Shougat Dasgupta

Jan 9, 2025 | codastory.com | Shougat Dasgupta

A Coda Story from this week’s Coda Currents newsletter“Who would have imagined,” asked French president Emanuel Macron this week, “that the owner of one of the world’s largest social networks would be supporting a new international reactionary movement and intervening directly in elections?”The question encapsulated the growing concern among European leaders about Elon Musk’s increasingly aggressive intervention in European politics.

Nov 26, 2024 | codastory.com | Shougat Dasgupta

So-called “anti terror” laws intended to control civil society groups and civic freedoms are a feature of autocracies such as Russia, or countries with growing autocratic pretensions like India. There are plenty of examples of how such laws can be used. In June, a Delhi legislator sanctioned the prosecution of the Booker Prize-winning writer Arundhati Roy, under draconian anti-terror legislation that permits imprisonment without charge, for a speech she gave in 2010.

Jul 17, 2024 | strangersguide.com | Shougat Dasgupta

My father, Swapan Dasgupta, was born near Calcutta in April 1947, just four months before India became an independent nation. By 1947, India had been transformed under British rule from a global center of economic production into an exemplar of deprivation, of hunger, of sickness, and of dire, desperate poverty. Its economic progress in the first decades after independence—until reforms were executed around 1991—was only ever fitful, sluggish.

Jul 17, 2024 | codastory.com | Shougat Dasgupta

My father, Swapan Dasgupta, was born near Calcutta in April 1947, just four months before India became an independent nation. By 1947, India had been transformed under British rule from a global center of economic production into an exemplar of deprivation, of hunger, of sickness, and of dire, desperate poverty. Its economic progress in the first decades after independence—until reforms were executed around 1991—was only ever fitful, sluggish.

Apr 11, 2024 | codastory.com | Shougat Dasgupta

The Indian government’s treatment of Purkayastha is in keeping with its intimidation of media it considers unfriendly. Muzzling independent journalism is a crucial part of the strategy of the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party, as it moves quickly to check off items on its Hindu nationalist agenda. Modi’s control of the mainstream media means that news stories that would be scandals in other democracies receive desultory coverage.