Netflix, Smriti Irani, Alia Bhatt & more — the 15 articles we got trolled for most in 2018

Graphic by Arindam Mukherjee | ThePrint.in

A selection of the news reports, analysis and opinions published by ThePrint this year that drew the most flak and trolling on social media.

IIT Bombay is just the latest among India’s elite colleges promoting food casteism

Neera Majumdar’s January reaction to the food-based segregation imposed at IIT-Bombay pointed out that this was the prevalent practice at a lot of top educational institutions in India. Less than a year later, viral images from IIT-Madras have just proved her point.

Chic & Dangerous: These Facebook meme pages make sexism, casteism and intolerance cool 

Sabah Azaad and Nikhil Rampal profiled both Right and Left-wing Facebook meme pages to show just how much hate they were spreading. They found that in the guise of ‘humour’, a lot of them carry casteist, sexist and intolerant memes.

India’s top 5 revenue generating monuments were all built by Muslim rulers 

The five top tourist attractions in India, revenue-wise, are the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, Qutub Minar, Fatehpur Sikri and Red Fort — all built by Muslim rulers. Sanya Dhingra reported that together, they earned Rs 146.05 crore in 2017-18, more than half the total revenue generated by centrally-protected monuments.

Arvind Kejriwal govt has not rejected a single tree-cutting request since 2015 

At a time when the central government’s order to cut down 16,500 trees in the capital was raising hackles, Apurva Viswanath found that Arvind Kejriwal’s Delhi government didn’t fare much better — it had allowed the felling of more than 17,115 trees in three years.

We analysed 1,000 BJP leaders & found the party remains a Brahmin-Baniya club 

Ruhi Tewari and Pragya Kaushika conducted an in-depth analysis into the BJP’s organisational structure, right down to the district level, which revealed it was still dominated by the upper castes and had little room for Dalits, backwards or minorities. It was heavily trolled by the BJP and Right-wing Twitter warriors.

Smriti Irani may rage on Twitter, but she’s always relaxed on Instagram 

ThePrint carries a feature called Zero Hour, which profiles politicians away from the heat and dust of politics. This often draws the ire of Twitterati, whose reactions range from the unparliamentary equivalents of ‘get a life’ to accusations of being their lapdogs.

Nandita Singh’s feature on Smriti Irani’s social media feeds was one example. Another was Pragya Kaushika’s report detailing how BJP president Amit Shah put emphasis on fitness and actually lost 20 kg.

You like a Muslim more, cop asks as woman is slapped for having Muslim lover 

Deeksha Bhardwaj reported on a viral video that showed a woman in Meerut being slapped by the police for having a Muslim lover. The three cops, including a woman, who also used derogatory language, were suspended for the incident.

The Indian Brett Kavanaugh who cannot be named 

At the height of the controversy over the appointment of sexual misconduct accused Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court, Apurva Viswanath pointed out the malaise that existed on this count in the Indian judiciary too. In her opinion, the judiciary needed to stop actively shielding them.

Bangladesh is better off than India, not a poor, backward neighbour anymore 

Priyamvada Grover’s report was a simple analytical comparison of India and Bangladesh, with the help of available data. It showed that the smaller eastern neighbour has overtaken India on not just GDP growth, but several other indicators.

Alia Bhatt’s TV burp is a good time to look at the science behind belching

Actor Alia Bhatt had burped on air on Karan Johar’s show Koffee with Karan, sparking off a social media debate. Sandhya Ramesh then explained how a burp was not something abnormal, but was trolled for having ‘too much time on her hands’, among other things.

Why Sabarimala issue leaves instinctive liberals like me torn 

Thiruvananthapuram MP and former UPA minister Shashi Tharoor’s opinion on the Sabarimala issue opened up a big debate. It drew a negative response from many scholars like Ramachandra Guha, who called it “deeply disappointing”, but also received support from people like Nirupama Menon Rao, India’s former foreign secretary.

After Amazon, Netflix said to have agreed to censor its content in India 

At a time when explicit shows like Sacred Games were drawing flak and even legal petitions on Netflix, Sanya Dhingra’s report was based on a meeting between Netflix and the government. Netflix, however, denied ever attending such a meeting.

Read this before deciding whether Savarkar was a British stooge or strategic nationalist 

Historian Vikram Sampath wrote a counter-point to Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s campaign trail attack on the proponent of Hindutva, V.D. Savarkar, and said an objective assessment of Savarkar tilts the scales of history “considerably in his favour”.

This is the next generation of Indian intellectuals

ThePrint asked public intellectuals of today to pick the next generation in their fields, which resulted in this list. However, brickbats came our way for the gender imbalance of the nominators (explained here), and many other issues.