Weekend Reads

  1. A month ago, this village deep inside Gadchiroli, in Maoist country, got electricity and a bus at its doorstep for the first time. Writing in the Indian Express, Dipankar Ghose explores their impact.
  2. The Hadiya-Shafin Jahan controversy shows how two different, equally depoliticised outfits are vying to capture the allegiance of Hindus and, more broadly, male patriarchs, writes J Devika in the Business Line.
  3. Why are elites in Kolkata are shunning the use of the Bengali language, asks Chandrima S Bhattacharya in the Telegraph.
  4. The prohibition of women’s entry to the Sabarimala shrine solely on the basis of womanhood is derogatory to women, argues Kaleeswaran Raj in the Hindu.
  5. The news media needs an important upgrade: Consumers have evolved from being merely readers and viewers to also being participants and users. The news media must do more to keep pace with this evolution, writes Nish Bhutani in the Mint.
  6. Recently unclassified documents reveal the role of the Unites States in the systematic extermination of up to a million Leftist Indonesians in 1965 during the rule of the dictator Suharto, writes Vincent Bevins in the Atlantic.
  7. The Catalan crisis is not just about nationalism, argues Santiago Zabala in Al Jazaeera.
  8. Smartphones are weapons of mass manipulation, and this guy is declaring war on them, writes Rachel Metz in the MIT Technology Review.
  9. Endangered languages have sentimental value, it’s true, but are there good philosophical reasons to preserve them, asks Rebecca Roache in Aeon.
  10. The real roots of early city states may rip up the textbooks: the emergence of states, it seems was not linked to agriculture after all, writes Ben Collyer in the New Scientist.