-The Indian Express A large new study, releasing today, seeks to understand the fundamental bases of the choices India makes while voting in elections. The study seeks to document the ideas and attitudes that frame the country’s larger political culture. There is a lack of over-time data on how Indians think about intercommunity relations, relations between citizens and the government, and the nature of the political community. To fill this gap, the...

-The Times of India Terror casualties may make more headlines but in the past 15 years alone, love has killed more people than terror attacks. Between 2001 and 2015, love was the officially recorded reason for 38,585 murders and culpable homicide cases. Government records also link it with 79,189 suicides. Further, 2.6 lakh kidnapping cases were also filed in this period where marriage was mentioned as the motive of 'abducting' women. That's an...

-Hindustan Times The recent crackdown on meat shops in Uttar Pradesh offers a peek into the ethical divide that exists between vegetarians and non-vegetarians in India. The increase in meat consumption, intensive animal farming and growing cruelty against animals has given rise to compassion movements across the world. It should be a matter of pride therefore that India is among the most-vegetarian countries in the world. But how does meat become a...

-The Hindu Business Line From a severely critical stand against Aadhaar in 2014, the Modi-led BJP in power has made a sharp U-turn to bulldoze its way into having every Indian scanned, tagged and labelled. A timeline of the country’s chequered date with the unique identification project You’ve probably read the WhatsApp joke about a post-Aadhaar scenario in 2020 India. A man orders pizza over phone. He is asked for his Aadhaar...

-RuralIndiaOnline.org Despite the slow decline of the renowned handlooms of Dharmavaram in Andhra Pradesh, Shankara Dhanunjaya tried to work hard and prosper. But in 2016, at the age of 35, debts, crumbling dreams and crushing policy changes drove him to suicide All the handloom halls Into mortuary rooms Being metamorphosed That inexplicable sorrow! (From ‘Maggam bathuku’ an epic poem by Dr. U. Radheya, who is from a family of weavers; translated by Dr. P. Ramesh Narayana) In...