A new novel paints an unusual world of cockfights, politics, rajahs – and gory violence
An excerpt from ‘Fighter Cock’, by Sidharth Singh. Amshudhagar / CC BY-SA 3.0
The pavilion at the old polo ground had been converted into an arena for the illegal cockfights that Murugan conducted on the raja’s behalf. When Murugan had first moved to Shikargarh in the late 1970s, he had been astounded by the untapped fighting potential of the Karianath and had decided to introduce the sport in Shikargarh. He brought in other fighting breeds from his native Tamil Nadu, trained a batch of Karianath fighters and soon got the locals hooked.
Why American climate fiction is fuelling age-old stereotypes about modern migration
While employing well-known ideas can help get points across about a potential future, there is a more compelling way to represent climate migration. 2 hours ago Wild fires on the US’s West Coast displaced many from their homes, making them climate change migrants. | Reuters
Typically set in the future, climate fiction (or “cli-fi”) showcases the disastrous consequences of climate change and anticipates the dramatic transformations to come. Among the various scenarios cli-fi considers is unprecedented population displacement due to droughts and disappearing coastlines. These stories echo assessments from the International Organization for Migration, which warned as early as 1990 that migration would perhaps be the “single greatest impact of climate change”.
Will jobs go back to being the way they were when Indian firms recover after the Covid-19 pandemic?
An excerpt from ‘Decisive Decade – India 2030: Gazelle or Hippo’, by Kiran Karnik. Indranil Mukherjee/AFP
The concerns about technology consuming jobs through automation have been discussed. Yet, as noted, tech also creates new jobs. One area is the growing number of livelihood opportunities in the “platform” or online world. This is part of the “gig” economy, and ranges from sophisticated work (often for foreign clients) in developing software, website designing, translation and editing, to food delivery.
Estimates indicate that the number of food delivery agents in just one company (Zomato) in India is over 230,000, and the number of drivers in one taxi-app service (Ola) was estimated at 2.5 million in 2018. China’s more developed market has at least 5.7 million delivery personnel in its two main players (Meituan Dianping, backed by Tencent Holdings, and Ele.