Meta’s handling of child sexual-abuse material has exposed the hollowness of the tech behemoth’s claim to be merely a simple intermediary. A company whose algorithms decide what millions of users see and that builds its advertising business around that distribution can hardly retreat into the role of a passive conduit when some of what it helps circulate is abhorrent. The Indian government’s contention that Meta should instead be regarded as a service provider gives it some r

The reassuring part of the new Unified Payments Interface (UPI) framework is that customers will apparently not be charged for using UPI. The more interesting part is who, then, pays for keeping one of the world’s most widely used digital-payment systems running. From October 15, a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) of 0.4 percent will apply to specified person-to-merchant transactions above Rs. 2,000, with a ceiling of Rs. 300 on transactions of Rs. 75,000 or more. Person-to-perso

For six years, the Disha Salian case has remained trapped in a fog of unanswered questions, disputed narratives and institutional inaction. It appears that the fog is now finally beginning to lift. The CBI’s recent FIR has brought into the investigation a startling array of names including Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and MLA Aaditya Thackeray, his father, Sena (UBT) chief and former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Dino Morea, Sooraj Pancholi, Rhea Chakraborty, Sachin Vaze, Param

Ganeshotsav is at its best when it brings Maharashtra together. For ten days, neighbourhoods become communities and homes become welcoming spaces as devotion spills naturally into the streets. There is music, modaks and the unmistakable sense that the festival belongs to everyone. Few public celebrations have such a powerful capacity to create shared joy. Yet, in recent years, Ganeshotsav festivities have tended towards bombastic spectacle, be it the height of an idol or the

The continuing campaign to caricature Vinayak Damodar Savarkar says rather more about the impoverishment of India’s political discourse than it does about Savarkar himself. A recent viral video mocking him proffers the familiar spectacle of those who believe that reducing a complex historical figure to a punchline constitutes serious political argument. The most revealing aspect of the latest mockery is its casualness. It treats the man as though he were merely a political op

Twenty-five years after September 11th 2001, the most consequential question is what has the world learnt from it. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people while shattering the illusion of American invulnerability and inaugurating two decades of war, radicalisation and instability. After all this, the enduring central lesson remains that terrorism does not disappear because its most visible organisation is defeated. Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda did not emerge from out of the blue

The Eiffel Tower is an unlikely place for a quarrel about religion, gender and multiculturalism. Yet, a private visit by a BAPS delegation has managed to turn one of France’s most recognisable symbols into the setting for one. The controversy deserves neither the reflexive defensiveness of some Indian commentators nor the temptation to turn the conduct of one religious organisation into a verdict on India. During the visit this week by around 100 people associated with BAPS,

The collapse of the Delhi hostel which has left six people dead and several more injured brings into sharp relief the dangerous disconnect between what is sanctioned and what is actually built in Indian cities. The structure was reportedly sanctioned only up to ground-plus-one, yet had grown to five storeys and was being used as a densely occupied student hostel. While the investigation will establish whether the basement alterations, weakened pillars, waterlogging or some ot

With the successful launch of the EOS-05 aboard the GSLV-F17, India has finally acquired its first dedicated Earth-imaging satellite designed to operate from a geosynchronous orbit. The imaging satellite is a significant step towards strategic self-reliance and will make us less dependent on foreign technology and intelligence. The imaging satellite gives us something every serious space power needs: the ability to watch, rather than merely look. Given the magnitude of our th

The assault of a Pune resident and anti-noise activist vocal about excessive noise during festivals is a disturbing reminder of what happens when religious enthusiasm becomes a licence for civic lawlessness. A disagreement over loudspeakers and DJs should be settled by argument. It should never end with one citizen hitting another. The attacker has reportedly been arrested and charged with serious offences. But the incident exposes a growing intolerance towards anyone who que

The Bombay High Court’s decision to hand the Disha Salian death case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is a welcome, though long overdue move. For six years, the death of the 28-year-old celebrity manager has remained trapped between an official narrative and a cloud of unanswered questions. Salian fell from the 14th floor of a Mumbai building on June 8, 2020. Six days later, actor Sushant Singh Rajput, whom she had managed, was found dead. The coincidence has sinc

There is something almost comical about China and Pakistan sitting together at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and solemnly condemning terrorism. The recent Bishkek Declaration declared that “double standards” in the fight against terrorism was unacceptable. It called for action against terrorism, including the cross-border movement of terrorists, and rejects attempts to exploit terrorist, separatist and extremist groups for selfish purposes. One wonders whether a

The numbers emerging from Maharashtra’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls are striking, but they should not be read simply as a story of voter exclusion. They are also a warning about urban voter apathy and mobility that are making the electoral rolls increasingly difficult to maintain. Across Maharashtra, 20.68 million electors, or 21.14 percent of registered voters, have been excluded from the draft rolls after they could not be traced at their given addre

There is something deeply revealing about the reflexive hostility of the global ‘Left-liberal’ establishment and their Westernized Indian counterparts towards the RSS. It seems less interested in what the organisation actually says than in what it has decided the organisation must mean. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat latest remarks in New York that if a Hindu believes there should be no Muslims in Bharat, he is not a Hindu is proof of his inclusivity and that of his organization, wh

There is something almost literary about the Congress’s reaction to Sonia Gandhi’s memoir not being published in India by Penguin Random House. The episode follows a familiar script. Each time something happens where the facts are inconvenient for the Congress and its controlling dynasty, the party brass discovers a villain in Narendra Modi and the ruling BJP. Sonia Gandhi’s Belonging: A Journey of Love is scheduled for international release next month through Alfred A. Knopf

The systematic attempt by sections of the so-called ‘left liberal’ elite in the Western, in alliance with Islamic outfits, to suppress RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat’s address at Madison Square Garden exposes the performative nature of Western ‘free speech’ discourse. For decades, Western institutions have preached pluralism, yet the moment when the head of a major Hindu civilisational organisation seeks to engage with its diaspora, the entire apparatus of Western left-liberal and a

The Himalayas are becoming a graveyard of warnings ignored. Nepal’s latest flash floods have killed at least 165 people and left more than 800 missing, including hundreds of Indian tourists. What makes the catastrophe especially disturbing is that the torrent was not an entirely unforeseeable act of nature. The flash floods that tore through the Bhotekoshi River corridor were initially attributed to a 4.4-magnitude earthquake. The US Geological Survey has since concluded that

A basic knowledge of the local language should not be an unreasonable demand for someone earning a living by serving the public in that state. The perfectly reasonable proposition put forward by the state government that commercial passenger-vehicle drivers should possess a working knowledge of Marathi has been unfortunately recast by some taxi and autorickshaw drivers as an assault on fundamental rights. Four Mumbai-based Uber drivers have approached the Bombay High Court,

Newborns dying in a fire inside a government hospital is a devastating indictment of a system that is supposed to protect its most vulnerable patients. The Amravati District Women’s Hospital tragedy, where a blaze killed three infants, joins a long list of preventable institutional failures. Thirty-nine babies were inside the three-compartment facility when the fire erupted after a ventilator in the neonatal unit caught fire. Thirty-six were eventually rescued. Parents and ey

The death of two people and injuries to five others after a 22-foot Ganesh idol collapsed during its arrival ceremony in Mumbai is a deeply disturbing accident. It is particularly unfortunate that such an incident should occur barely three weeks before Ganeshotsav begins on September 14. A festival that is synonymous with devotion, community and celebration must not begin under such a gloomy shadow. The incident took place in Bhuleshwar, as the idol of Bhuleshwaracha Raja was