Mani Shankar Iyer, Babri Masjid, Pew on Indo Pak, Digital News- are among today’s reads

Mani Shankar Iyer, decided to boost the BJP cause, with an intervention in the Gujarat elections, yesterday.

The Wire has first person accounts from those at ground zero – Babri Masjid Demolition As It Happened: Reporters Look Back

The Pew Centre has a report on Indian and Pakistani attitudes to each other, 70 years after partition. 

Indians who live closer to Pakistan – those in Delhi, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh – are more likely to view Pakistan very unfavorably (69%) than people who live elsewhere (61%). It’s possible that Indians in these areas feel more threatened by Pakistan or the conflict in Kashmir: 81% of northerners see terrorism as a very big problem, compared with 74% elsewhere in India. Indians in the north are harsher on Modi when it comes to Kashmir: Roughly half (51%) approve of his handling of the Kashmir situation, compared with nearly two-thirds (65%) in the rest of India

 

The Economist has an insightful piece on ‘digital media‘ that has just figured out that running after eyeballs, and advertising, is not enough. Unless you look at a subscription model, you will shut down. Free does not pay.

The Out of Africa story of human evolution – where one giant migration out of Africa, to the rest of the world, has just got upended. Fascinating read.