Dear Express Explained Reader, It’s back to the old days in Myanmar. The military seized power last Monday morning, hours before Parliament was to meet following the elections of November 2020, and locked up Aung San Suu Kyi and her senior aides, disrupting the country’s nervous transition to democracy. For Suu Kyi, the wheel has turned full circle from 1990, the year she was first jailed by the junta, following another election that her party swept. She spent nearly two decades in detention, during which time she won enormous international goodwill and the Peace Nobel, and was finally released in 2010. Through the last decade, however, her sheen has faded, especially after she backed, first tacitly and then openly, the Myanmar military’s genocidal campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority since 2017. Nirupama Subramanian wrote the story of Suu Kyi and her country, a very important neighbour to India’s northeast. (For background on what happened in the weeks and months leading up to the coup, the nature of Myanmar’s Constitution, and the allegations made by the junta, see this recall that Nirupama wrote soon after the generals seized power.) As the farmer protests on the borders of Delhi generated debate around the world and triggered a pushback from the Indian government, police made two announcements about which several Express Explained readers wrote in asking for details and clarification. Bihar and Uttarakhand said they would take into account a person’s social and political views and engagements before clearing their passport applications during the police verification process. Deeptiman Tiwary explained the process of police verification, what they look for in an application, the circumstances under which a passport can be lawfully denied, and what happens if the police file a ‘not recommended’ report. In Delhi, police filed an FIR alleging sedition and promoting hate against the creators of a ‘toolkit’ on the protests, which the teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg tweeted. Mallica Joshi explained what a ‘toolkit’ means in the context of mass protests against authority, how they have been used by protesters to organise and coordinate their actions around the world in recent years, and what the toolkit on the farmers’ agitation contained. One of the things in the Union Budget that has triggered questions is the first-time proposal to tax the interest income on employees’ provident fund (EPF) contributions exceeding Rs 2.5 lakh in a year. Sandeep Singh and Aanchal Magazine unpacked the Finance Minister’s proposal, the nature of the new tax, who will be impacted by it, and what you should do. Goodbye and stay safe. Sincerely. Monojit (monojit.majumdar@expressindia.com) If you received this newsletter as a forward, you can subscribe to it here | Do read our Explained articles here | .png)
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