Tag: media

by on
Ankita Singh, 19, with the laptop she received from the Samajwadi Party in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
Ankita Singh, 19, with the laptop she received from the Samajwadi Party in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Credit: Sonia Paul
LUCKNOW, India – Every time second-year undergraduate law students at Lucknow University open up their 14-inch Hewlett-Packard laptops, they are reminded of the generous benefactors who gave them their computers.

Sitting in a hot classroom at Lucknow University, Ankita Singh, 19, turned on a laptop and signed in. As she waited for the desktop to load, the screen flashed red. It lasted for all of two seconds, but the two faces that appeared on the screen were unmistakable: Akhilesh Yadav, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is the Samajwadi Party president and also a candidate for prime minister.

Another student in the classroom, Abhay Rajvanshi, 20, said the Samajwadi Party, the regional party that governs the state of Uttar Pradesh, distributed the laptops in September to fulfill a campaign promise after it won the 2012 state assembly elections.

“If I am getting a laptop, then they think — and I also think — that I have to support this political party, because this political party has given me some gift,” Mr. Rajvanshi said.

Continue reading…

by on

//instagram.com/p/nKKE_jEITm/embed/
The new Indian news website Scroll.in has started an Instagram feed documenting the Indian elections. The project aims to give a more intimate look at the elections by capturing the photos and stories not necessarily picked up by mainstream media.

“It is pointless to take photographs of Sonia Gandhi’s face, because everyone gets those,” said Ritesh Uttamchandani, a photographer with Open magazine and one of the project’s two curators, in an interview with Livemint: “It’s about the little dots you connect to each other to get a larger idea of how the elections really work.”

The project is funded partly by Instagram and is a collaborative effort of photographers spread out across the country [full disclosure: I am one of those participating]. The “virtual newsroom” for the team is a WhatsApp group where everyone can discuss ideas and critique photos that may or may not make the Instagram feed. Since the photographers are taking nearly all the photos on a phone, the WhatsApp platform is a convenient way to upload the photos and receive feedback.

Check out some more of the photos and stories below:

//instagram.com/p/nVI-vIEIcD/embed/
//instagram.com/p/nVVpEREIXm/embed/

This piece was originally published on April 29, 2014, on Link TV’s World News website.

by on

British comedian and former Daily Show regular John Oliver has come out with a hilarious analysis of the Indian elections that’s currently gaining traction on social media. Among the topics he covers on his new HBO show Last Week Tonight: the “Americanization” of Indian media, the US’s apathy toward the elections, and Hindu nationalist prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s emulation of famed rapper Tupac at Coachella.

You can watch the embed below, or see it on the official Last Week Tonight YouTube channel here.

This piece was originally published on April 28, 2014, on Link TV’s World News website.

by on

In the days since the United States arrested Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, 39, for allegedly lying on her Indian housekeeper’s visa application, underpaying and forcing her to work longer hours than specified, the case has made a splash in both the US and India, whose media are covering the incident with very different emphases. In India, initial coverage focused on US mistreatment of a senior diplomat, while American media spilled more ink over the allegation that Khobragade was underpaying her maid. Subsequent Indian coverage, though, took up this theme, leading to some soul-searching about inequality in the country, which has an entrenched tradition of low-paid domestic help.

Continue reading…