It was while I was covering the Punjab assembly elections that a discussion with a young man of Jethuke village in Bathinda district, Harmandeep Singh, drew my attention to the new phenomena—a proliferation of small-time, independent Punjabi-language media outlets. I was already witness to how the Trolley Times had invigorated the farmers’ agitation in Delhi. Here I noticed how people were not only keeping an eye on mainstream TV and newspapers, but also monitoring the tech-driven new media—that, incidentally, also claimed to be an alternative media.