Daily Briefing: Investigating crypto; the cost of pollution; and more

The investigation also looks at how enforcement agencies are responding, the hurdles they encounter, and how a regulatory vacuum around crypto has left critical gaps.

Grab a copy of today’s paper (or epaper) to read the full investigation. The Coin Laundry will also go live on indianexpress.com soon.

On that note, let’s get to the rest of the edition👇

⚡Only in Express

On academia: Manindra Agrawal, Director of IIT Kanpur, heads one of the most prestigious research and innovation hubs in the country. He joined us for the latest Idea Exchange session to talk about the need to become self-reliant in critical technologies, the systematic flaws that drive India’s coaching boom, and the changing face of India’s research ecosystem. “While we do provide freedom to our faculty to pursue their own activities, we have broadly a very permissive attitude towards non-performance…” Read on.

📌 Must Read

Share of the pie: The dust has settled on the Bihar elections. The BJP and JD(U) emerged as the two largest parties, propelling NDA to a resounding victory. What will the next government look like? Party insiders suggest that the BJP and JD(U) would get an equal number of ministerial berths. Liz Mathew has more details.

Cost of pollution: A worrying trend has come to light. Air pollution is already impacting the next generation, as doctors find that many babies are now born asthmatic and can develop pneumonia within weeks. How does this happen? Can it be prevented? Ankita Upadhyay and Anonna Dutt report.

On that note, residents of Delhi, where the air quality continues to be ‘very poor’, are now turning to quick fixes. Enter: wearable air purifiers. These are portable devices designed to release cleaner air directly to the wearer’s breathing zone. How effective are they? Experts weigh in.

Ranked: Do university rankings matter? Well, there are three prominent global higher education rankings: Times Higher Education (THE), QS, and the Shanghai Ranking. Recently, however, a French top research institution, Sorbonne University, withdrew from THE, flagging concerns about their methodology. Indian institutes have similarly boycotted global rankings, citing a lack of transparency on metrics. We explain how these rankings work and the criticism surrounding them.

Happening today: Bangladesh was on edge on Sunday as several crude bombs exploded across the capital city, Dhaka, ahead of a verdict due today in a case against ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina. The former PM is being tried in absentia on charges of crimes against humanity arising out of the student protests that turned violent in mid-2024. Hasina has rejected the charges. She will have 30 days from the verdict to surrender to appeal an untoward verdict.

⏳ And Finally…

I leave you with the latest Fresh Take on the “death of the typo”. As AI chatbots take over as the world’s writing assistants, whether it’s a social media post or a work e-mail, everything sounds polished, grammatically – and politically — correct, and… well, the same. And the AI’s influence isn’t on our writing alone, research shows it’s changing how we speak! Read.

🎧 Before you go, do tune in to today’s ‘3 Things’ podcast episode. The lineup: What NDA’s Bihar win means; eliminating TB from India; and the Nowgam police station blast.

P S – Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the Sixth Ramnath Goenka Lecture today. “This is a time when power equations of the world are being upended, when nations are redefining both their place and purpose and when uncertainty and volatility are the keywords of our times. That’s why listening to the Prime Minister, representing the highest elected office in the world’s largest democracy, has a deeper resonance,” said Viveck Goenka, Chairman, Express Group. Catch it LIVE at 6 pm today only at indianexpress.com.

That’s all for today, folks! Until tomorrow,
Sonal Gupta

Business As Usual by EP Unny