Brain Wave

A blog





Five quick code and design tricks to boost your journalism

During my last day of the Google Journalism Fellowship at the Poynter Institute of Media Studies, the amazing people there asked me to teach. Yes, me. A recent graduate with no experience whatsoever. Here are five lessons I shared with them.

Finding a new home

A year ago, I flew to the United States to pursue a master’s degree in journalism. The desire was to learn more about this growing obsession of the industry with ‘data’ and at the same time, experience a different cultural space. However, in order to accomplish that, I had to leave what I called home. Born […]

How technology news websites covered the NSA surveillance story

In the summer of 2014, I graduated from University of Delhi with a Bachelor's degree in Journalism. During the same, I worked on an undergraduate thesis titled "Technology Journalism In The American Online Media: Reporting Matters Of Money, Products And Policy." The 18,000-word dissertation picked up specific cases to illustrate the three themes. For policy I looked at the coverage of Edward Snowden's NSA leaks. Here is the entire text of the chapter.

Observing ‘Modi’fied Indian Americans

Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India addressed the Indian American community at Madison Square Garden on 28th September, 2014. Indian media erupted in a frenzy – covering the program and his every move during the visit to America. “Rockstar Modi” and his performance was seen across TV channels and described elaborately in print publications. One prime player […]

Going Green South Asian Style at #PeoplesClimate, NYC

When the People’s Climate March was held on 21st September 2014 in New York City, the gesture was one of creating awareness. Over 300,000 people had showed up. In order to identify with common grounds, people got together in groups representing specific interests that they held for their communities. One such contingent was that of […]

5 key lessons from my stint at DU Beat

First things first – this is a highly delayed post. I attribute the delay to laziness and my love for procrastination.  I spent the last one year (June 2013 – April 2014) completely engrossed in leading the website of a university centric news portal – DU Beat. What started as an ‘extra-curricular’ activity ended up teaching […]