We turn 200 editions old today. It has been fun. Thank you for giving us your time. You can do without another self-congratulatory mail in your inbox. So, let’s get moving on with a nod to this classic line of Majrooh.  मैं अकेला ही चला था जानिब-ए-मंज़िल मगर  लोग साथ आते गए और कारवाँ बनता गया I had set out on this journey all by myself Others joined, and it turned into a caravan India Policy Watch #1: Decoding Our Maladies Insights on burning policy issues in India — RSJ Tell me the conspiracy theories a society is willing to believe in, and I will tell you about its maladies. Truth is a contested notion in today’s world. Maybe it has always been. But there’s something clarifying about a conspiracy theory that no truth can match. It is not the conspiracy itself. That often crumbles under the lightest of burden of logic applied to it. The real deal is what prompts the need for the conspiracy. It stems from the irreconcilability of an often irrational belief that many hold with the reality of the world around them. The greater the chasm between the two, the weirder the conspiracy theory. And it is this chasm, this flight from reality, that a conspiracy theory is born to serve. By denying the facts that are around you and leaning on your own right to have an opinion, conspiracy theorists make it easier for you to dismiss inconvenient facts as mere opinions. Once you have painted facts as fabrications of another mind, you get the permission to have your own facts. That’s how conspiracy theory works. So, why am I going on about conspiracy theories now? Well, here’s Mint: In an article quoted by Hindi Daily, Amar Ujala, the RSS mouthpiece said that a group of Indians has created a negative narrative against Adani. The article pinned blame on an ‘Indian lobby which includes the country’s famous propaganda websites associated with leftist ideology'.  Harping on an ideological and political warfare, the article further stated that this attack is very similar to how ‘anti-India’ George Soros ruined the Bank of England and the Bank of Thailand. He claimed that this controversy did not start on January 25 after the Hinderburg report, but it already began in 2016-17 in Australia.  According to the RSS mouthpiece, an Australian NGO called Bob Brown Foundation (BBF) manages an exclusive website only to defame Indian Industrialist Gautam Adani.  Marking out NGOs and websites in India, the Amar Ujala article singled out an alleged contribution of Azim Premji's NGO to the Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation. The article alleged that left-minded media houses and NGOs were behind the sudden turmoil of the Adani Group.” So there you have it. I suspect this thing isn’t going to die away soon. This is a useful pot to keep stirring. A few leaks about CBI or ED investigations every few months will give enough ammunition for future reports or allegations about the Adani group. Once you have brought in left-minded NGOs into the picture, there’s open season for all sorts of conspiracy theories to pop up in future. The speed of response to any future report will improve from here on. Soros is at it again with our leftists will be the first cry. I often wonder what a busy life that man must be leading. Let us first get the theory out of the way. The short-seller interest in the Adani group of companies wasn’t because a five-member research group could dig out already existing information about it that could raise questions about stock manipulation and governance. No. It was because, and mark my words carefully now, a leftist cabal of anti-India forces led by a foundation run by India’s greatest philanthropist who happens to be Muslim. Their intention was to stop the apparently unstoppable rise of India by knocking the Adani group off their perch because, after all, the two are