• V Bhaskar, former Special Chief Secretary Finance to the Government of Andhra Pradesh, and Joint Secretary, Thirteenth Finance Commission, writes about the challenges before the Fifteenth Finance Commission in the Economic and Political Weekly.
  • Elections are a prosaic business. Why then are Amit Shah and Siddaramaiah quoting Karnataka’s “rashtra kavi”, national poet Kuvempu at each other in the run-up to the Assembly elections? In the Indian Express, Amrita Datta explains where Karnataka’s beloved poet, novelist, playwright and intellectual stand in its culture and politics.
  • In the New Indian Express, Ajit Ranade explores the question of how to divide funds between rich, low population growth states and poor, highly populous states.
  • The rioting that erupted in West Bengal over the past week reflects the escalation of social-religious-political tensions. Chief Minister Banerjee needs to guard her turf better, writes Shikha Mukherjee in the Deccan Chronicle.
  • Are the punishments handed out to Steven Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft excessive? In the Telegraph, Mukul Kesavan explores the matter.
  • In Mint, Sohini Chattopadhyay explains how nationalism took over Hindi cinema.
  • Did Easter have Pagan origins as a festival dedicated to Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, whose consort was a hare and was represented by the egg? It is a tale widely popular on the Internet but as Adrian Biolt in the Guardian and Tim O’Niel in History for Atheists show, it isn’t very accurate.
  • Is liberalism the problem for the United States? In the LA Review of Books, Ross McCullough reviews Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed.
  • Why I’m growing a second brain: In Prospect magazine, Philip Ball writes about the unsettling story of a (literal) thought experiment.
  • In Vox, Brian Resnick explains what smartphone photography is doing to our memories.
  • Humans and dogs have been companions for at least 30,000 years. Tim Flannery’s essay in the New York Review of Books explains how this relationship shaped both species.