“Farming isn’t what it used to be.” That’s what people across Kalimpong told me when I was there in summer 2022 after a COVID-induced fieldwork hiatus. Something had shifted. In the before-times, people were quick to valorize farming as the thing that distinguished Kalimpong, a district of West Bengal in the Himalayan foothills. Farming, and tenurial rights to land, gave the Nepalis and Indigenous Lepchas and Bhutias who call Kalimpong home a different political consciousness.

A mural in India’s new parliament building has become an object of controversy in South Asia. Alluding to the idea of Akhand Bharat, this ancient map appears to depict most of the current South Asian states as part of a larger, undivided polity of the past. Subsequently, the reveal has evoked negative responses from Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. These states raised concerns about how the claims implied in the map threaten their independence and sovereignty.

India’s market for emotion recognition technologies has grown significantly in the last few years. AI start-ups are offering Indian employers the “dark personality inventory” that claims to identify “negative” traits like self-obsession and impulsiveness in potential hires.

The fact that a regular convening of G-20-member countries and a rotational presidency for India has been converted into a carnival by the Narendra Modi government says more about the BJP’s art of politics than the summit’s importance. The hype around the G-20 is in line with the BJP’s messaging portraying the prime minister as a leader of unmatched global stature. Having said this, will the G-20 summit have any macro-economic significance for India?