Dipanjan Sinha

Independent Writer/Producer/Researcher
@httweets @Vice @wire @dwnews @bbcstudios

[Abir Dasgupta @AbirDasgupta101]

The @nytimes had published a poorly substantiated red-scare type report, with exaggerated allegations about @newsclickin. That report had been widely cited by the regime in India to demonise everyone who worked for NewsClick. Will NYT issue a correction and publish a new piece?

[Dipanjan Sinha @sinhadipanjan]

The best kind of exit poll. If I may add, it mostly remains this way and even gets better as we move east.

[Preeti Choudhry @PreetiChoudhry]

My exit poll! As I leave #Bengal, it would be a disservice not to say this: I have come to deeply admire the way women inhabit space here. There is a quiet, almost subconscious elevation of women as independent beings . something that stands in stark contrast to the entrenched misogyny that still finds resonance across much of northern India. Perhaps it stems from a cultural understanding of shakti. A form of empowerment that manifests here in ways both subtle and profound, unlike anywhere else in the country, even in the south.
Any woman journalist who has covered political rallies across India will recognize the difference immediately. Other states, a crowd is not just a logistical challenge, it carries risk. the inevitability of wandering hands, the violation masked by chaos. Here, the crowds are no less dense, the air no less heavy with sweat and alcohol—but the hands, for the most part, do not grope. Men step aside to make way. When contact happens, as it inevitably does in chaos, there is visible embarrassment rather than entitlement. What you encounter is not chivalry, but something far rarer: equality. And equality feels far more meaningful. Was never a fan of chivalry in any case :) 
There is more. Women politicians across party lines campaign with a striking freedom, aggressive, sharp, unapologetically irreverent, often using what would elsewhere be labelled as ‘masculine’ rhetoric. In most states, such behaviour would invite judgment, even censure. Here, it is met with acceptance,  applause. What feels liberating to an outsider is, in Bengal, simply normal. What we frame as empowerment  here is a cultural undercurrent.
I have covered four elections in this state, and each time I have returned with the same sense of awe. Bengal, meanwhile, ambles on with a certain bemusement, as if unaware of what sets it apart. But it is a big deal. And perhaps the most remarkable part is that Bengal does not think so.
Governments will come and go. One can only hope that this constant endures, not just how Bengal sees its women, but how, in many ways, it doesn’t. ♥️♥️♥️

[Himadri @onlineGhosh]

Till now, 2026 #Bengal elections have no emergence of "Subaltern Hindutva".

You know if you know.

[Dipanjan Sinha @sinhadipanjan]

Even if breathing is automated wealthy Indians will need someone to run it for them.

[101India @101India]

Kolkata’s best kept martial secret.
Are we forgetting our ancient fighting techniques?

[Trendulkar @Trendulkar]

This kind of original writing in the ChatGPT era feels like a whole new Renaissance

[Lydia Polgreen @lpolgreen]

Early in my reporting career, I mortifyingly referred in a story to South Africa’s “white majority” when I meant to write minority. It slipped through copy and into print. It was so embarrassing and I was so lucky Twitter didn’t exist yet. People make mistakes!

[Dipanjan Sinha @sinhadipanjan]

Woah!

[Alex Thompson @AlexThomp]

There are corrections and there are
CORRECTIONS.

[Pratim D Gupta @PratimDGupta]

I spent over 15 years as a print journalist. The written word wasn't just my livelihood, it was the thing I believed in, maybe more than anything else. Before I became a film director, I was a film writer and till this day, I have only made movies from my own writing.

And somewhere in the last decade or so, I've watched the written word get quietly, steadily dismantled. Almost eroded. Like a shoreline nobody's paying attention to.

It's not just that people read less. It's that we've stopped expecting depth. We've recalibrated. A paragraph feels long now. An argument that takes three minutes to make feels like an imposition. Language itself has shrunk. Flattened into captions, reactions, five-word opinions delivered with the confidence of essays.

I find that terrifying, actually.

So a few weeks ago, almost out of stubbornness more than strategy, I started writing long posts. On Facebook. On Instagram. On X. Places that were practically designed to punish you for using too many words.

I'm not doing it because I think I'm going to save anything. I'm doing it because I can't just sit with the feeling of loss and do nothing about it.

Maybe it reaches a few of you. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe you're one of the three people who got to this line and I want to say — thank you, genuinely, for still being here at the end of a long post.

Long-form writing isn't dead. But it's lonely. And it needs people who refuse to let it go quietly.

I'm not ready to let it go.

[Dipanjan Sinha @sinhadipanjan]

Before every Assembly election someone posts a ragebait on Rabindranath Thakur and/or Satyajit Ray and the reactions hit the BJP's bhadralok voteshare like Dubai in this war.

[Dipanjan Sinha @sinhadipanjan]

@onlineGhosh @ShoaibDaniyal Ok, so not the millions as claimed

[Swati Moitra @swatiatrest]

Not even the truest diehard Kolkata optimist will claim that the Sealdah adjacent area is particularly nice to look at.

That is, until the shimool is in bloom for a few magical weeks in spring.

What trees do for our cities, and what we do to them!

[Birender Dhanoa @bsdhanoa]

Every time I decide to reduce my screen time, another war breaks out…

[वरुण 🇮🇳 @varungrover]

And India’s Oscar entry - @ghaywan’s HOMEBOUND is through to the final 15 in Academy Awards 2026. Lessssgo!

❤️❤️❤️

[Dipanjan Sinha @sinhadipanjan]

@manujosephsan Isn't he more of an agent than a critic?

[Dipanjan Sinha @sinhadipanjan]

Just the way Thakur became Tagore on TV news. Bengalis are being confusion bombed about a Bengali text by someone who can't read the language.

[Parijat Sen @ParijatSen11]

@Tara_Deshpande Enlightening you wouldnt take more knowledge than Aurobindo, just simple reading skills. 3 stanzas in praise of the riverine fertile motherland. Stanza 4 where the poet likens the mother to Durga AND Lakshmi (Kamala) and Saraswati. In basic literature, this is called imagery 👍🏽

[Dipanjan Sinha @sinhadipanjan]

Absolutely nothing in North 24 Parganas looks like a mix of medieval structures and Purani Delhi markets though.

[Indian Tech & Infra @IndianTechGuide]

🚨 West Bengal's North 24 Parganas has surpassed Thane to become India's most populated district with 10.9 million residents.

[Dipanjan Sinha @sinhadipanjan]

Hardly anyone can match what Nehru did for India's soft power globally. After a decade of assault on his image, he has emerged cooler than ever.

[Adil Hossain @adilhossain]

Bangladesh Jamaat opposed "Amar Sonar Bangla ami tomay bhalobasi", General Ayub Khan of Pakistan banned songs written by Tagore in Dhaka Radio and then one ruling party in India is contemplating action against Bengalis for singing a Rabindrasangeet!

[Dipanjan Sinha @sinhadipanjan]

Has been playing in my mind

[Fahad K🇺🇸 @AllAboutFKK]

NYC Elections be like….