[alephnerd]

India is a diverse country with diversity within both the federal level and the state level. I have listed a subset of sources I and friends of mine from Indian policy backgrounds (IAS, IPS, MHA, etc) tended to trust. This is not a complete list, and shows my own regional biases.

Feel free to AMA me or discuss additional recommendations in this thread. I don't get much of an opportunity to discuss Social Sciences since I switched careers to the Tech world.

edit:

I will not dignify any flame-bait conversations. I will chat with people from any political camp, but only if they chat in a non-combative manner.

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General Journalism:

Most newspapers and news media channels in India are owned by Oligarchs supporting one party or the other.

The only Indian newspaper I've personally trusted is The Tribune (https://www.tribuneindia.com/) due to it's being owned by a non-profit foundation with a perpetual endowment created by a banking magnate back in the late 19th century.

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Long Form Journalism:

The Caravan - https://caravanmagazine.in/

Has a bit of a center-left and progressive leaning, but pretty well investigated and written articles.

The Print - https://theprint.in/

Has a bit of a center-right leaning, but strong informed articles on Indian Defence Policy and Developmental News (I think they have some ex-MoD and IAS beats).

The Wire - https://thewire.in/

Has a center-left leaning, but a good source for articles on the negative ground realities that exist in various different regions of South Asia. Also surprisingly strong at Indian Foreign Policy (I think they have some ex-MEA beats)

Himal Magazine - https://www.himalmag.com/

Has a center-left and progressive leaning, but a strong source on the anthropological and sociological aspects of South Asian studies.

Swarajya - https://swarajyamag.com/

Has a center-right to far right leaning, but a strong source to understand BJP and Hinduvta politics from their perspective.

Outlook India - https://www.outlookindia.com/

Good long form journalism and analysis. Haven't noticed much bias one way or the other as they tend to publish ideologues from all spectrums of Indian politics.

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Public Policy Think Tanks and Journals:

Observer Research Foundation - https://www.orfonline.org/

Amazing articles and papers on South Asian Foreign Policy and Developmental Economics. Centrist/Institutionalist bias as it is staffed by ex-IAS and policymaker types

Carnegie India Foundation - https://carnegieindia.org/

Similar as ORF, but with a stronger bias towards IR.

Economic and Political Weekly - https://www.epw.in/

One of the premier Indian Social Sciences journals. Very strong articles on South Asian social sciences in general.

Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy - https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/

Amazing organization working on legal policy analysis in India. Very easy to read for those who are not from a legal background

Centre de Sciences Humaines Delhi - https://www.csh-delhi.com/

Strong research on developmental economics and regional socio-political dynamics in South Asia.

The Diplomat - https://thediplomat.com/

Probably the best foreign policy magazine in the APAC region. Well researched and a diverse amount of voices from all sides of the political spectrum

Lowy Institute - https://www.lowyinstitute.org/

Probably the best APAC foreign policy think tank. It's essentially Brookings Level

[screye]

Caveats:

The Indian center is very different from the American center. Economically, the Indian center is closer to Bernie-Sanders than it is to Biden. The Indian left (academic and on the ground) is actually communist and the Indian right still tends to be fairly center-left (as far as the US goes) The social left-right dimension is its own thing, and does not map neatly onto similar intuitions in the west.

The last caveat is that Indian secularism is very different from western secularism.

_________

That being said, This is a good list.

> The Print

I am personally biased towards favoring 'The Print' more so than the other organizations. Shekhar Gupta leads an ideologically clear (socially liberal, economically liberal) media house, always quotes their sources and does well to separate reporting from opinion. I would not call it right leaning by any means.

> Caravan

I have mixed opinions on Caravan. At their best, they are great. But, they can vary between excellent left-leaning journalism to outright left-wing fear mongering. I'm sure you'll see some strong opinions thrown around about them, and both the positive and negative tend to be well deserved.

> Wire and OutlookIndia

I have a low opinion of both. I wouldn't go as far as to call them a rag, but I wouldn't defend them against those accusations either.

> Swarajya - but a strong source to understand BJP and Hinduvta politics from their perspective

Agreed. Won't go there for news, but serves a purpose.

[alephnerd]

Glad you added that caveat to this thread!

A lot of Western commentators don't tend to realize that aspect of Indian politics, instead applying a federal American lens (though American politics is actually equally diverse as well).

To any Americans reading this thread, Indian politics is HEAVILY local party driven. BJP MPs from states like HP would have entirely different opinions or backgrounds from BJP MPs from a region like Purvanchal (Eastern UP). In additional, most elected officials in Indian politics don't really have party loyalty. They'll change parties at the drop of the hat (or start their own) if they feel their opportunity to climb up the political rungs are best served elsewhere. That is a MASSIVE reason the BJP/NDA+ won like a steamroller in 2019 - a number of up and coming INC politicians changed party affiliations because their upward potential was blocked by regional INC machines.

In addition, it is very common for regional political barons to split off from the national party and make their own regional party - this happened with the INC in West Bengal (Mamata Banerjee and the TMC), Uttar Pradesh (Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party), Maharashtra (Bal Thackeray and the Shiv Sena - which itself split into 2 parties this week - and Tariq Anwar and the NCP) , and Andhra Pradesh (YSR Raja Reddy and the YSR Congress) to name a few states. Captain Amarinder Singh - the former Chief Minister (Indian equivalent of Governor) of Punjab - himself is rumored to be making a regional party in Punjab now as well after internal politicking in the INC forced him out of CMship.

That said, similar stuff will eventually happen to the BJP as well. I've heard rumblings at the grassroots level in Haryana, HP, and Jammu about discontent with local BJP acolytes and there is probably going to be a major shift in Indian politics over the next 10 years as a new generation of local parties form.

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> The Print

Agree with you that they are not right leaning in any way. I labelled them as slightly center right due to their occasional support for certain pro-market reforms (ones that I do support by the way). Honestly, I probably could have called them centrist but the edit timer has run down on that comment.

> Wire and Outlook

I'm curious about your reasons for having a low opinion of them? I've had reservations about some opinions the Wire reports, but at least in the region my family is from they've been pretty even handed reporting on abuses of power that have occurred. W/ regards to Outlook I was debating whether to add them to this list, but I have read some quality articles from them on occasion.

[screye]

This is golden. It's nice to see people add context to Indian politics on HN. All too often, even the most well-read American has a naïve understanding of Indian politics. You're doing God's work giving folks glimpses into the sheer difference, complexity and nuance of Indian politics.

> but the edit timer has run down on that comment

such is life.

> I'm curious about your reasons for having a low opinion of them?

I think part of it is because I only ever read them when someone tells me about how they mis-reported on something. So, it might be personal bias where I overtly hone-in on the mistakes they make. I don't read either OutlookIndia or TheWire enough to make strong claims about their caliber as journalism houses. But when I get linked to them, I make sure to get a 2nd opinion.

[alephnerd]

Haha thanks! To be fair, as someone who is Desi American, a lot of the incomplete reporting about India that happens in the Western newspapers is due to bad pay. The NYT pays reporters $12k a year/8.4lpa in Delhi NCR, while cable news channels like NDTV, Aaj Tak, etc would pay a similar level reporter around $14-17k/10-12 lpa while giving much more political power (and the opportunity to take cash for unbalanced reporting if they want). Ergo, all the good reporters either start their own new wave media orgs like The Print or The Wire, or they become acolytes for a party (all parties do this of course - ain't no saints in Indian politics, not even the Sadhus, Peers, Yogis, Maulvis, or Sants).

[hef19898]

Ain't no saints in politics anywhere, are there?

[alephnerd]

Yep, but having worked on the Hill, American politicians on both sides of the aisle are less douchey than the equivalent MPs I've interacted with in India and the UK.