#133 The Centre Cannot Hold 🎧

<em>While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways.</em><br/><em>Audio narration by </em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.ad-auris.com/"><em>Ad-Auris</em></a><em>.  </em><br/><br/><strong>India Policy Watch #1: Satyam Eva Jayate?  </strong><br/><br/><em>Insights on burning policy issues in India</em><br/><br/>- <em>RSJ</em><br/><br/>We often talk about truth, disinformation and radically networked societies in this newsletter. Our interest in these issues is often on account of news stories around us. But that’s not all. We find there’s a more fundamental shift on the understanding of truth that’s underway in societies around the world. That is what fascinates us about truth. <br/><br/>Now, truth or its nature is the basis of all philosophy from the time Socrates started asking questions of fellow Athenians at the public square many centuries ago. Yet we come back to the question of truth and certainty again and again over the course of our history. Not because attaining the truth is an epistemological necessity for our race. That it might be. Instead understanding the nature of truth is important to control it. And those who control the truth control power. Not only for the present but far into the future. <br/><br/>So what’s the point of this random discourse on truth at the start? <br/><br/>Truth Is The First Casualty<br/><br/>There were a few news stories over the past couple of weeks that made me wonder about where we are on truth in India today. <br/><br/>First, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57577268">kerfuffle between Twitter and the Indian government</a>. A lot of commentary on this topic conflate two issues - <strong>one</strong>, Twitter not complying (yet) to certain parts of the new IT intermediary guidelines and <strong>two</strong>, Twitter tagging certain tweets by