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It had to be spam. That’s what 37-year-old Ranjani Srinivasan thought when she first received an email from the United States consulate in Chennai, the southern Indian city where the Columbia University PhD candidate is from.

The email, which arrived at midnight, had slipped past Srinivasan’s tired eyes before she went to bed. But on Thursday, March 6, at about 7:50am in New York City, it was almost the first thing she saw when she stirred awake in her Columbia-owned apartment. Still…

Harare, Zimbabwe – Every morning, Dumisani Ngara* gets up at dawn to catch a 6:30am bus to work at Zimbabwe’s Ministry of National Housing and Social Amenities. The government-provided bus is free for civil servants in Harare, and on his $250 monthly salary, he tries to save every cent he can.

Once at work, Ngara – dressed neatly in a suit and tie – makes sure the day’s files are all in order before the office opens at 8:30am. In between paperwork and meetings, he takes breaks. At…