UpFront

Buying influence: How China manipulates Facebook and Twitter

China's government has unleashed a global online campaign to burnish its image and undercut accusations of human rights abuses, and much of the effort takes place in the shadows, behind the guise of bot networks that generate automatic posts and hard-to-trace online personas

My board knows we run a clean ship: Deepinder Goyal

Deepinder Goyal on his chemistry with Blinkit founder Albinder Dhindsa and trigger to invest in the company, the heady IPO success and how and what has changed in him as a founder

Quick play: Deepinder Goyal, Blinkit, and the promise of 10-minute delivery

Can Blinkit—Grofers' new avatar and Albinder Dhindsa's 10-minute delivery act—help Deepinder Goyal add more muscle in Zomato's hyperlocal fight against loaded rival Swiggy, aggressive Dunzo and a bunch of upstarts?

Cases rise, criticism mounts, but ships keep cruising

Even as case numbers rise, ships keep sailing and guests keep embarking, adamant that the onboard environment is safe because of stringent health and safety requirements, including pre-departure testing and vaccine mandates

In a race to shape the future, history is under new pressure

History is continuously rewritten, whether by scholars updating their assumptions, activists reframing the record, or politicians massaging collective memory for their own ends

Our top reads of the week

Storyboard 18 - Metaverse: India will just not benefit from it, it will play a significant role in building it, says Meta's Ajit Mohan

In an interview with Storyboard18, Ajit Mohan, Managing Director, Meta India, talks about the big shift from offline to online in the last 18 months, new content czars, brand safety, the Reels rocketship, and India's role in building the metaverse

Why the upheaval in Kazakhstan could rattle energy markets

Kazakhstan, where violent protests against the government have been raging, has some of the largest oil fields on earth and more than 40% of the world's uranium production

China's latest lockdown shows stubborn resolve on zero Covid-19

China has continued to rely on the same authoritarian virus-fighting methods from early 2020, including strict quarantines, border closings and lockdowns, that have led to food and medical shortages and growing questions about how much longer its zero Covid-19 strategy, the last in the world, can continue

Meet the Speed Guns: Can Zepto live up to its billing?

Two 19-year-old Stanford dropouts are writing the A to Z of Q commerce in India with speed, guts and gusto

Storyboard 18 - New-age D2C brands are fuelling demand for product designers

Indian product design sector that was mostly catering to international clients, now has abundant business in India. Thanks to the growing Direct to Consumer (D2C) brand space and their focus on giving users a seamless interface