India

Assam in Northeast India has become more vulnerable than ever as millions have been displaced by floods due to excess pre-monsoon rains followed by a rain deficit. Aiding this vulnerability is a large infrastructure push in these regions primarily by the Central Government. In this article, we report the 2022 floods as the disaster unfolded in the state.

India’s northeast has had a chequered history of youth movements and has been home to some of the recent strong pro-democracy movements in the country. Being young in India’s northeast necessitates acts of social interventions of various kinds. In this conversation, Dr. Kaustubh Deka and Dr. Soibam Haripriya reflect on the locality of youth movements and the long history of the culture of protest in the region, as well as its larger resonance.

India’s northeast has had a chequered history of youth movements and has been home to some of the recent strong pro-democracy movements in the country. Being young in India’s northeast necessitates acts of social interventions of various kinds. In this conversation, Dr. Kaustubh Deka and Dr. Soibam Haripriya reflect on the locality of youth movements and the long history of the culture of protest in the region, as well as its larger resonance.

India has entered a new age of hot extremes that will get worse if we fail to limit global warming.

Sagari Ramdas shows how agribusiness use big tech and big data to fulfil their ‘sustainability goals’ from indigenous Adivasi farmers of Andhra Pradesh, India. It turns out to be a case of exploitation in the name of sustainability.

Increase in domestic violence, lay-offs, care responsibilities, restrictions on domestic and international movement, economic insecurities, psychological burdens - these are just a few of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in Asia in the last two years. The gendered nature of COVID-19 impacts is obvious and has sparked large feminist responses in the region.

Over the past few years, there has been a drive towards the digitisation of healthcare in India. Though policy frameworks have begun taking cognizance of this increasing datafication of health, they are responding to it within frameworks, which incentivise further datafication by considering health data to be a commodity. Recognising the intimate interconnections between our bodies and data through a feminist lens, an analysis of the health datafication in India through emerging developments under the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) ecosystem is done, with a focus on private health insurance companies, and the implications for the bodies and rights of patients.

K.M. Gopakumar speaks to Shalini Yog Shah about global vaccine monopoly, TRIPS Agreement and hurdles in vaccine production

Last year, even as the coronavirus ambushed India, disrupting the economy and wreaking untold suffering on millions of its citizens, many saw in it a godsend opportunity to hit the reset button and build back a green and just economy. More than a year later, as we crawl out of the horrifying abyss of the second wave, green fantasies have given way to the more urgent task of quickly vaccinating everyone and reviving a battered economy.

For nearly a decade, India has been deploying various iterations of its ambitious broadband expansion plan, looking to bring those in the country’s remotest areas online. While private sector expansion and proliferation of cheap smartphones gave it a boost, the recent double whammy of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and escalating territorial tensions with key trade partner China has put a spanner in the works of the project that has already suffered several delays. Updates to the project now must consider alternative sources of equipment, while ensuring that those at the margins don’t miss the digital bus.