More than 70% Indians eat non-vegetarian food.
File under #FishingExpedition

Yet another reason - more serious this time - not to use Swiggy. Such practices must be made illegal, if they aren't already.

Modi’s scored a self-goal against Sri Lanka by raising the Katchatheevu island issue, in a desperate attempt to target the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam for the parliamentary polls in Tamil Nadu.

Read Sushant Singh's latest column.
caravanmagazine.in/politics/modi-…

Timely essay by Gilles Verniers on lessons from the BSP's collapse in UP: 'This is the decline of a particular way of doing politics...of consolidating a core electoral base, and relying on fragmentation and vote bank transferability to win seats.' scroll.in/article/102363…

1/ Our latest Carnegie Endowment #IndiaElects2024 essay by Caroline Mallory + me on the emergence of foreign policy as a domestic political issue in India. While elites might dominate the production of foreign policy, its consumption has been democratized carnegieendowment.org/2024/04/12/in-…

The BJP's goal isn't just to win elections, it sees political power as a means to a grander end. It aims to restructure the Indian state as a Hindu nation, to put Hinduism at the center of public life, make full Indian citizenship contingent on being Hindu
foreignaffairs.com/india/end-secu…

On how popularity demonstrated via 'free and fair' Elections - provide the basis (excuse?) for the Modi govt to then implement policies that make India more unequal.
If credibility of the elections is under a shadow, it is serious. Andy Mukherjee is sharp here

In 1960s-70s Gujarat, dominant caste groups petitioned govt to shut meat shops for Paryushan, Navratri. Controlling access to food as means of asserting social, political control on display in Gujarat, N India today. Whether pan-India purchase with 70% meat eaters is another Q.

Hindus need approval before converting to Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, says Gujarat government scroll.in/latest/1066512… via Scroll.in

Encouraging findings from Lokniti-CSDS 2024 #prepoll : 79% believe 'India belongs to all religions equally, not just Hindus'. Urban areas (85%) and educated individuals (83%) show stronger support for plurality.

CSDS-Lokniti 2024 pre-poll survey in The Hindu shows remarkable support for religious pluralism

#Opinion | Rather than call BJP supporters bigoted, and imagine a progressive voter base for the opposition, we need to understand the complex nature of Indian politics

✍️Roshan Kishore | #HTPremium
hindustantimes.com/opinion/terms-…

For those living in Washington, a 2024 India election event featuring Sumitra Badrinathan, Gilles Verniers and others at AU School of International Service on Thursday, April 18: eventbrite.com/e/decoding-ind…

Proud to see Lokniti-CSDS continues to set gold standards of survey research on politics.
Here is what sets it apart: face to face interviews, random sampling from voters list, non biased questions, rigorous field work, transparency in methodology and findings.

I may not…

The collapse of the Mayawati's BSP model in UP does not make caste irrelevant as a political variable. It remains central to ticket allocation strategies and it remains central to the discourse on inclusion of political parties, including the BJP. scroll.in/article/102363……

There is a larger message for Uttar Pradesh electoral politics that can be learnt from the decline of the Bahujan Samaj Party in UP. scroll.in/article/102363…

This is the decline of a particular way of doing politics that the party has been practising so far. By Gilles Verniers

In the Lokniti-CSDS CSDS, Delhi survey 55% Indians expressed the view that corruption has increased during last 5 years. An opinion shared amongst both rich and poor equally. 19% also believed that it has declined while another 19% expressed no change in it.

That's why the PM is harping on Muslim League and Ram Temple, not on his track record on unemployment and price rise in the last 10 years.

Finally, a newspaper puts this as the front-page main lead, that too based on a reputed national survey.

Eid Mubarak!