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India’s unicorns are celebrated, and its startup scene is often seen as the future. But behind the fast-paced success stories, there’s a worrying pattern that can’t be overlooked. A private investigation shows that much of this shiny success has been built on unstable ground.

Flooding in northeast India has long been treated as an unavoidable natural disaster – a view convenient for those in power, as it conceals the fact that the annual devastation is not inevitable. On June 3, the death toll from rain-related disasters across the eight northeastern States rose to 47 – a loss that could have been prevented.

Why don’t we often feel moved, angry or responsible when we read about tragedies in the news? The recent death of a 10-year-old Dalit girl from Bihar, raped and left in critical condition in an ambulance, may have saddened us for a moment, but not enough to make us act—not even to express outrage online. But this wasn’t the case after the 2012 Nirbhaya Delhi gang rape. Let’s turn to psychology to understand what makes us pick and choose whose suffering we mourn.

The Indian public, and even members of Parliament, first learned about the Indian Air Force’s losses during the early phase of Operation Sindoor through foreign media reports quoting Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan on May 31. This confirms that the information about the initial setbacks is not classified on grounds of national security. Why, then, has the central government not provided a clear explanation of what transpired during those four days of armed conflict?

A 22-year-old law student in Pune has been charged with allegedly offending religious sentiments after making derogatory remarks about Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Whatever the merits of the case, the incident raises an important question: should the right to free speech include the right to criticise religion—one’s own or someone else’s?