Weekend reads
- Manu Pillai in Mint looks back at ‘Rama Retold’, the first book to be banned in independent India.
- “A mix of aggression, elation, hope, anger, disappointment, and insecurity marks the mood of Bihar, exactly a month after Nitish Kumar took oath as chief minister, in a new avatar, with the BJP,” writes Prashant Jha in the Hindustan Times.
- Vidya Venkat and R Krishna Kumar in the Hindu write of a new passive restoration effort – and an insect – in Bandipur National Park that could help fight an invasive plant.
- “And yet, a mission for the eradication of surprise seems to be on adrenaline,” writes Sumana Roy in Blink. “Nature is being bleached of the possibility to surprise.”
- Aarti Gupta writes about an initiative of the Maharashtra government that has seen three blocks of a district data-mapped to an unprecedented level.
- “Peterloo was one of the first confrontations between people and power in the modern age when a new abundance of machinery appeared to revolutionize industry,” writes Sunanda K Datta-Ray, remembering a massacre that would, via a Shelley poem, inspire Mohandas Gandhi’s satyagraha.
- “Imagine a world where two lakh people took to the streets to support rape survivors instead of rapists, where a woman filing a complaint against her rapist would be cheered on the streets,” writes Shruti Sunderraman in the Ladies Finger.
- Zara Choudhary on Sacred Footsteps writes about a 17th century Indian pilgrim and his amazing Hajj maps.
- Manisha Pande in Newslaundry describes how Gurmeet Singh’s ‘premis’ turned into a violent mob, with even the authorities running away.
- Bret Stephens in the New York Times gives aspiring opinionators 15 tips for good Op-Eds.
