Hello there! Today in The Brief, we have an exclusive Q&A with historian and writer Mukul Kesavan about the Cockroach Movement rattling India. We’re also taking a look at Democratic Rep. Jason Crow’s mission to recruit more “streetfighters” to Congress. |
Plus: A viral AI blunder and today's Linked awaits. |
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Five Must-Reads |
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An Uncomplicated Man
Homer translator extraordinaire Emily Wilson published a full review of Christopher Nolan’s adaption of The Odyssey, which she compares to “an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display—and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth.” — London Review of Books |
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IN FOCUS |
Where does India’s Cockroach Movement go from here? |
India’s burgeoning youth-led protest movement won a key victory over the weekend with the resignation of the country’s Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan. |
The Cockroach Movement, which took its name from a derogatory remark made by India’s Chief Justice comparing young unemployed people to “cockroaches” and “parasites,” has quickly established itself as a formidable political force. |
To discuss the movement and its future, TIME caught up with Mukul Kesavan, a historian, novelist, and one of India’s best-known writers. |
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A demonstrator wearing a cockroach mask during a protest organized by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in Mumbai, India, on July 16, 2026. INDRANIL ADITYA/NURPHOTO via GETTY IMAGES |
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Q: What is your view of the Cockroach Movement, and what do you think is unique about it? |
MK: I’ve spent my life in Delhi. I’ve been to hundreds of demos because Jantar Mantar is the place where you go off and shout your slogans from the time I was an undergraduate, and I have to say, I’d never seen anything like this—not necessarily in terms of its size, though it was very large—but because it was so young. |
I don’t mean to sound condescending, but it just seemed that these people had turned up because they felt there was a kind of existential crisis in their young lives.
Q: How much of a threat do these protests pose to Narendra Modi?
MK: This movement is interesting. It’s a movement of the urban salariat. These are very middle-class people. They are largely Hindus, very young, and so they pose a peculiar kind of challenge […] What do you do with a group of young people who theoretically are the very basis of your political constituency? |
The Modi juggernaut is generally seen as sinister but efficient at what it does, and the entire tenor of the taunting, the calling out, is that you’re an old, dysfunctional guy, that’s unusual because it seems to open the possibilities of this movement. Not because there’s a constructive program that’s been put forward, but simply because it seems to be open season on a man who, up to now, has seemed sort of inevitable.
Q: Where does the movement go from here? |
MK: I’m so bewildered by the scale, intensity, and coming-from-nowhere part of this movement that it’s not clear to me how it sustains itself or where it goes. I’m not saying it won’t, but it surprised everybody, including its organizers. |
To read the full interview, click here. |
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ONE NUMBER |
499 |
Nearly 500 Afghan civilians have been killed and more than 1,200 injured over the last nine months, according to a U.N. report, in the on-and-off, cross-border conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan that escalated sharply since February, when Pakistan—which denies targeting civilians—declared it was in “open war” with its neighbor. |
SOURCE: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan |
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A VIRAL MOMENT |
Robots in parliament |
In a sign of how ubiquitous chatbots have become in daily life, a Canadian politician appeared to read an AI prompt that he left in his speech to parliament last week. |
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Politician reads AI prompt during assembly |
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| Linked |
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