In this month’s @thecaravanindia, I examine how censorship, secrecy and digital crackdowns are reshaping Indian media and public discourse. A cartoon, a joke, investigative reports, are all just as indigestible for a govt now seasoned at info warfare caravanmagazine.in/media/ana…

This masterful investigation by @rachelchitra traces a systems failure that led to the AI171 crash, with serious implications for Boeing and Air India. A highly technical story but reads like a gripping thriller. Brilliantly edited by Abhay Regi. caravanmagazine.in/crime/air…

The June 2026 issue--How Boeing and Air India's role in India's deadliest aviation disaster is being covered up; How the Dalit Panthers forced the RSS into changing its language on caste; What Vijay’s victory tells us about Tamil Nadu's politics today; The manipulation of voter rolls is undermining the legitimacy of India’s election; SIR exclusions in West Bengal were connected to AITC lead and Muslim population; and more Read now: caravanmagazine.in/magazine The June 2026 issue is now available online for all subscribers. If you are a subscriber and unable to log in to our website, please write to subscriptions@caravanmagazine.in Print copies of the issue will be delivered to print subscribers and rolled out to newsstands over the next two weeks, depending on location. Copies will also be available for purchase on Amazon from June 10th. The Caravan is able to publish journalism like this thanks to the support of our subscribers. To help us continue doing this work, subscribe today: caravanmagazine.in/subscribe Or contribute: caravanmagazine.in/contribut…

The May issue—Romila Thapar's view of history; A BSF soldier dies in NCB custody; Police repression of Noida strikes; The Modi government's all-too-transparent ploy around women's reservations; The story of an incomplete cricketer in Kashmir; and more. Read now: caravanmagazine.in/magazine The May 2026 issue is now available online for all subscribers. If you are a subscriber and unable to log in to our website, please write to subscriptions@caravanmagazine.in Print copies of the issue will be delivered to print subscribers and rolled out to newsstands over the next two weeks, depending on location. Copies will also be available for purchase on Amazon from May 10th. The Caravan is able to publish journalism like this thanks to the support of our subscribers. To help us continue doing this work, subscribe today: caravanmagazine.in/subscribe Or contribute: caravanmagazine.in/contribut… Cover Photograph by Shahid Tantray (@shahidtantray)

An FT correction for the ages...

On 18 March 2026, one of our tweets was blocked in India following an order from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000. The tweet posted on 14 March 2026 (screenshot attached below) is now inaccessible in India; however, the content remains available elsewhere. The correspondence we received from X support did not contain any information on the reasons for this blocking order. The tweet was an excerpt from our December 2022 report titled “The submission of India Today Group.” Read the entire report here: caravanmagazine.in/media/ind… We remain committed to speaking up against opaque and arbitrary restrictions on free expression. Support unfiltered, uncompromising journalism: caravanmagazine.in/subscribe

The Gadkaris own a sprawling, layered and opaque business empire, enmeshed in which is Rembal Agro, a beef exporter. Read the entire report by Kaushal Shroff on the beef company enmeshed in Gadkari’s business empire: caravanmagazine.in/business/…

My last cover story for the Caravan is a profile of Mammootty. I spoke with several directors who have worked with him to chart his fascinating career arc that has evolved with the times. Please do read

The Bharatiya Bhasha Parivar is treading the path towards providing an unscientific muscle to a vision of India shaped by Savarkar’s inadequate understanding of Indian history and society. Read GN Devy's essay on the Language of Hindutva and the Bharatiya Bhasha Parivar: caravanmagazine.in/history/c…

At the middle of the Gadkari family's sprawling agro-business empire is a beef company that has quietly risen to international prominence. Read the entire report by Kaushal Shroff on the beef company enmeshed in Gadkari’s business empire: caravanmagazine.in/business/…

The March 2026 issue—How Malayalam cinema's most enduring star breaks the mould; The beef company enmeshed in Nitin Gadkari's business empire; The UGC's equity regulations test Hindutva's social arithmetic; GN Devy on the language of Hindutva; Venezuelans reckon with the abduction of Nicolás Maduro; and more Read now: caravanmagazine.in/magazine The March 2026 issue is now available online for all subscribers. If you are a subscriber and unable to log in to our website, please write to subscriptions@caravanmagazine.in Print copies of the issue will be delivered to print subscribers and rolled out to newsstands over the next two weeks, depending on location. Copies will also be available for purchase on Amazon from March 10th. The Caravan is able to publish journalism like this thanks to the support of our subscribers. To help us continue doing this work, subscribe today: caravanmagazine.in/subscribe Or contribute: caravanmagazine.in/contribut…

This is not a serious country.

AI impact.

I'm dispatching LIVE from India's AI Impact Summit, here are the key takeaways: $100B pledged. 70,000 attendees. The topic: the future. Gates pulled (Epstein). Huang cancelled (illness). A university presented a $1,600 Chinese robot dog as its own invention and named it Orion. They also faked a Korean drone soccer arena. The university blamed a professor caught up in 'the enthusiasm of being on camera.' The IT Minister had already tweeted congratulations. An exhibitor's AI wearables were stolen from the floor on Day 1. Exhibitors were locked out of their own stalls. Some described feeling jailed. They had no water. The Wi-Fi did not work. Digital payments crashed. Food vendors accepted cash only. The Prime Minister asked the CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic to hold hands for a photograph. He grabbed Altman's hand and raised it. Altman and Amodei raised their fists without making contact. Days earlier, Anthropic had run Super Bowl ads headlined 'Deception,' 'Betrayal,' and 'Treachery.' Altman's explanation: 'I thought it was the open clock.' Altman promised superintelligence by 2028. Attendees walked miles to leave. The venue had no buses. This is the future.

For women workers, the challenges of gig work extend far beyond wages and commissions. The GIPSWU organisers described complaints they had received from scores of women. Many spoke of the risks of entering customers’ homes alone—clients stripping in front of workers, refusing to pay, physically assaulting them—with little recourse in cases of harassment. Puja Sen (@psen9) reports: caravanmagazine.in/labour/wo…

RT @SushantSin: When Corps Commanders meetings began, the external affairs ministry did not agree to the army recording the minutes of the…

RT @SushantSin: PLA tents at Galwan, where India lost 20 soldiers, were pitched in the second week of May after a Brigade commanders meetin…

RT @SushantSin: While the political directions to Gen Naravane - “Jo uchit samjho, woh karo” (do whatever you deem appropriate) - have garn…

Going to wars can never be a purely military decision. It is taken by democratically elected political leadership. But, in August 2020, according to Naravane’s account, there was neither any authorisation to fire nor any restriction. No guardrails. No contingency framework. By handing such a monumental decision to the army, the prime minister had effectively abdicated the responsibility of initiating, or avoiding, a military conflict with China. It is not the army chief’s role to weigh India’s political and economic situation, assess potential US diplomatic backing, factor in the COVID-19 crisis, or calculate the risk of Pakistan and China combining forces. Those assessments are meant to be made by the government. Political instructions to the military on such matters must be precise and unambiguous, not reduced to a vague injunction to act at one’s discretion. Read the entire essay by Sushant Singh (@SushantSin) in our latest issue: caravanmagazine.in/security/…

Cover Story | “My position was critical,” Naravane writes. He was caught between “the Command who wanted to open fire with all possible means” and a government committee “which had yet to give me clear-cut executive orders.” In the operations room at army headquarters, options were being considered and discarded. The entire Northern Front was on high alert. Areas of likely clash were being monitored. But the decision point was at Rechin La. Naravane made yet another call to the defence minister, who promised to call back. Time stretched. Each minute was a minute closer to Chinese tanks reaching the top. #RajnathSingh called back at 10.30 pm. He had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose instructions consisted of a single sentence: “Jo uchit samjho, woh karo”—do whatever you deem appropriate. This was to be “purely a military decision.” Modi had been consulted. He had been briefed. But he had declined to make the call. “I had been handed a hot potato,” Naravane recalls. “With this carte blanche, the onus was now totally on me.” Read Sushant Singh's (@SushantSin) essay "Naravane's Moment of Truth: An army chief's unpublished memoir exposes how the Modi government spun the China border crisis" caravanmagazine.in/security/…

“The system in India is so bad, there is no limit to how much these companies take advantage," Seema Singh, president of @GIPSWU_ , said. "Outside India, the gig economy must be as they say it is. Here, we do the work out of necessity—there is no choice.” caravanmagazine.in/labour/wo…