The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and the Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD), Ashoka University invite you to a virtual book discussion on: Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India by Rukmini S.
About the Author:
Rukmini S. is an independent data journalist based in Chennai. She has specialised in data journalism since 2010, and was the first Data Editor of an Indian newsroom, initially at the Hindu and then at HuffPost India. She is a recipient of the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Woman Mediaperson (Honourable Mention) in 2020 and the Likho Award for Excellence in Media in 2019.
About the Book:
In Whole Numbers and Half Truths, data-journalism pioneer Rukmini S. draws on nearly two decades of on-ground reporting experience to piece together a picture that looks nothing like the one you might expect. There is a mountain of data available on India, but it remains opaque, hard to access and harder yet to read, and it does not inform public conversation. Rukmini marshals this information—some of it never before reported—alongside probing interviews with experts and ordinary citizens, to see what the numbers can tell us about India. As she interrogates how data works, and how the push and pull of social and political forces affect it, she creates a blueprint to understand the changes of the last few years and the ones to come—a toolkit for India. This is a timely and wholly original intervention in the conversation on data, and with it, India.
About the Series:
The CPR-TCPD Dialogues on Indian Politics brings together academicians, policy and political practitioners, and civil society actors to grapple with important social and political issues in India. It provides a forum for intellectually rigorous, non-partisan commentary to strengthen public discourse on politics in India. This dialogue series is an effort to understand the changing dynamics of Indian political parties, the impact of new and emerging social movements and the use of new instruments of mobilisation in our polity.
The CPR-TCPD Dialogues is curated by the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and the Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD) at Ashoka University. Founded in 1973, CPR is one of India’s leading think tanks, providing rigorous policy research on a variety of issues. Founded in 2015, TCPD is among India’s most well-respected institutions working with political data, providing data-driven research, policy work and journalism on India’s political life by producing and disseminating in open access scientifically collected and treated political data. The CPR-TCPD Dialogues leverages the unique strengths of these two institutions to provide rigorous and innovative commentary on India’s social and political challenges.
