THG Recommendation 6: A whirlwind trip through India, Hungary, China and Nepal.

India

Worried about India’s relentless descent towards illiberal democracy? Well, the country just moved a notch down towards the Hungarian model of illiberalism with imminent takeover of NDTV, the last standing independent national TV channel, by the wealthy crony of Narendra Modi.

Wondering what the Hungarian model of media management looks like? Here is a glimpse in The Guardian report:

Welcome to the media in Hungary, where NGOs are blacklisted, critical stories are binned and senior editors instruct journalists to disregard the facts before their eyes. “We have reached a situation where our position is now much much worse than it was back in the 1980s when Hungary was a communist country,” said one person with decades of experience of Hungarian state media, recalling the days when the central European country was described as “the happiest barracks” in the eastern bloc, for its relative freedom.

A long read on NDTV’s tumultuous ride from its inception by Prannoy and Radhika Roy is available behind the paywall in Caravan Magazine here.

To know about how Modi’s India is trying to restore dignity of women, watch this apt commentary from Newslaundry

China

For a balanced and rich summary of the economic tumult China is facing now, please go through the brilliant-as-ever post by Adam Tooze at Chartbook:

The headwinds acting on the Chinese economy right now are formidable, on top of collapsing housing markets and the risks of Xi’s Zero-Covid policy, add one more anthropocenic shock, extreme heat. As far as economic policy is concerned, Beijing is walking a tightrope in a storm.

The heatwave affecting large parts of China is, by most metrics, the worst ever recorded.

Nepal

In case you missed it last week, here is my piece on how Nepal is sleepwalking to a potentially disruptive winter energy shock: आगामी हिउँदमा कस्तो संकट आउन सक्छ?

Want to corroborate my predictions for the coming winter with some authoritative media accounts? Here is part of a paragraph from a Financial Times piece quoted in Chartbook #144

Across the world, politicians are ever more desperately looking to contain the explosive consequences of the energy crisis. In those parts of Asia, the Middle East and Africa already mired in multiple economic and political difficulties, the crisis is proving catastrophic. Those who import liquid natural gas must now compete with European latecomers to the LNG market seeking an alternative to pipelined Russian gas. … In poor countries, a large proportion of the state’s resources go on subsidising energy consumption. At prevailing prices, some cannot: earlier this month, the Sri Lankan Electricity Board imposed a 264 per cent increase on the country’s poorest energy users.

Arts and Literature

Fan of audio theater? Did you grow up listening to mesmerizing radio plays? If so, you will enjoy this savage critique of the devil’s pact we citizens have made with the modern nation state: Evening at The Talk House (Part 1 linked) at Intercepted podcast.

Do you want to take your audio-theater experience to another height by listening to the exclusively audio movie? Here is the 2 hr long Shipworm.

Reading now
Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide by Bill McGuire. I strongly recommend this terrifying yet riveting read. Will review it after I complete reading it.