The Latest: Top stories of the day

1) For the first time in history, polls cancelled in two Tamil Nadu Assembly seats.
2) The Union home ministry has said it has no document to show that the Congress leadership had pressured its government into changing court affidavits in the Ishrat Jahan case.
3) At the BJP's extravagant two-year anniversary event, Narendra Modi says that the party has curbed corruption despite the Opposition’s obstructions.
4) The Bhopal police arrested two people for an alleged derogatory social media post on the Goddess Kali.
5) Nuclear Suppliers Group membership is not about arms race, says the United States in reaction to Pakistan opposing to India’s bid.
6) Censor Board wants 40 cuts in Bollywood film Udta Punjab, which deals with drug abuse in the state.

Weekend Reads
1) In the New York Times, Aatish Taseer writes about how Narendra Modi dashed India’s economic hopes.
2) In the Hindustan Times, Patrick French profiles the Union finance minister Arun Jaitley.
3) South Asia security studies scholar Stephen Cohen is interviewed by Dinakar Peri in the Hindu on this new book The South Asia Papers: A Critical Anthology of Writings.
4) Swapan Dasgupta writes about the two years of the Modi government in the Times of India.
5) In the Indian Express, Premankur Biswas describes a day in the life of a Communist Party of India (Marxist) office in Kolkata hemmed in, they say, by Trinamool intimidation.
6) Climbing Everest is now a commercial exercise, but negligence has brought with it the danger of repeated fatal failures, writes Shail Desai in the Mint.
7) Will the proposed three-tier structure bring Indian football to the cusp of disruption or destruction, asks Unni Paravannur in the Mint.
8) Far from being a mere sex manual the Kama Sutra’s devious strategies for seduction are rooted in politics and spirituality, writes Nicola Barker in the Spectator.
9) Can liberal education save the sciences, asks Lorraine Daston in the Point.
10) In the New York Times, Bernard-Henri Levy reviews Philippe Sands’ On the Origins of 'Genocide' and 'Crimes Against Humanity'.
11) In the New Yorker, Nikil Saval writes abut what connects novelist Julian Barnes with Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich.