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Everything that counts

On a scale of emotional temperatures, it doesn't get any hotter than the 2019 Indian election did

Both cricket (far left) and election reporting feed off the modern obsession with numbers and data. The systematic reporting and visualisation of data is one of modernity’s features
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Both cricket (far left) and election reporting feed off the modern obsession with numbers and data. The systematic reporting and visualisation of data is one of modernity’s features

Itu Chaudhuri
On a scale of emotional temperatures, it doesn’t get any hotter than the 2019 Indian election did. And with the summer comes another TV war, in the shape of the 2019 World Cup. The two offer similar opportunities to reflect, or riff, from a spot in the shade. On how we experience them as emotional or social beings, through symbolism and culture, essentially unchanged for millennia. But also in newer ways, through data, as supposedly rational humans.   

Built into both is their adversarial nature, an organised contest of minds and bodies. They are meant to produce not just a winning