Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rahul Bhatia

@rahulabhatia.bsky.social

630 followers 230 following 140 posts

Journalist. Author of The New India: The Unmaking of the World’s Largest Democracy; Harvard Radcliffe fellow; Winner, True Story Award 2024; New Yorker, Guardian Long Read, etc.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Jun 4

Introducing myself properly. (Only took a year, but here goes.)

Last year I wrote a book—THE NEW INDIA.

It was on NYT's 100 Notable Books list, as well as on NPR's 2024 Books We Love list. Then in January it won non-fiction book of the year at the Kerala Literature Festival, Asia's largest.

(1/x)

2 28 130

Reposted by Rahul Bhatia

eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 18d

Hope - not as something you have, but something you practice into being.

It is what the philosopher Jonathan Lear has called “radical hope” - “directed towards a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is.”

Vale Professor Jonathan Lear (1948-2025)

3 31 91

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · 21d

Indian tech firms had processing power to spare after Y2K, and so they turned to digitalising ID for a government focused on identifying Muslims at the border.

What if AI doesn't pan out as envisaged? What unexpected thing will its capabilities be turned to without hesitation as the bills mount?

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 21d

DEUTSCHE: NVIDIA "is currently carrying the weight of US economic growth. The bad news is that in order for the tech cycle to continue contributing to GDP growth, capital investment needs to remain parabolic. This is highly unlikely.”

@fortune.com
fortune.com/2025/09/23/a...

The AI boom is unsustainable unless tech spending goes ‘parabolic,’ Deutsche Bank warns: ‘This is highly unlikely’ | Fortune

“In the absence of tech-related spending, the U.S. would be close to, or in, recession this year,” George Saravelos says.

fortune.com

1 2

Reposted by Rahul Bhatia

vijay iyer @vijayiyer.bsky.social · 22d

Everyone in academia should read this piece about our dear, brilliant colleague @durba.bsky.social

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

A Surprise Tenure Denial in Harvard’s Gender Studies Program Leaves Some Faculty Shaken | News | The Harvard Crimson

Durba Mitra’s colleagues thought she was a near-perfect tenure candidate. When her bid was shot down in June, they were left questioning the process.

www.thecrimson.com

2 92 190

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · 22d

Thank you. That's very nice of you.

1 1

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · 23d

To anyone who followed Aadhaar’s rollout in India, the language is uncanny. Aadhaar’s ‘savings’ were derived from welfare denied. Countries need to pay attention to the language around surveillance tech in other countries. We’re all stumbling over different iterations of the same problems.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 23d

“The AI companies will receive a percentage of the savings the program generates.”

“Savings”

Ohio Medicare is part of new AI prior authorization program

A new federal program asks Ohio doctors to request prior approval to get certain medical treatments covered by traditional Medicare.

signalcleveland.org

1 38 70

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · 27d

The earlier one was on Adani. This one is about the Reliance zoo. thewire.in/environment/...

thewire.in

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · 27d

Not a bad couple of days for India's largest corporations in the courts. Too bad if you're a journalist, or the Indian public, or care for accountability and transparency. frontline.thehindu.com/columns/adan...

thewire.in/environment/...

Adani’s Defamation Injunction: How a Delhi Court Order Threatens Press Freedom

A Rohini district court’s ex parte “John Doe” order grants Adani Enterprises sweeping takedown powers, turning defamation into a tool of prior restraint. The implications for investigative journalism,...

frontline.thehindu.com

1 2

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · 29d

Thought about my life choices in Bandra traffic yesterday.

Reposted by Rahul Bhatia

sascha benjamin cohen @saschaben.bsky.social · Sep 10

"I see every ideal that I have held fading away and conditions emerging...which not only distress me but indicate to me that my life's work has been a failure."
"It is this inner rot that is the most distressing symptom of today."

-Jawaharlal Nehru, 1950, quoted in The New India by Rahul Bhatia

2 2

Reposted by Rahul Bhatia

bbeach.bsky.social @bbeach.bsky.social · Sep 1

"The New India" by Rahul Bhatia is also recommended reading. The parallels are too obvious to ignore.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/o...

Opinion | The U.S. Wooed India for 30 Years. Trump Blew That Up in a Few Months.

www.nytimes.com

3 5

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Sep 12

That is one heck of a coincidence. I don’t know much about him. But Savera, Polis, and HHR might. And thank you!

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Sep 12

Last year the Guardian carried an excerpt from my book on how Hindu supremacist indoctrination works. I spoke with a man who blew my mind with his story of life within the RSS. www.theguardian.com/world/articl...

‘Nobody knows what I know’: how a loyal RSS member abandoned Hindu nationalism

The long read: As a young man, Partha Banerjee was on course to become a senior member of the RSS, the organisation that has pushed Indian politics towards extreme religious nationalism. Then, after 4...

www.theguardian.com

1 1 7

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Sep 8

This is what I know of him from a distance: he was deeply and refreshingly sceptical of power, as a writer he hunted for poetry in the mundane, and as an editor he sustained a brave newspaper. He only spoke four words to me, long ago, when I was getting started in journalism. I’m in his debt.

Gilles Verniers @gillesverniers.bsky.social · Sep 8

Deeply saddened that Sankarshan Thakur has passed away. A fiercely independent man, friend to young and seasoned journalists and always generous and patient with scholars. A loss for his beloved home state of Bihar, to journalism, and to all of us.

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Sep 8

Oh no!!!!

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Sep 6

Why the BJP’s propaganda machinery is so formidable.

Reposted by Rahul Bhatia

Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · Sep 4

India’s courts and legislature are enabling, not restraining, the executive’s speech crackdown. Institutions meant as checks are turning into enablers, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Prateek Waghre (@prateekwaghre.com) . www.techpolicy.press/indias-court...

India’s Courts and Legislature Fail to Rein in Speech Crackdown | TechPolicy.Press

India’s state governments are taking steps with adverse implications for speech and expression, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Prateek Waghre.

www.techpolicy.press

4 4

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Sep 4

Do it for the researcher four centuries from now: bsky.app/profile/laur...

Laura @lauropea.bsky.social · Sep 4

when I get a load of letters my job is basically reading someone's posts and dms but they've been dead for 100-400 years and I don't know what memes and dril tweets they're referencing

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Sep 4

(Generally not in favour of mauling books with a pencil, but now and then a great academic book comes along and that’s it. For eg. My copy of Alok Rai’s Hindi Nationalism is more graphite than ink.)

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Sep 4

A passage about how middle class technocratic attitudes are utilised in service of politics in ‘The Backstage of Democracy’, a fascinating book.

2 2

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Sep 2

This reminds me: 25 years ago, in a land far away, Indian officials wondered if an identification card would help identify unauthorised migrants. From my book THE NEW INDIA.

Reposted by Rahul Bhatia

Sanjay Sipahimalani @sansip.bsky.social · Aug 30

I’ve procrastinated writing this book review for so long that I, too, have become a metaphor for unrealised potential.

1 4

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Aug 30

This reminded me: Every few years the papers I read growing up propelled some unsuspecting thing (tea, coffee, eggs) on to the eternal roundabout of damnation and salvation (good for you, no wait, bad for you, no wait…). After a while one point of view stuck and we called it science.

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · Aug 30

Why bad bitcoin treasuries could make the best investments on.ft.com/4p0xmhX | opinion

Why bad bitcoin treasuries could make the best investments

Treasuries on the wrong side of the divide could still create value

on.ft.com

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Aug 29

And baby, baby, baby: the book, now in paperback. Finally.

1 3

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Aug 29

rahulbhatia.com/2025/08/29/q...

Questions to authority

Two nights ago I attended the launch of [In]Complete Justice?, S Muralidhar’s book of essays about the state of India’s Supreme Court, which turns 75 this year. The hall at India Intern…

rahulbhatia.com

1 1

Rahul Bhatia @rahulabhatia.bsky.social · Aug 29

Over the past few days, I’ve learned of three fine reporters/editors building their own publications because Indian newsrooms have turned conservative.

Times are hard now, but there are people quietly building for the future. Every newsletter done right is a potential institution. Defiance adds up.

1 5