The process has not only visibly reshaped the state's electoral geography, but also changed the dynamics of political representation in the Lok Sabha election in 2024 and the more recent assembly election on 9 April.

The process remains opaque and arbitrary, reflecting a larger problem with India's data collection regimes and privacy norms. Worse, the Assam delimitation model may not be replicated elsewhere in the country.

In this episode, Srinivas Kodali, a Cyberabad-based digital researcher and activist, decodes the political and technical haze behind the process.

Read his recent article on the issue, which also includes detailed maps of the reordered constituencies in Assam: https://thewire.in/politics/the-delimitation-of-assam-makes-no-geographical-sense-and-permanently-divides-people Following are shareable raw files of the delimited constituency maps that Kodali has manually created out of the non-machine readable maps published by the ECI: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DyMfcfJwbicSJhksBR-Q-Xut7q6iMlGNDo also read his 2023 article on critical amendments to the Registration of Births and Deaths Act: https://thewire.in/tech/registration-of-births-deaths-aadhaar-voter-id

The junta fired him, but five years on, he continues to hold the coveted position at the UN. Today, he represents Myanmar's democratic civilian leadership and the people's aspirations at the world's most important international body.

In this episode, he joins us to talk about his unique diplomatic role and the situation in Myanmar.

Reports indicate that the CIA and Mossad have quietly tried to provoke the Iranian Kurds to militarily confront Tehran. But, that hasn't so far.

Why? In this episode, Bilal Ata Aktas, a researcher and geopolitical consultant born and raised in the Kurdish part of Turkey, explains the Kurdish dilemma in Iran and the wider region.

Meanwhile, by torpedoing IRIS Dena, an Iranian frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka and killing at least 80 sailors, the Trump administration has brought the war to the Indian Ocean in a particularly brash manner.

In this episode, Bashir Ali Abbas, a senior researcher and West Asia expert at the Council for Strategic and Defence Research (CSDR), decodes the many overlapping layers of domestic political and geopolitical dynamics framing Iran's strategy and response of South Asian littorals to the downing of IRIS Dena.

Read Bashir's columns on West Asia in The Indian Express here: https://indianexpress.com/profile/guest-writer/bashir-ali-abbas/.

PM Modi has, however, dialled up all the Gulf states and expressed concern at the violation of their territorial integrity and sovereignty.

What explains New Delhi's stinging silence on Iran?

Senior foreign affairs journalist, Nirupama Subramanian, joins us to discuss this question and more.

Read her latest article on India's position here: https://www.newslaundry.com/2026/03/02/indias-silence-on-iran-is-not-strategic-autonomy-it-looks-more-like-strategic-dependence

But, this has put the ruling party in an awkward spot between competing tribal electorates, as existing ST communities fear the loss of their own privileges to the new entrants.

Manoranjan Pegu, a researcher and writer from Assam, helps us make sense of these emerging new complexities in the Northeast Indian state.

Read Manoranjan's latest pieces on the issue here:

1. The new ST classification in Assam is political eyewash (1/1/2026): https://caravanmagazine.in/communities/st-classification-assam-2025

2. A festival, Death of 4 young people and Incessant WhatsApp discourses (31/1/2026): https://murkongselek.substack.com/p/a-festival-death-of-4-young-people

*pseudonym

Notes:

* To understand the geographical spread of Operation 1027, check out the IISS conflict map.

* Also, in case you’re interested, here is my recent article on Operation 1027 published in The Diplomat.

Additional readings

* Operation 1027 poses rare challenge to Myanmar junta, Radio Free Asia

* ‘Operation 1027’: The End of the Beginning of Myanmar’s Spring Revolution, The Diplomat

* Is ‘Operation 1027’ a Game Changer for Myanmar?, The Diplomat

* Operation 1027 is Creating a New Political Template for Myanmar’s Future, The Irrawaddy

* Brotherhood Alliance rewriting Myanmar’s war narrative, Asia Times

* Another town on the India-Myanmar border falls to the resistance, Myanmar Now

But, much before this happened, Beijing was attempting to broker peace between various actors in a country much closer to home – Myanmar. The February 2021 coup by Min Aung Hlaing’s military derailed its complex conflict mediation project. But, Xi Jinping’s China put it back on track in no time.

Yet, whom does a China-brokered peace in Myanmar benefit? Why is China even doing it? What kind of a peace is it? And what does Myanmar reveal about Chinese conflict mediation in the 21st century?

I try to answer these questions in the first episode of the BW Podcast. Listen and share!