Seated (just) to my left The headlines in the Sydney Morning Herald (“We will rebuild Gaza”) and The Age (“Humanity’s best hope”) perhaps confers rather more impact and centrality to Australia’s beneficence than is merited but Paul Sakkal and Matthew Knott today provide even-tempered reporting focusing on Australia’s promised role in the post-war reconstruction of Gaza as key to its policy shift. In The Age, Foreign Affairs Correspondent Knott also offers comment (“Breaking point for deputy sheriff”): “The Albanese government’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state marks [a] historic moment in Australian foreign policy even if the move is likely to have little to no practical impact on the Middle East in the foreseeable future.” Also in the SMH, David Crowe has an analysis/news piece on Netanyahu (“Sharp jab in Australia”), while Amal Naser pops up in the op-ed pages arguing “Recognition is a mere distraction.” Meanwhile, S

The Editors Guild of India will host the Prem Bhatia Memorial Lecture and Journalism Awards 2025 on Monday, August 11, at the CD Deshmukh Auditorium, India International Centre, New Delhi. The annual event honours excellence in journalism, with awards for Political Journalism and Environmental Journalism.  This year’s memorial lecture will be delivered by Justice Sanjiv Khanna, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India, on the topic “Judiciary and Media: Shared Principles – Similarities and Dissimilarities.”  Instituted in 1995 by the Prem Bhatia Memorial Trust in memory of The Tribune editor Prem Bhatia, the awards and lecture have been carried forward by the Editors Guild since 2024, after the Trust handed over its corpus. The Guild will now organise and administer the awards and the lecture annually.

Two decades of bonhomie between India and the United States is now literally at its lowest point with long ranging ramifications as India, US, Pakistan and China try to adjust to rapidly changing global relations. While Indian PM has urged the country's technocrats to press for a "Swadeshi" policy urging Indians to go local after US punished with 50 per cent tarrif India for buying Russian oil, Pakistan's army chief has threatened to nuke half the world if their survival is in question. The Pak chief made this statement from US soil less than 15 years since Osama Bin Laden was killed by the US in Islamabad.   Hot off the Press Targeting US President Donald Trump over the doubling of tariffs and for calling India a “dead” economy, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, without taking names, said Sunday that “there are some people” who think they are “Sabke Boss” and, because “they do not like the rapid development of India”, are trying to make Indian goods expensive.

Prasar Bharati has signed an MoU with UK-based AdiGroupe’s sports arm, AEx SPORT, to launch Global League Wrestling (GLW), the first professional wrestling league in India and the Asia-Pacific region. The league will air on DD Sports and stream on Waves and All India Radio.  GLW will officially be unveiled on September 17, 2025, with broadcasts starting October 4. The inaugural season will run 40 weeks, offering family-oriented sports entertainment that blends Indian cultural storytelling with global production standards.  Prasar Bharati chairman Navneet Kumar Sehgal said the tie-up will promote diverse sports and give Indian youth a national platform, while CEO Gaurav Dwivedi called it “a new genre of youth-led programming.”  The Great Khali, former WWE World Heavyweight Champion, has been named Brand Ambassador and Talent Commissioner, tasked with nurturing talent and shaping the league’s creative vision.

Scum. Bizarre Chaos – it’s tabloid Monday The Daily Telegraph’s gigantic block-type headline “Selfie Reporting” kicks off what we can only call Tabloid Monday in fine style this morning. Below the ringing strangeness of its subhead (“Bail chaos as accused killer told to send pics hourly”), Joshua Hanrahan and Mark Morri offer some ringing strangeness of their own: “In a move senior police sources described as ‘bizarre’ Ayman Manley was last week ordered by the NSW Supreme Court to buy the officer overseeing his alleged murder case a new Apple iPhone and send a photo of himself every hour between 8:00 AM and 8:00 PM as part of his revamped bail conditions.” The story sits above a puff-box for a page-eleven yarn, “They’re just scum – trading on the NDIS”, a story playing large across Murdochville mastheads, not least The Courier-Mail, which splashes it: “Scum of earth in NDIS scandal – trading the disabled.” In her exclusive, Julie Cross�

Image source: The Hindu, TOI, India Today, The Reporters' Collective and Law and Other Things; Edited by Dinesh Raj M   Senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of “criminal fraud” and collusion with the BJP to steal elections claiming that 1,00,250 “fake votes” were created in the Mahadevapura Assembly seat under the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency in order to ensure a win for the BJP. Hot off the Press Gandhi took reporters through a detailed presentation of the alleged fraud at Congress headquarters and listed out five different ways through which the alleged vote chori (theft) was done: duplicate voters, fake and invalid addresses, bulk voters at a single address, invalid photos, and the misuse of Form 6, reported Sandeep Phukan for The Hindu. Explaining how and why the Congress undertook a six-month-long investigation, he said the party’s internal survey had predicted a

<>   The travel industry is experiencing a significant transformation as women increasingly dominate travel decisions and solo female adventures surge, according to Robyn Foyster, founder of Women Love Travel. “Eighty-two per cent of women are the deciders in all travel decisions," Foyster reveals. "And solo female travellers, the number of them has surged by 131% since 2024. We are seeing a rapid growth in the number of women who are travelling and they're doing more solo travel than ever." The trend has prompted travel companies to adapt their offerings. Foyster notes that major global and local operators are now tailoring experiences specifically for female travelers.  "Even in Deer Valley Park, they have many more women's events that they're doing. Things are being tailored just for women because these travel companies are seeing the trend,” Foyster told Influencing. "Safety remains a primary concern for female travellers. Women feel comfortable with other women,