A Journey to Ayodhya/Granta
The lives of three unrelated individuals become entwined with the key stages of the Hindu nationalist movement to build a temple for Ram in the town of Ayodhya.
Romance Scammers Find A New Way to TARGET Indian Women/new lines magazine
An ever-growing number of romance and matrimonial scams in India prey on the rising aspirations of women, with fraudsters capitalising on their demand for agency in intimate relationships.
The world’s garment workers are on the front lines of climate impact/GRIST
Around the world, fashion’s mostly female labor force is grappling with working conditions made increasingly unbearable and unhealthy by climate change. Women picking cotton in India’s sun-baked fields are toiling in temperatures of roughly 113 degrees Fahrenheit, while workers in Ghana’s Kantamanto — one of the world’s largest secondhand markets where clothing discarded by Western consumers is resold — are losing vital wages when flooding prevents trade.
How Turkish Barbers Became Ubiquitous in Britain/fINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND
In Sedgley I thought I might be able to discover the answer to a question that had been nagging at me since I arrived in the UK: how had Turkish barber shops become so ubiquitous in Britain?
THE AI ACCOMPLICE/THE DIAL
The trial of Jaswant Chail under Britain’s Treason Act is the first time a legal verdict hinged on an alleged assassin’s relationship with an AI companion. The high-profile case also raises questions about freedom, intimacy, and culpability in AI-human relationships.
“HAD WE NOT COME HERE, OUR LIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY DIFFERENT”/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Started in 2017, Yudhveer Akhada is a residential wrestling academy for girls, run by a family of competitive wrestlers in Sonipat, a semi-urban industrial town in Haryana. Every student who enters the academy has the same goal: to win an Olympic medal for India.
The world’s biggest youth population has a chilling insight into the future of work/CNN
For perhaps the first time in history, we see a peculiar combination: the emergence of a large youth population that is ambitious and tech-savvy, against the backdrop of a shrinking job market and rapidly transforming internet. Where that is taking India offers important insights for the rest of the world as to what might be coming their way.
One man, two dead bodies, two post-mortems, and six fake insurance policies /BUSINESSWEEK
How life insurance scams swept through a corner of India's north-east
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No power, no fans, no AC: The villagers fighting to survive India’s deadly heatwaves/MIT Tech review
Since northwest India first began to see alarming temperatures, local governments have been advising people not to go out in the sun if they can help it. But Nagla Tulai is one of the few Indian villages yet to be electrified. That means no fans, no coolers, and no air conditioners for its 150-odd households
The Dark World of Deepfaked Debt/The Dial
India’s online loan sharks are blackmailing borrowers with fake pornographic images.
India is detaining protesters and many others as political prisoners/THE ATLANTIC
Quiet descended on Delhi. The anti-CAA movement was effectively over. The fallout, however, was still to come. On the morning of April 9, 2020, Aqil got a call from a police constable. His sister had been arrested.
Inside India’s Booming Dark Data Economy/rest of world
Thanks to lax privacy laws and high consumer demand, details on everything from how you shop to who you date are all for sale
how chinese dating apps prey on the loneliness of india’s men
"Do you not have a girlfriend? Make one now!” The racy messages are sent by bots, and the women who appear after buying virtual currency are trained and paid by the apps to exhaust it
The life and times of a tiktok star
"I may not always be a TikTok star but I will always be a star."Two years ago Israil Ansari was working as a handyman and didn’t even own a smartphone. Then things started to go crazy.
INDIANS TAKE OVER YOUTUBE
“You want to race with us, go ahead and do it."For many young Indians, YouTube is synonymous with the internet. They use it to ask questions, make friends and learn skills.
the man who lived
“Imagine the pain of parents being consoled about the death of their son who was sitting in front of them!"WhatsApp is a primary source of news for Indians, except most of what circulates as news in the private networks isn’t based on facts at all. The consequences can be deadly.
A TINDER MURDER IN JAIPUR
“Stubborn. What she wanted, she wanted. Got angry easily. Couldn’t take no. Didn’t have the fear of anything."In February 2018, Priya Seth and Dushyant Sharma met on Tinder. In May, Sharma was dead, and Seth was in jail on charge of murdering him.
MURDER IN THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
Eight-year-old Pradhyumn Thakur was already dead when I first saw his face on a breaking-news broadcast.
Indian youth struggles with identity, jobs and sex
“I am 23 at present, but the hollowness has begun to set in.” Millions of young Indians are heading online to make sense of their place in the world, expressing their unfiltered views on arranged marriages, joint families, the caste system.
THE THREE MOST POLARISING WORDS IN INDIA RIGHT NOW
“On my final journey, cover me in saffron clothes and chant Jai Shri Ram.”Jai Shri Ram was meant to be a celebration of a Hindu deity, but the phrase is turning into hate speech— and a dog whistle for attacks on Muslims.
In Shaheen Bagh
The new citizenship law is the most controversial topic in India today. On one side are the BJP, its political allies and its Hindu nationalist supporters. On the other side is everyone protesting the law—rich and poor, students and professionals, activists and actors—nowhere as steadfastly as in Shaheen Bagh.
small city, big dreams
"Not everyone can get every job."The horizon of promise keeps receding in India’s rapidly expanding cities.
india’s fake news challenge
“Even if five people at every booth install the NaMo app Modi will be PM for next 25 years.”Many of India’s misinformation campaigns are developed and run by political parties with nationwide cyberarmies.
NEW TURN TO CASTE CONFLICTS
“The Jatavs of Basai do what they say. And Sanjay Jatav is one of them"Dalits are being attacked across India for asserting their strides in education, jobs, income. They aren’t backing off anymore.
WHO IS A KANWARIYA AND WHAT DOES HE WANT
“It’s not for the ladies.."What used to be a monsoon ritual undertaken in pockets of the Gangetic plains is today India’s biggest annual pilgrimage. The Kanwariya route is also 200 km of free-ranging masculinity.
School killer to dreaded don: story of a life spiraling out of control
“If Bhai has to kill someone, he does it himself. He never threatens but believes in eliminating.” At 19 years of age, Akash Yadav believed he had two options: to join a criminal gang or to start his own.
THE GREAT INDIAN JOBS SCAM
“See, every call centre is engaged in one or the other kind of fraud. You can’t do much.” A scarcity of jobs and the anonymity of the internet have enabled an industry built around fake job promises. Some people who pay money to get jobs do end up employed, but as a job scammer.
tiktok is taking over india
“Some day my video may be picked up. It takes effort.” In theory, TikTok is just an app where users post short videos, but in practice it’s the stage on which teenagers across the world are competing for attention, for celebrity, and, in India, for a completely different life.
Fourteen years, six deaths, one family suspect, and a trace of cyanide
In Kerala one woman has been charged with poisoning six members of her husband’s family with cyanide. Did she do it?
THE RISE OF THE LYNCH MOB
"One of them is going to die" The victims of India’s mob attacks are often poor and marginalised: a woman beggar attacked in Tikamgarh; four Muslims, including an eight-year-old boy, attacked in Gaya; a pregnant deaf-mute woman attacked in Delhi.
modi’s message: hindus first
“I hate all politicians. Except one.”Why did millions of Indians give five more years to a man whose government had arguably left the country worse than it was in 2014? .
how a MULTI-MILLION insurance scam preyed on disease, poverty, desperation
“They were making money off it"Between 2017 and 2019, nearly hundred people from villages in Haryana officially died in road accidents. What actually happened to them is beyond imagination.
the art and commerce of cheating IN EXAMS
“An army of unemployed youngsters has thus been built."Inside the parallel examination economy in Kaushambi, the nerve centre of the exam cheating trade in Uttar Pradesh.
why indians are clashing over water, electricity
“First this government makes your life hell and then the electricity people.” Poor and unequal access to water and electricity turn every Indian summer into a carnival of violence (state vs state, state vs individual, companies vs consumers, man vs neighbor).
the cult of the hindu cowboy
‘We will keep the numbers of the cow mother intact with our corpses.It’s going to be a fight the enemies will remember.’In 2015 Haryana became India’s thirteenth state to outlaw the ‘murder’ of the cow and/or the consumption of beef.