1. A Verdict Shrouded in Doubt In a packed Saket courtroom, a deafening silence fell over the proceedings as Additional Sessions Judge Hargurvarinder Singh Jaggi prepared to deliver a decision that would send ripples through a case nearly five years in the making. For the four men standing in the dock—Preet Pal, his elderly father Ramesh, along with Suresh Chand and Bablu Kumar—the verdict meant freedom from the grim accusations that had hung over their heads since the summer of 2019. For the woman at the heart of the case, the woman who stepped forward with burns blooming across her…

1 There is something striking about a pope, tired at the end of a grueling four-day journey, choosing to talk about artificial intelligence with the same earnestness he might reserve for matters of faith and salvation. Pope Leo XIV sat aboard the papal plane returning from France—the first apostolic visit to that country in eighteen years—and addressed the question that has quietly haunted the technological age: What happens when the machines we built start thinking for themselves, and perhaps start thinking against us? The pope, visibly worn but clearly engaged, did not dismiss the question. He did not wave it…