| A new acronym called INDIA dominated the political imagination this week. From self-congratulatory cheers, victory signs to memes, the new opposition alliance name coined at the Bengaluru meeting is the newest version of a trend of bizarre and twisted acronyms that Venkaiah Naidu started and PM Narendra Modi carried forward.
The name INDIA is brilliant, one of the smarter communicative moves made by the opposition in a long time, but a good name does not assure a decent career, wrote Yogendra Yadav.
PM Modi is right when he calls it an alliance of political dynasties. Vir Sanghvi wrote that Modi is also correct to say that many opposition leaders do not have the cleanest reputations. But when he said all this in 2014, Modi spoke from a position of lofty detachment. Now, his party is doing business with the very people he is simultaneously condemning. The basic rule is: They are corrupt dynasts unless they come over to our side.
Want to know how the super-rich in China hide their money? They use art to launder their gains from corruption. That's how it has also shaped the art industry in China, wrote Aadil Brar. High art remains valuable in the mainland and there is a proliferation of auction houses in Hong Kong.
Nepal has been blocking Indian Army’s recruitment of Gorkhas under the Agnipath scheme. This could have been used by India to dissociate itself from the British belief of the martial race theory, wrote Prakash Menon. But India continues to see substance in the theory birthed by the First War of Independence in 1857.
Siddique Kappan, the journalist who was jailed following the Hathras incident, made a rare appearance in Kolkata since his release on bail and said he is still in jail. He has to travel to Lucknow twice a month from Kerala. That's six days in a month, wrote Monideepa Banerjie, to appear in a Lucknow court. “Mainstream media has now become side stream and does only PR work for the government. There are exceptions. But now the only hope is alternative independent media. Else we will become a Myanmar or Afghanistan,” said Kappan.
Seema Haider, the Pakistani woman who ran away to India, is now being questioned by the UP anti-terror squad about possible terror connection. Is she a spy, part of a sleeper cell or just Greater Noida's newest high-profile bahu? Shubhangi Misra's ground report showed how the village is now split between the Romantics and the Sceptics.
The new buzzy film industry phrase these days is the rise of 'pan Indian cinema'. They refer to the roaring success of how South Indian movies are doing so well in the rest of the country—from Bahubali to RRR to Pushpa. But it's all thanks to an invisible army of Mumbai's dubbers or voice artists, wrote Nidhima Taneja. She met the stars of the dubbing industry.
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