Elon Musk and Twitter

Since the news of Elon Musk buying Twitter broke, the internet has been abuzz with speculations about why the world’s richest man wants to acquire the social media platform. In this interview with The New Yorker, columnist Matt Levine discusses Musk’s incentives, his probable plans and free speech on Twitter.

“You know, Donald Trump’s tweets back when he was on Twitter could create billions or trillions of dollars’ worth of market moves, right? And Twitter never made a lot of money off of that. It’s not obvious how the company would, but if you’re sitting on top of a thing that can create that much value, surely, if you’re really smart then you can extract some value out of it,” he says.

Read the full interview here.

The unique blend of vegetarian food and meat in West Bengal

Despite more than 98% of its population eating meat, West Bengal has managed to harmonise its vegetarians and meat-eaters without much conflict, Snighendu Bhattacharya writes for the Outlook. This has led to interesting food recipes combining vegetables with fish and meat, such as hilsa with brinjal and lentil soup with fish heads.

He traces how much of this can be attributed to saffron-clad monks in the state. Many monks in the Ramkrishna Mission are meat-eaters, he writes: “For Swami Vivekananda, arguably the most famous saffron-clad monk from Bengal, food was much more about nutrition than religion. Vivekananda continued to consume meat and fish even after taking up a monk’s life and encouraged many new monks to give up vegetarianism.”

Similarly, West Bengal sees a peaceful coexistence of vegetarians and meat beats whose residents do not take restrictions on food choices lightly.

“There has been an uproar on social media from the Bengalis every time there is news of localities in states like Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi banning non-veg foods at public places during Hindu festivals,” he notes.

Read the piece here.

The economic boycott of Muslims

In the riot-stricken Khargone in Madhya Pradesh, Hindus are organising an economic boycott of Muslims, reports Vijatya Lalwani for Article 14. “The boycotts have not come to general media attention, but were made evident after Article 14 spoke to several Hindu residents, traders and businessmen after the violence,” she notes.

Nothing several calls for the boycott amidst a polarising state government, she reports: “On 17 April, nearly 150 members from the Patidar community gathered at Pipari village in Khargone tehsil under the banner of Sardar Patel Yuva Sangathan (Sardar Patel Youth Forum), and vowed to economically boycott Muslims, according to a Khargone Patidar businessman present at the event.” Yet, some have ignored these calls, despite threats.

Read the report here.

Christian and Muslim Dalits

Currently, only Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist Dalits are constitutionally protected as Scheduled Castes. Political scientists Christophe Jaffrelot and Phillip Varghese argue that these protections should also be accorded to Christians and Muslim Dalits since they face as much persecution as Hindu Dalits.

“Dalit Muslims and Christians have sometimes been forced to bury their dead in separate cemeteries,” they write for The Indian Express. “Churches have segregated against Dalit Christians in the past.”

Read the op-ed here.