Why Indian Americans Are Liberal in the US and Conservative in India
NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora

Why Indian Americans Are Liberal in the US and Conservative in India

A person who speaks warmly of democracy or equality may sound principled in general conversation, but the harder test comes when the question concerns the power, safety or identity of that person’s own group. A new study of Indian Americans suggests that many respondents supported more liberal positions when they were thinking about the United States and more conservative positions when they were thinking about India. Muslim Indian Americans were more consistently liberal in both countries.

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Why India’s Heat Crisis Falls Hardest on Dalits and Muslims

Why India’s Heat Crisis Falls Hardest on Dalits and Muslims

India’s caste system has long assigned the most physically exposed forms of labour to the communities least able to refuse them. That old arrangement has taken on new urgency as summer temperatures push past the limits of human endurance. Sections of the Muslim community also bear a disproportionate burden during heatwaves because of residential exclusion.

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Work From Home, Not AI, Driving Rise in Graduate Unemployment: Study
NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora

Work From Home, Not AI, Driving Rise in Graduate Unemployment: Study

While public discussion has increasingly focused on generative AI as the force threatening entry-level white-collar jobs, researchers now argue that a much older “technology”, remote work, offers a better explanation for what has happened since the pandemic. They say remote workplaces make it harder to train, supervise and mentor new employees, leading many employers to favour experienced hires instead.

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Newsclick FIR a ‘Gross Abuse’ of Legal Process, Delhi High Court Says
NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora

Newsclick FIR a ‘Gross Abuse’ of Legal Process, Delhi High Court Says

The Delhi High Court has quashed a police case and a money laundering investigation against the independent news portal Newsclick, ruling that nothing in the complaint amounted to a crime even if every claim in it were true, and that letting the prosecution continue would be a gross abuse of the process of law.

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Photo Feature: Masks, Placards and Anger at the Cockroach Janta Party Protest
NB, News Briefings, June 2026, Featured Commentary Tej Bahadur Singh NB, News Briefings, June 2026, Featured Commentary Tej Bahadur Singh

Photo Feature: Masks, Placards and Anger at the Cockroach Janta Party Protest

Thousands of young people, including students who appeared for recent NEET and CBSE examinations, their parents, student unions, job aspirants, and civil society groups, gathered at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on June 6 for a protest organised by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). Participants demanded the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan following the NEET paper leak controversy and a series of examination-related irregularities reported in recent years.

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A Telegram Bot Is Selling Indians’ Personal Data for ₹2.50 Per Search

A Telegram Bot Is Selling Indians’ Personal Data for ₹2.50 Per Search

Twenty-three-year-old Maryam Siddiqui (name changed) was trying to leave her family, where she said she had been facing harassment from an extended family member. She left her home in a small town in Bihar and travelled to Patna without informing her parents. After searching for her for ten days and filing a police complaint, her family was advised by a friend to use a bot that illegally tracks a person’s exact location, provides detailed coordinates and reveals sensitive personal information.

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The ‘Politics of the Unprotected Body’: Why Women From Northeast India Remain Vulnerable to Violence

The ‘Politics of the Unprotected Body’: Why Women From Northeast India Remain Vulnerable to Violence

Repeated racial and gender-based abuse against women from Northeast India points to a deeper structural failure of the Indian state to provide equal protection to all citizens. Law enforcement agencies, courts and policymakers often acknowledge such incidents, yet their racial dimension frequently disappears from legal and institutional responses, producing a pattern of unequal citizenship. Women from the Northeast thus occupy what may be called the “unprotected body,” formally included within the republic but repeatedly denied the full protection of its institutions.

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Cockroach Janta Party’s Protest Calls for Crowd Management, Not a Law and Order Confrontation
NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora

Cockroach Janta Party’s Protest Calls for Crowd Management, Not a Law and Order Confrontation

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-driven satirical movement that emerged online last month, is set to hold its first on-ground protest at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on June 6, demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over examination failures that the group says affected more than 10 million (one crore) students. It’s difficult to predict how the government will respond. However, treating the protest as primarily a law and order issue rather than a crowd management exercise could carry significant political and administrative costs.

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India’s 138 Cities Are Growing Richer and More Polluted; Is That Progress?
NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora

India’s 138 Cities Are Growing Richer and More Polluted; Is That Progress?

A study has found that 138 Indian cities belong to the category where economic expansion came with worsening air quality, the highest share of any country in the world at 35.4 percent of the global total. The finding raises a question about whose prosperity is being measured when the price of growth is paid in the air that everyone, regardless of income, has no choice but to breathe.

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Financial Strain Tops List of Factors Affecting Urban Indians’ Well-Being: Survey
NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora NB, News Briefings, June 2026 Vishal Arora

Financial Strain Tops List of Factors Affecting Urban Indians’ Well-Being: Survey

In a new survey, financial pressure has emerged as the biggest source of stress and anxiety among urban Indians, while adults aged 25 to 34 report lower overall well-being than people in their 50s despite being generally healthier, more connected to health information, more likely to use fitness apps and more exposed to modern health culture.

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Public Donations Free Kerala Migrant Worker from Saudi Death Row. Where Was the State?
NB, News Briefings, Featured Commentary, June 2026 Mariya Rajan NB, News Briefings, Featured Commentary, June 2026 Mariya Rajan

Public Donations Free Kerala Migrant Worker from Saudi Death Row. Where Was the State?

Abdul Rahim, a Keralite migrant worker who had been on death row in Saudi Arabia, returned home on May 28 after nearly 20 years in prison, freed only after a community fundraising campaign collected 340 million (34 crore) rupees in blood money. The case exposes how completely a migrant worker’s life can come to depend on a foreign legal system that their family cannot navigate, and how the resilience of Kerala’s diaspora networks, genuine as it is, has come to substitute for protections the state was never equipped to provide.

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For India’s Informal Workers, Heatwaves Expose the Limits of the Labour Codes

For India’s Informal Workers, Heatwaves Expose the Limits of the Labour Codes

Summers in much of India have always been tough, but what is happening now is far more severe. It is a public health emergency unfolding under the guise of a weather event. In recent years, temperatures have remained above 40°C for days at a stretch, leading to tens of thousands of suspected heatstroke cases across the country. And those who face the greatest risk are workers in the informal sector, who spend long hours outdoors and continue to lack strong, enforceable protections against extreme heat under India’s labour framework.

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