Tabla de contenidos para December 2022 en The Caravan

The Adani Group’s attempted takeover of NDTV this year sparked intense speculation about the future of the broadcaster and the effect it would have on Indian media. The multinational conglomerate, founded by the billionaire Gautam Adani, has already established a presence in media by investing in Quintillion Business Media Private Limited, which owns outlets such as BQ Prime. The speculation, though, has largely been about why Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited, which had control by proxy over NDTV and is one of the leading financial players in the media scene, agreed to hand over the channel to its most powerful competitor across the Indian corporate landscape. On the face of it, Reliance’s decision seems to make little business sense, which is why much has been made of the considerations that…

THE 1960S WITNESSED some remarkable changes in the Indian film landscape. Several regional films were being made in local dialects, such as the first Bhojpuri film Ganga Maiya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo, directed by Kundan Kumar. The 1963 film was an instant hit and became an inspiration for filmmakers who had been trying to make indigenous cinema. This led to films in dialects such as Marwari, Magadhi, Rajasthani, Nepali and Chhattisgarhi. It was during this time that Manu Nayak, a young film enthusiast in Chhattisgarh, then Madhya Pradesh, decided to make the first Chhattisgarhi film and base it on a subject close to his heart—caste discrimination. Kahi Debe Sand es, which translates to “convey the message,” was released while the film industry was dominated by Hindi films. Nayak’s film depicts…

THE POLLEN WAITS ON TIPTOE D R Bendre Translated by Madhav Ajjampur A compilation of over twenty poems by the renowned poet Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre, translated from Kannada, that gestures to the formal range of his work, from sonnets to free verse and lyric, among others. MANIPAL UNIVERSAL PRESS, S310, 196 PAGES REFUGEE CITIES HOW AFGHANS CHANGED URBAN PAKISTAN Sanaa Alimia This book focusses on the period between the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan and the War on Terror, looking closely at how global politics has impacted the daily lives of the Afghan community in Peshawar and Karachi. It looks at large-scale migrations and argues that displacements have increasingly normalised deportation in the name of refugee management. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS, $39.95, 248 PAGES THE BROKEN SCRIPT DELHI UNDER THE…

THE LEDE 8 Grace Jajo is an independent journalist and education consultant based in Imphal. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, IndiaSpend, NewsClick, Agencia EFE and EastMojo, among others. PERSPECTIVES 12 Hartosh Singh Bal is the political editor at The Caravan. 15 Sophie Zhang is a Facebook whistleblower who revealed details about IT cells in India and Facebook’s unwillingness to act on it. Nikita Saxena is a contributing writer at The Caravan. 24 Seema Chishti is a Delhi-based writer and journalist. She was formerly the Delhi editor for BBC India and a deputy editor at the Indian Express REPORTAGE AND ESSAYS 26 Aathira Konikkara is a staff writer at The Caravan. 50 Amrita Singh is an assistant editor at The Caravan. 72 Alishan Jafri is an independent journalist based in New Delhi. He…

On 10 October 2022, the news website The Wire published a story alleging that Amit Malviya, the national convenor of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT department, had special privileges under Meta’s Cross-Check, or XCheck system—through which the organisation reviews content decisions on high-profile users—that allowed him to get Instagram posts removed, regardless of whether they violated the platform’s guidelines. (Meta is the recently changed name of the social media company previously known as Facebook. It is the parent company for brands such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.) The XCheck system had previously been reported on, but was not known to include such sweeping powers earlier. The Wire’s first story included screenshots of an alleged internal Instagram report, which the publication claimed to have accessed through a source within the organisation.…

Andrew Otis’ Hicky’s Bengal Gazette: The Untold Story of India’s First Newspaper depicts the trajectory of the eighteenth-century journalist James Augustus Hicky, who, while based in Calcutta, used a press to start the first printed newspaper in Asia in 1780. Via this paper, he criticised British rule, attempted to reveal the catastrophic effects of battles such as the Battle of Pollilur, exposed ongoing corruption in the British East India Company and the Christian Church, and argued for press freedom. At times his publishing was contradictory, as Otis notes. For instance, he printed articles supporting the notion of women being chaste as well as those arguing that women should be in control of their own sexuality. Hicky’s legacy has been subject to oversimplification and misunderstanding, Otis suggests. “Scholars during the British…

After a debate in the legislative assembly, the Nongthombam Biren Singh government in Manipur announced, on 20 September, that it would partially lift the liquor prohibition imposed on the state in 1991—when widespread alcoholism and drug addiction accompanied a raging insurgency. Foreign tourists are currently allowed to purchase alcohol with a permit and the restrictions of the Manipur Liquor Prohibition Act do not apply to defence personnel and communities whose traditional occupation is brewing. The government’s decision will permit the sale and consumption of alcohol in all district headquarters, tourist destinations and hotels with more than twenty beds. The export of locally brewed liquor to other states will also be allowed under certain conditions. The cabinet expects that this will generate an annual revenue of over R600 crore and mitigate…

The British East India Company built the Indian telegraph system. William O’Shaughnessy, who had come to India in 1833 as a 24-year-old assistant surgeon with the Company, is said to have devised the telegraph. He soon started experimenting with electricity, and went on to invent an electric motor and a silver chloride battery. In 1839, he set up a 13½-mile-long demonstration telegraph system near Calcutta. His work did not draw much attention from his bosses, until James Andrew Broun-Ramsay became the governor general and understood its true potential. By 1856, it connected Calcutta, Agra, Bombay, Peshawar and Madras. Well before the British Raj took charge, the telegraph, among other technology, helped tighten the colonial noose over India. It is said to have played a part in helping the British put…