TL;DR: Politics Now is shifting from an ad-run model to a donation-based model. We need your help to sustain the blog and continue to make the analyses freely available for minds that seek ideas; after all, knowledge must not be held captive to commercial interests. You can make the donation by clicking this link: https://pages.razorpay.com/idipankan.
Dear readers,
These are genuinely testing times for people across the world. Besides the coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged economies and left many uncertain about tomorrow, there is also another vicious virus- that of misinformation, peddled by the mainstream media, under the clutches of crony businessmen and their subsidiaries. The attempt to control the print and electronic media is a long known strategy for governments to boost their acceptance and avoid scrutiny. This has led to a very confined narrative on matters of national significance; sometimes wholly straddled by an unholy nexus of lies and deceit. Nothing has been done against this wrongful design, to free the press- the fourth pillar of democracy- from the grip of greed and a savage lust for money.
Politics Now, and my personal blog (https://idipankan.com) were two independent ventures I founded in a quest to look beyond the perspectives propelled by the national media, and hunt the truth via substantiated contexts and claims. You must have observed, that most of my essays and op-eds are backed by reliable data- collected from credible institutions all across the world- and presented in a manner that truly makes sense. Over the years, I have tried perfecting the art- with your support- and I am immensely grateful for all the love you have showered.
Today, the cost of maintaining and actively running websites are humongous. It is a fact that the GST for both domains as well as hosting services have been perpetually high at 18% of the base cost. Previously, my site used to have advertisements. To help recover some of the cost, I had to switch to an advertisement model to generate revenues- which I was not entirely in support of. With the feedback of malfunctioning ad networks, and on some rare fronts, even inappropriate advertisements- I had a hard think about what should be the next course of action. I scrapped advertisements entirely, and plan to shift to a model where readers pay whatever they wish to keep the site up and running. For me, nothing is more criminal than ad networks distorting an otherwise perfect reading experience.
I have long believed knowledge should necessarily be free. For knowledge to be held captive to commercial interests is evil. Hence, I appeal to my readers to consider donating for Politics Now- and help keep the articles online. Of course, there will be more articles coming periodically, replete with facts and an assured, unopinionated take that evaluates both sides of a coin to keep you filled. You can contribute whatever amount seems suitable, there is absolutely no compulsion! A generous amount, however, would go a long way to help pay for the rising bills. Also, it would give me a huge fillip to continue churning quality articles for readers like you who want to look beyond the obvious. A donation link is appended just below. All conventional forms of payment are activated, and the transaction will be made in a completely secure, industry-standard 100% PCI DSS compliant medium via the Razorpay gateway- so you can remain assured that your contribution finds its way to me, and me only.