Samira Hussain

**🚨 Exclusive Investigation for Al Jazeera: 🚨** I’m excited to share my latest investigative piece with Al Jazeera on the Government of India's advertising agency, the Central Bureau of Communication (CBC). Initially meant to promote government plans and programs, CBC's ads have increasingly featured catchphrases from Modi’s party, making it the top pre-election spender on Google ads. Over the past few months, political advertisement spending has been a hot topic, especially with publicly available data from Google and Facebook. However, the significant expenditures by CBC, which became one of the top spenders after starting its ad campaign in November, have largely gone unnoticed. Curious about this trend, I delved into CBC’s activities, uncovering how this government agency has spent substantial amounts on ads, raising concerns about the broader issue of institutional practices that allow any ruling party to leverage government funds with minimal accountability. This article represents a significant milestone for me as it combines my expertise in data analysis, policy, and ground reporting. Reporting on India's elections has always been a dream of mine, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to pursue this investigation. A big thank you to Nadim Asrar for entrusting me with this project and to Charu Kasturi for the seamless collaboration. Check out the full article here:

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VIEWPOINT! During India’s Lok Sabha Elections 2024, many prominent newspapers and media outlets in the West desperately pushed their own narratives and agendas with the target of misleading the international community as well as voters in India. READ MORE....... https://lnkd.in/gt9Bbhwj #IndiaElections2024 #LokSabhaElection2024 #ForeignMedia #WesternMedia #narratives #agendas #influencingvoters #internationalcommunity #USMedia #ukmedia #disinformation #bjp #pmmodi

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Here's a full fledged interactive on election results in India in the past two Lok Sabha elections (held in 2014 and 2019) along with up-to-date phases and turnout data for the ongoing elections in 2024. There are filters to choose to drill the data down further; State/UT dropdown to zoom into States for results data; an urban-cluster dropdown because urban constituencies are highly populous but geographically small and you can see all this in a map based view or a simple list. The interactive was done entirely using d3.js and some python programming, while the underlying data was taken from the Election Commission of India, Trivedi Centre for Political Learning's LokDhaba and the SHRUG database (that provided the building blocks for constructing urban/rural classifications for parliamentary constituencies). The fun part - I used the help of GPT-4's "Code Assistant" extensively to get the visualisations done. Gen-AI, again, has truly revolutionised coding and product development. Please see the interactive here - https://lnkd.in/g4_ApwHR .. and share this with others. We are hoping to use this to display- and parse live data on election results day as well. Fingers crossed.

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My interview with former Supreme Court judge, Justice Chelameswar. India is not strictly a federal democracy. Before the Constitution was framed, India was not a single entity politically. India exists today as a single political entity-Nation. Federation pre-supposes the existence of several federal units whose identity and existence cannot be tinkered. Under our Constitution, a state can be created and divided by a simple law in the parliament. What happened to Andhra Pradesh? It is the perfect example of the transientness of the Federal Units. Federalism is a transient thing in this country. https://lnkd.in/gFyD7_rm

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What are analysts thinking about Indian elections? If we were to retrace ourselves from the loud election ecosystem of India & think about what would India need politically for its rise, what would it be? We talked with a former political strategist, Chandra Mishra and analyst, Dr. Kaush Arha from Atlantic Council as well as journalist & author sunita aron, currently a consulting editor with Hindustan Times to guage what India needs. The one common thought that everybody highlighted was the role of the opposition and why a government with a majority as well as a strong opposition are important to maintain a balance in Indian democracy! #indianelections2024 #indiavotes #indiandemocracy #roleofopposition

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My analysis Why Manipur conflict has dragged on for so long and why reconciliation is still possible https://lnkd.in/ghn6798G

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My analysis here on how the #russia, #china partnership opens a Eurasian angle to the US pivot to the #indopacific. I argue that while Russia sees in China, complimentary geopolitical opportunities in the long run, Beijing with its advantages of asymmetry is a strategic competitor of Russia. https://lnkd.in/gtk7XFpU

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The BJP is unacceptable on account of its anti-democratic politics; in terms of economic policy, it is no different from the Congress https://lnkd.in/gCYJ5J4K #BJP #IndianNationalCongress #EconomicPolicy

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Why did the BJP choose an Adivasi Chief Minister in Odisha? How did the 2024 election results become a determining factor in selecting Odisha's CM? Read my latest column for ABP News. https://lnkd.in/gPEY4YuE #opinion #politics #Abpnews

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Spotlight on UGC-NET Exam since 1989-90, successfully switched to Computer Based Test (CBT) in 2018 In 2024, ‘baffling’ shift to paper-pen mode again lands it in leak fiasco @ETPolitics https://lnkd.in/dmHHixxy

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In this episode on Election 360 we are taking you to Muzzafarnagar. We are answering some key questions here, "How well is the BJP-RLD alliance working? Is the BJP subaltern Hindutva umbrella under which it combined all non-dominant most backward classes still intact? How will the infighting in BJP impact their electoral prospects? What do voters have to say about absence of a Muslim candidate on a seat where they are the numerically strongest group." Do watch. https://lnkd.in/gpnc_RhC

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The Communist, err, Congress manifesto, is based on the hypothesis of three narrative-setters assigned by the West for India: Christophe Jaffrelot, Jean Dreze, and Thomas Piketty. What’s common to all three, apart from their “noble cause” of highlighting failures of the Hindu society under the BJP, is a halo of selfless missionaries of social justice. Sanctimonious in their approach, Jaffrelot focuses on the religious, caste, and sectarian fault lines of India; Dreze focuses on the poverty fault line, and Piketty focuses on the inequality fault line. The troika of communal porn, poverty porn, and wealth porn is a template lifted straight from the Colonial textbook, to divide India along caste, class and community lines. https://lnkd.in/gC2GeJjd

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