| Dear Express Explained reader, We have published a series of reports on the ongoing ‘special intensive revision’ of electoral rolls in Bihar, an exercise, essentially, to determine who should be allowed to vote in the Assembly election that will be held before November this year. More than a third of electors are required to provide documents to establish their date and/ or place of birth and, in certain cases, of their parents as well. This has provoked litigation in the Supreme Court and confusion on the ground, and there is fear that in a poor state with low literacy, many people may be wrongfully denied their most fundamental right in a democracy. Ritika Chopra wrote about the process of the ‘intensive’ revision of rolls, and recalled the history and circumstances of previous such revisions. Separately, she reported on the process that the Election Commission of India has been following in Bihar, and how it marks a departure from its earlier practice in fundamental ways. The government has declared, quoting a World Bank document, that India is now the world’s fourth most equal country, which is the result of a “more even” sharing of the fruits of economic progress within society. Most of us would be baffled by the claim, seeing as we do the staggering inequalities in incomes, wealth, lifestyles, and opportunities all around us. What is to be made of the government’s release then, and of the World Bank’s brief on which it was ostensibly based? Udit Misra, who writes our popular ExplainSpeaking column, broke down the claim and the parameters on which it is based, and presented the bigger picture on inequality, without the misleading and ultimately self-defeating cherry-picking of data that is best avoided. Every year, representatives from almost every country on the planet gather at a conference on climate change that has achieved, given the magnitude of the existential threat to humanity, next to nothing. The reason, essentially, is the selfishness of the developed West, the countries that are responsible for the problem in the first place. And now that Donald Trump’s America has walked out of the international climate negotiations, the entire process seems irrelevant. What will it take to rebuild the lost trust? Brazil, the host of COP30, has been working to do so, but as Amitabh Sinha explained, the issues are complex, and the disagreements among countries fundamental — reforming the UNFCCC process will not be easy at all. The Vera C Rubin astronomical observatory in Chile has released the first batch of its test images. The observatory is a scientific and technological marvel, and promises to reveal some of the deepest secrets of the cosmos. Alind Chauhan explained what is unique about the observatory, and why the information that it will gather matters for our scientific understanding of the universe. Thank you for reading The Indian Express Explained. There is a large body of explanatory journalism, on a wide range of topics, on our website, and I hope you will check it out soon if you haven’t already. Also, many of our best explainers are now behind a paywall, so I hope you will subscribe. Sincerely, Monojit |
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