Weekend Reads

  1. Could Siddaramaiah’s use of the Kannada card help him become the first Karnataka chief minister in three decades to return to power, asks Johnson TA in the Indian Express.
  2. [Scroll Archives] Why the side effects of NEET are much more damaging than the disease it claims to cure, wrote Garga Chaterjee. India’s healthcare system will suffer because of it. On Friday, a Dalit medical aspirant committed suicide sparking off protests in Tamil Nadu.
  3. Can Delhi’s taking down of its Raj statues offer some lesson for the United States grappling with its own issue of taking down Confederate monuments, asks Steve Coll in the New Yorker.
  4. Demonetisation, Modi’s biggest move, is a total bust, argues Mihir Sharma in Bloomberg Quint.
  5. The triple talaq judgement was necessary but it is hardly a panacea to the all the problems of Muslim women, writes Tabish Khair in the Hindu.
  6. From Ram Rahim to Adityanath: In the Telegraph, Mukul Kesavan’s essay tackles the phenomenon of the Indian godman in politics.
  7. In the Daily Star, Annu Jalais writes on how migration has roiled Bengali identity in the last century.
  8. Inspiring Japanese tempura and Goan vindaloo, thanks to Portugal’s wide travelling medieval armadas, Lusitanian cuisines might just be the most influential on the planet, writes David Farley on BBC.com.
  9. The princess myth: in the Guardian, Hilary Mantel writes on the 20th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana, an icon “only loosely based on the young woman born Diana Spencer”.
  10. In Mint, Priya Ramani writes on why she is a Love Jihadi – and proud of it.
  11. How Game of Thrones season 7 went awry: The series is so intent on fooling its audience that too much of its storytelling no longer makes sense, argues Todd VanDerWerff in Vox.      

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