Raghu Karnad

रघुकुल रीत सदा चली आई. Founding team @theWire_in. 2022-'23 fellow @CullmanNYPL

[Anish Gawande @anishgawande]

“Thirteen months ago, Danish Sheikh, an Indian citizen who happens to be Bengali and Muslim, was deported by the Delhi police on the grounds that he’s an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh. They refused to acknowledge his identity documents.

He was pushed across the border with his wife, Sunali, and their son, Sabir. Not surprisingly, the government in Bangladesh arrested them as illegal immigrants and they spent a hundred days in jail.

Last week, the terrible error made in Danish’s case was accepted and he was allowed to return to India.”

[वरुण 🇮🇳 @varungrover]

‘Anomaly’ is the new spelling of ‘scam’ it seems khi khi khi.

[Raghu Karnad @rkarnad]

Back in Bengaluru vibes
feat Lavelle Road x CBD x Tender S.U.R.E
It gets good at 00:15 @ICCCBengaluru @krishnabgowda @GBA_office

[Siddharth @svaradarajan]

“In mid-March 2026, a 60-second video by comedian Pulkit Mani achieved what most digital marketers and creators only dream of; 16 million views in under 48 hours. The reel, a satirical take on the Prime Minister’s mannerisms during foreign summits, was a masterclass in observational comedy. By the 72nd hour, however, the video had vanished. 

“It wasn’t a platform glitch or a copyright strike. It was the ‘180-minute takedown order’ issued under the newly-notified Information Technology (Amendment) Rules, 2026. The speed of the erasure was chilling. Under the 2026 rules, social media platforms now have a mere three hours to comply with government directives or risk losing their “safe harbour” status.”

Must read—@tarushi_aswani on the limits of creativity in Modi's Creator Economy https://t.co/kXQ9Q6SZ34 via @thewire_In

[Ishaan Tharoor @ishaantharoor]

This week's @NewYorker column: On how you can read the American Revolution as a sideshow in a far greater imperial drama and why the Founding Fathers were obsessed with Hyder Ali, Sultan of Mysore

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

I have been reading the new UN report about how Israel has been targeting children in Gaza. There are no words to describe how awful it is. Here are some of the worst examples:

1) Hind Rajab and family, Tel al-Hawa, Gaza City, 29 Jan 2024. Named. A family of seven plus two paramedics killed. Hind Rajab, 5 to 6, stayed on the phone with rescuers for hours, trapped in a car among her dead relatives. Her cousin Layan Hamadeh, 15, was killed mid-call. The rescue ambulance, dispatched with COGAT clearance, was shelled.

2) The 15-year-old with the white flag, Khan Younis, 24 Jan 2024. Anonymous. Shot in the foot during an ordered evacuation while holding a white cloth, then shot twice more in the back and neck as he tried to rise. His 20-year-old brother killed running to him; their mother shot signaling for an ambulance. Assessed as DAN .338 sniper fire from about 200m.

3) The 10-day-old baby, Nuseirat camp, 12 Apr 2024. Anonymous. Shot in the head by a quadcopter-mounted rifle while being breastfed inside a tent. Survived with brain damage and seizures.

4) The 14-year-old killed with fragmenting pellets, Aug 2024. Anonymous. Cube-shaped pellets that fragmented internally like cluster munitions, destroying multiple organs. The report flags the munition itself as a possible war crime.

5) Jadallah "Jad" Jadallah, Al-Far'a camp, Tubas, 16 Nov 2025. Named. Jadallah Jihad Jouma Jadallah, 14, shot at close range and left bleeding for roughly 45 minutes while about 14 soldiers stood around him. One kicked his cap back when he threw it for attention, one filmed him, one placed a stone beside him to stage a stone-throwing pretext. Soldiers fired at his approaching mother and blocked two ambulances. Body withheld.

6) Layla al-Khatib, Muthallath al-Shuhada, 25 Jan 2025. Named. Layla (Laila) Muhammad Ayman al-Khatib, 2, shot in the back of the head during dinner at home, four bullets fired through the living room window. Youngest West Bank child killed in the reporting period. B'Tselem found the only man in the building was her grandfather, contradicting the "wanted terrorist" claim.

7) Saddam Rajab, Tulkarem, shot 28 Jan 2025, died 7 Feb 2025. Named. Saddam (Sadam) Rajab, 10, shot during an incursion. A soldier told the father, "I am the one who shot your son. God willing, he will die." Medical care obstructed; the boy died of his wounds days later.

8) Walid Ahmad, Megiddo Prison, died 22 Mar 2025. Named. Walid Khalid Abdullah Ahmad, 17, from Silwad. Healthy at arrest in Sept 2024; dead six months later of starvation, muscle wasting, untreated colitis and scabies. First Palestinian minor to die in Israeli custody since Oct 2023. Family learned of his death from a news article; body withheld.

9) The Sde Teiman 15-year-old, detention. Anonymous. Held among 70 adults, shackled until his hands bled, dogs released on prone detainees; described as "the worst days of my life." A separate 15-year-old reported being electrocuted via a needle in his shoulder over 54 days.

10) The four newborns at Al-Nasr Pediatric Hospital, Nov 2023. Anonymous. Found decomposing, still attached to defunct life-support machines, after staff were forced to evacuate without being able to move them. Independently verified by the Commission, Washington Post, and CNN.

11) Newborn hypothermia deaths, Dec 2024 to Feb 2025. Anonymous. At least 15 newborns, including a one-day-old girl, died of cold linked to lack of shelter, fuel, and incubators. UNICEF called the deaths preventable.

12) Sexual violence in detention. Anonymous. Forced public stripping and filming of boys during mass arrests; two cousins aged 7 and 13 stripped at gunpoint in Jenin; new reports of boys raped in custody, one on multiple occasions.

The Commission documents at least 20,179 Palestinian children killed and 44,143 wounded in two years, 30 percent of all the dead in Gaza, alongside 213 more killed in the West Bank. Thirteen times the Commission asked Israel to respond, and thirteen times it heard nothing back. Israel doesn't care enough to even respond. It kills children as a matter of policy.

[Nilanjana Roy 📚🦊 @nilanjanaroy]

Impossible to give in to despair as long as India has citizens and jurists like Dr S Muralidhar, former Justice, now chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestine Territory.

His ability to go about the necessary work of justice, while reminding politicians and citizens of what the country was meant to be, is inspiring.

"But that is the beauty of our Constitution. It does not envisage a democracy that is merely majoritarian but one which accommodates differences, diversity, plurality and is inclusive."

https://t.co/yAZbLKIzHN

[Ramachandra Guha @Ram_Guha]

My book “The Unquiet Woods” was first published in 1989, and in an expanded edition in 2009. I am immensely gratified that it has inspired this wonderful new anthology, “India’s Forests”, that takes the field of environmental history much further and deeper.
#WorldEnvironmentDay

[Raghu Karnad @rkarnad]

A legendary scene from modern history, shot from an unfamiliar angle. Try to spot the familiar hero.

[The Hind Rajab Foundation @HindRFoundation]

The @hindrajabfoundation filed an urgent complaint in 🇮🇳 #India, demanding the immediate arrest of Eitan Gilboa, Israeli national and reservist in the 271st Combat Engineering Battalion. Gilboa is currently vacationing in Old Manali and Gondla Village, Himachal Pradesh.
Full details → https://t.co/AyXjznPsyE

[Amrita Mahale @amritamahale]

Female friendship can be an emotional, social and political lifeline for women. Our friends show us different ways of being in the world. They teach us how to take up space, how to challenge power and bargain with it.

My op-ed in the Hindu:
https://t.co/Ldw2fx9LdR

[Siddharth @svaradarajan]

The penalty for demanding Rs 20,000 a month for hard workin a factory is jail. The penalty for asking the Indian prime minister a question is endless trolling. And the penalty for unproven and unspecified misconduct is the halving of one’s pension. 

That’s how today’s edition of The Wire’s Sunday Newsletter, curated by @SoumashreeS, begins.

Subscribe here: https://t.co/ml1nqUouAn

It’s free!

[churumuri @churumuri]

It isn't every day that Indian journalists win the Pulitzer Prize. The admirable Aditi Phadnis of 'Business Standard' talks to @SuparnaSharma and Anand R.K., who were part of a 4-member Bloomberg team that won it this year, for their 9,000-word deep-dive into cyber crime. @bsindia

[Alice @AliceFromQueens]

New York Mag was a bit scummy here.

The Commonwealth contest story wasn't chosen by Granta editors. And the story did not, in fact, appear in Granta magazine, a *print magazine* literary ppl respect for good reason.

Some writers empaneled by Commonwealth Foundation chose it. It appeared on the Granta website labeled as such.

NY Mag knew no one would care about a bunch of obscure lazy writers fooled by an AI. So they implied w a photo that it appeared in Granta, though the story makes clear it did not.

If Granta eds *had* chosen it to run in their mag, that would be a much more remarkable event. But they didn't.

[Raghu Karnad @rkarnad]

@sethusundar89 Thanks v much, Sundar

[Sundar Sethuraman @sethusundar89]

One of the most heartwarming pieces I’ve read in recent times. An excellent profile of Romila Thapar by @rkarnad.
https://t.co/Xt2inXihRv

[Frontline @frontline_india]

NEW | Romila Thapar: doyenne and dissenter

The great historian came of age at the end of British rule in India. Now 94, she continues to defy a regime determined to forget the pluralism and dissent of India’s past.

Raghu Karnad (@rkarnad) ✍️

(This article was originally published on Psyche)
https://t.co/5pXC2RhZWM

[The Wire @thewire_in]

*Celebrating 11 Years of Fearless Journalism*

This May marks 11 years since @thewire_in was launched. In this time, we have strived to bring you stories that matter and your support has kept us going. But it has not been easy. 1/4

[Shashi Singh @shashi_siingh]

A brilliant profile. For so many of us, Romila Thapar continues to be a source of inspiration. @rkarnad has a terrific flair for writing, one must say.
https://t.co/ftwIqSS4LV

[Raghu Karnad @rkarnad]

@shashi_siingh thanks Shashi