New Delhi: The game of cricket has always been geopolitically charged in the subcontinent, with India and Pakistan sharing both borders and an obsession with the sport. The Champions Trophy, from 19 February to 9 March, is yet another arena where this is on display.
“Cricket-mad Pakistan’s nearly three-decade wait to host a major global championship ended on Wednesday, but the celebrations have been laced with disappointment because of the absence of a familiar rival: India,” reports the New York Times.
While eight teams are competing in the Champions Trophy, only seven will play in Pakistan. India will play its matches in the United Arab Emirates.
“The subtext-laden Pakistan-India cricket rivalry is one of the greatest and fiercest in sports,” the article titled ‘Pakistan Hosts Top Cricket Championship, but India Skips the Party’ explains. “Hundreds of millions of people around the world tune in to every clash between the neighbours, whose cricket teams have become symbols of national identity.”
While the cricket authorities in both India and Pakistan seem satisfied, many fans in Pakistan are disappointed, according to NYT, which then goes on to list out all the reasons why India won’t play in Pakistan, including the Partition, the dispute over Kashmir, and the nuclear arms race.
“There was often enough political room for the countries to host each other’s cricket teams,” Pragati K.B. and Zia ur-Rehman report for the NYT. “But separating the political tensions between Pakistan and India from cricket became almost impossible after 2008, when Pakistani militants crossed into India and attacked Mumbai, killing more than 160 people.”
India’s cricket team has not travelled to Pakistan since 2008, with the two teams only playing each other in global tournaments like the World Cup and Champions Trophy. Pakistan, on the other hand, has played in India, including before a very hostile crowd in 2023.
The growing threat from Islamist militants has kept other teams away from Pakistan. International cricket matches dried up in Pakistan after a militant attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in 2009. It’s why this current tournament is such a big deal for Pakistan: it’s a chance to show the world that the country can host big tournaments again.
The Guardian reports that police in Kashmir have been raiding bookstores, seizing at least 668 books as part of a crackdown on dissent.
“Most of the titles were written by Abul A’la Maududi, a prominent 20th-century Islamic scholar who founded Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic organisation banned in Kashmir,” Ella Creamer reports in ‘Hundreds of books seized from stores in Kashmir as Indian police crack down on dissent,’ adding that raids began last Friday in Srinagar.
The books were mostly published by the Delhi-based Markazi Maktaba Islami Publishers, which is affiliated with Jamaat—one of the largest religious and political organisations in the Indian subcontinent, which was banned by the government in 2019.
“Jamaat-e-Islami leaders said that the seizure of books ‘is unjust, unconstitutional, and a violation of fundamental rights,’ adding that the books are ‘legally published’ in Delhi.”
“If the government has any security concerns, we are fully prepared to cooperate with any investigation,” its leaders told The Guardian.
Many in Kashmir have called seizing the books “condemnable” and “ridiculous,” the report says.
Meanwhile, the BBC reports on ‘How a tiny village became India’s YouTube capital,’ with the platform sparking an economic and social revolution.
It’s a microcosm of YouTube’s effect on the world, the BBC says. “Some 4,000 people live in Tulsi, and reports suggest more than 1,000 of them work on YouTube in some capacity. Walk around the village itself and it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t appeared in one of the many videos being filmed there,” Saqib Mugloo reports.
February 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of YouTube: around 2.5 billion people use the platform per month, and India is one of YouTube’s biggest markets. And all this filters down to Tulsi, where the YouTube revolution began in 2018 with a channel called ‘Being Chhattisgarhiya.’
“The money that YouTube brings has transformed the local economy, locals say, and beyond financial benefits, the social media platform has become an instrument for equality and social change. The residents who’ve launched successful YouTube channels and found new streams of income include a number of women who previously had few opportunities for advancement in this rural setting. Under the banyan trees, conversations have turned to technology and the internet,” the BBC says.
Impressed by the content creators in the village, the state government established a state-of-the-art studio for the village in 2023, with the local administration seeing it as an opportunity to bridge the digital divide.
“In Tulsi, YouTube has paved the way for women to take centre stage in this technological revolution,” reports BBC. “According to Draupadi Vaishnu, the former Sarpanch, or village head of Tulsi, YouTube can play a crucial role in challenging biases and changing societal norms in India, where domestic abuse remains a prevalent issue.”
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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