Why We Need to Talk About Cambridge Analytica

One of the things that I do as a part of my three-pronged preparation for interviews is to look up and gather insights about my interviewers from publicly available data on social and professional media. I’ve only given a handful of interviews in my life and hence it is difficult to ascertain whether this works, but it does give me a sense of control over a situation that otherwise – and generally – is uncertain and unknown. Looking up key stakeholders and interviewers on social and professional media becomes a great conversation enabler at times. But I digress… The whole point of this diatribe was to highlight the fact that a cornucopia of information and personal data exists and is readily available for individuals to mine. Now imagine a company that does this – collects and mines social media data – on a mass scale and uses that data to disperse targeted content in connivance with a social media giant, quite possibly influencing the outcome of an election. Scary? You bet!

Modified or Not?

A lot has been written and said about Narendra Modi and every aspect of his leadership in national and international media in recent months. Riding on the back of three successful stints as chief minister of a state with an extremely enterprising populace and the anti-incumbency factor, Modi is widely seen as the man forming and leading the next government at the center. With a few weeks left before 814 million people vote in one of the biggest electoral exercises in the world that will last for over a month, the BJP has gone on an overdrive to highlight Modi’s meteoric rise with most of the advertising for the elections centered on the man and his pro-development and pro-business image. The markets, driven more by sentiment than by fundamentals at this point in time, have touched new highs and are already factoring-in a Modi-win. Small and medium enterprises, which were hit hard during the global economic meltdown and are still reeling under the after-effects of its collapse, are riding out the last few months of a government plagued by policy paralysis in the hope that business will receive a stimulus once a new regime takes over.