Suggesting that India’s business class is still not out of its feudal culture, a recent study on merger and acquisition (M&A) deals of top Indian business houses, carried out jointly by scholars of the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, and Pomona College, Claremont, California, United States, has found that the “observed percentage of same-varna mergers” is 40.11%, which is at least “twice as high as” (15.47% to 20.34%) as M&A carried out with firms that do not have the same varna.

  Jair Bolsonaro A Harvard University scholar has raised the alarm that "on the heels of a Brazilian electoral process that was marked by outrageous disinformation campaigns", India, where elections for the Lok Sabha are on, "may be witnessing the world’s next WhatsApp election."

Anand K Sahay A  just-released book , “India: The Wrong Transition”, by a top Delhi-based scribe Anand K Sahay, has quoted “journalistic circles” to say that the Indian mainstream media – with certain “honourable exceptions” – has virtually abandoned the “practice of journalism”, and  this happened following a “sting operation” that showed that “the crème de la crème of Indian journalism were only too willing, for a suitable price, to let poisonous Hindutva propaganda prevail in their news columns.”

  Even as political parties are fighting a pitched battle during the Lok Sabha elections, a recent study, 'Socio-Economic Conditions and Political Participation of Rural Women Labourers in Punjab', has made the stark revelation that “a very large majority of the rural woman labourers, i.e., 95.28 per cent have no interest in politics”, even as pointing out, “They do not read, listen and watch news.”

  The Government of India's (GoI) Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, launched in 2016 in order to promote the use of clean cooking fuel to villagers by subsidizing liquid petroleum gas (LPG) connections, and thus reduce exposure to "harmful" indoor air pollution, has mainly helped the rural elite, a recent study, titled "Persistence of solid fuel use despite increases in LPG ownership: New survey evidence from rural north India", has said.

Close on the heels of  releasing  his book in Gujarati, "Bhed Bharat", which lists 319 cases of atrocities against Dalits and Adivasis across the country over the last five years, well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan has shot an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, telling him the reasons why he does not want vote for the BJP.

   Even as India goes to polls, a recent European Union-assisted Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) report, claiming to provide "new ways to study the nature, causes, and consequences of democracy embracing its multiple meanings", has raised the alarm that "freedom of expression, media, and civil society are under threat", especially in "key countries, such as Brazil, India, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and the United States."

In a controversial decision, in January 2016, the Banaras Hindu University’s Indian Institute of Technology (BHU-IIT) expelled well-known Gandhian academic, educationist and Magsaysay award winning social activist, Prof Sandeep Pandey, allegedly under “hardline” RSS pressure. Despite an Allahabad High Court order, to reinstate him he was not allowed in.