I worked as a journalist in Delhi from September 2015 through June 2019. My first three years in Delhi were spent at The Caravan, India's premier magazine for long-form journalism, where I wrote many technology-focused investigations, including two 10,000-word cover stories. After that, I spent a year as a reporter at Quartz India, reporting from three to five stories a week on the intersection of technology and politics leading up to the mammoth 2019 Indian general election.
Below is a sampling of my tech-focused pieces that showcase my ability to explain complex technical concepts to a lay audience. For a set of links to all 192 pieces I've written as a journalist, see my Muckrack page (https://muckrack.com/aria-thaker).
The Caravan, cover story, 10k words. This story was awarded a special mention at India’s national RedInk awards.
"Bhardwaj’s figure for total investment contradicted the graph Mehrotra pointed me to on Gainbitcoin’s portal for investors, which showed over 50,000 bitcoins coming in from September through November alone. When asked about this, Bhardwaj said, 'That is an inflated graph, don’t worry.'"
The Caravan, cover story, 10k words.
While iSPIRT is not a private company, the concerns of the revolving door apply just as much to it as to any private firm — perhaps even more so, given iSPIRT’s role as a crucial intermediary for private players looking to work with Aadhaar.
Quartz India, 2k words.
Twitter’s dataset on the Iranian influence campaign contained over 4,100 Hindi tweets. While Quartz counted 17 handles that had posted in Hindi at least once, the vast majority of the tweets were posted by two handles — one created in January 2017 and one created in May 2018.
Aadhaar security failure: Government webpages provide unsecured access to demographic authentication
The Caravan, 3k words.
While iSPIRT is not a private company, the concerns of the revolving door apply just as much to it as to any private firm — perhaps even more so, given iSPIRT’s role as a crucial intermediary for private players looking to work with Aadhaar.
Quartz India, 1.5k words.
A Quartz analysis shows that a vast majority of ads posted by pages of key political parties were seen by audiences that are heavily male. The gender skew at play, in which men often outnumber women nine to one, or more, is far starker than the overall gender divide on Facebook, which was in 2016 reported to have a 24% female user base in India.
Quartz India, 2k words.
Facebook “decimated the right-wing dominance on Facebook,” said one of the tweets of Vikas Pandey, a BJP volunteer and manager of the largest unofficial Modi fan page, “I Support Narendra Modi.”
Quartz India, 1.5k words.
At least seven proxy sites were not accessible when Quartz tried to view them from a Jio connection. Many of these websites also allow users to download virtual private network (VPN) software, the use of which can hide a user’s IP address even more effectively than proxies.
Quartz India, 2k words.
Every month, the 10 users with the most points on the app are invited to lunch at the Bishnoi family home. The tech team that manages the app also periodically gives Bhavya Bishnoi a list of strong performers to call on the phone and thank for their efforts.
