Ilma is the India editor based in New Delhi. Before pursuing a masters degree from Columbia Journalism School in New York City, she was a television correspondent and producer covering politics, policy and crime. Following her degree, Ilma completed a series of fellowships in New York and Washington D.C. including CNN Tonight with Don Lemon and the Center for Responsive Politics. Ilma's interests range from India's political economy to bad reality television.
When three SUVs rammed a group of protesters on October 3 in Uttar Pradesh – resulting in the death of four farmers, three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers, and a journalist – right-wing accounts blamed the protesters for being extremists. As...
As millions of Indian football fans tuned into the UEFA Euros 2020 on online streaming platform Sony LIV, an advertisement from a major tournament sponsor that would usually not be aired – a Hindi ad for online bookmaker Betway – ran routinely...
In the first week of May, activists from various countries complained posts meant to amplify their causes had been removed by Instagram. For some first-timers in India using their social media accounts to help people procure urgent medicines and...
As India’s second wave of COVID-19 has the country reporting higher cases than any other country at any stage during the pandemic, the Indian government is clamping down on social media accounts that are critical of the administration or making...
Earlier this month, an Election Commission of India (ECI) sector officer in West Bengal’s Howrah district was suspended for staying the night at the home of a relative — a Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader — while carrying four spare Electronic Voting...
Politicians with formidable grassroots following, often linked with Tamil cinema, have led most major electoral exercises in the state of Tamil Nadu for decades since the times one of it’s most successful actors and politicians Maruthur Gopalan...
On January 3 this year, activist Rachna Dhingra highlighted in a Twitter thread that hundreds of survivors from one of the world’s worst industrial disasters — 1984’s Bhopal gas tragedy — were being targeted and unethically recruited to participate...
On December 8, farmer unions called for a nationwide Bharat Bandh—with resounding support from opposition parties—in protest against the new agricultural reforms. As has happened with several major protests in the recent past, social media was rife...
Footage of Deepika Padukone, one of India’s most iconic actors, ran on a continuous loop on news channels this weekend as she attended the office of the Narcotics Control Bureau for questioning. The agency is investigating an alleged Bollywood “drug...