the analysis of the data itself.

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Geopolitics

Boasting ‘Digital India’ – Shutting Down The Internet

India’s cutting digital access for political reasons also costs livelihood for small businesses, women’s safety, access to transport, food, education and almost every other aspect of a modern life.

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Geopolitics

Fear And Empowerment: Why Women Are Leading India’s Protests

Is this a movement of women from India’s liberal campuses against a new citizenship law targeting the country’s Muslim minority? Or does it run much deeper?

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In The News

Hate And Fear: Weapons Of Choice In Today’s India

The country’s leadership is opening a Pandora’s box by normalizing brutality and impunity.

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In The News

Watching Impeachment, Mocking India’s Broken Democracy

Trump’s biggest problem, it’s safe to say, are all those pesky checks and balances. *Luckily, those limitations don’t apply in ‘the world’s largest democracy.’

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