If the Kargil War of 1999 was the first televised war on Indian screens, Operation Sindoor will go down in history as the first time an India-Pakistan armed conflict was live-streamed on television and social media. When India launched air strikes against Pakistani terror targets as a response to the Pahalgam attack in which 26… Continue reading Operation Sindoor and the Fog of War
Category: Conflict
Starving Children in Gaza Stirs World Conscience
It has taken a man made famine brought on by Israeli bombardments and blockades of food and essential supplies to Gaza, to stir a collective conscience and urge countries like the UK and the United States to finally demand that Benjamin Netanyahu end the destruction of Gaza that began in retaliation for a Hamas attack on… Continue reading Starving Children in Gaza Stirs World Conscience
Geographically Contextualising Right-Wing Extremism for Tech Platforms: A Perspective From India
By Kabir Taneja and Maya Mirchandani A rise in right-wing extremism in the United States has forced the FBI to call out a domestic terrorism threat. Chris Wray, the director of America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation said racially motivated violent extremism, mostly from white supremacists made up the bulk of the agency’s current domestic terrorism investigations. While this brings out… Continue reading Geographically Contextualising Right-Wing Extremism for Tech Platforms: A Perspective From India
Kashmir: Betrayal, Uncertainty and Fear make a Potent Brew
The drive from Srinagar to Shopian in South Kashmir on the sixth Friday since the nullification of Article 370 is eerily calm. On one stretch of the road near Kakpora, just before Pulwama, stones and the odd, felled tree trunk appear as makeshift roadblocks- laid by local youth to prevent any vehicular movement- military or… Continue reading Kashmir: Betrayal, Uncertainty and Fear make a Potent Brew
When Professional Is Personal (lessons from the field)
No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main… Any man’s death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind… And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls It tolls for thee. —John Donne Nothing breaks a heart more than… Continue reading When Professional Is Personal (lessons from the field)
Untitled. Or A Reporter’s Diary. (Written, 2017)
They arrive in darkness from the depths of memory of faraway lands and blood soaked streets. Shadows move noisily in the night. Fingers point accusingly Wails a cacophony of regret. Dismembered, limbless, sightless sometimes lifeless faces, bodies, voices questioning. Asking when I will return. If I will return. I am the itinerant, welcomed into hollow… Continue reading Untitled. Or A Reporter’s Diary. (Written, 2017)
Silent River (Or Whose Side are you On? Written November, 2016)
A mother sings a lullaby. In the moonlight stars sparkle over the Jhelum. A father walks outside to lock the gate. And looks across the bund on to the silent river, black as night. Footsteps in the dark Stomp, crush Tar and leaves Dry as paper. Where are they headed? He wonders and hurries back… Continue reading Silent River (Or Whose Side are you On? Written November, 2016)
After Balakot, time for a diplomatic offensive
War is politics by other means, said Karl Von Clausewitz, the Prussian military strategist in the eighteenth century. As societies change, and politics changes, so does the nature of war, and the battlefields wars are fought on. The two weeks since the Pulwama attack has shown us that the battlefield is now also on television… Continue reading After Balakot, time for a diplomatic offensive
UNHCR, OCHCR Urge India not to Deport Rohingya
New Delhi. October 3, 2018 Officials from UN High Commissioner for Refugees based in India have said that seven Rohingya men being deported from the Silchar central jail in Assam to their home village in Central Rakhine in Myanmar should be given a chance to make an “informed decision” about their return in the current… Continue reading UNHCR, OCHCR Urge India not to Deport Rohingya
Digital Hatred, Real Violence
This paper was triggered by a study of social media commentary I had released earlier this year, that had shown a spike of 11 percent in religion based hate speech between 2016 and 2017. Here I try to delve into the causes and spread of such speech on social media and the intersections between free… Continue reading Digital Hatred, Real Violence
maya mirchandani 