Weekend reads

  1. In dramatic developments over the last few months, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have come together in an alliance, which its leaders have said will continue till 2019 Lok Sabha elections. But can Mayawati and Akilesh Yadav sustain their ties? Vidya Subrahmaniam in The Hindu writes on the cat-and-mouse political game. 
  2. In the Hindustan Times, Namita Bhandare says the move by the Madhya Pradesh government to provide minister status to sadhus was a worrying trend. 
  3.   The European nations most enamoured of freedom – those released three decades ago from the withering grip of the Soviet empire – have been transformed into places that are most sceptical that liberal democracy provides it, says Roger Cohen in New York Times. 
  4. How did the Islamic State, whose spectacles of violence galvanised the world against it, hold onto so much land for so long in Iraq? Rukmini Callimachi tries to find the answers in over 15,000 pages of documents left behind by retreating ISIS militants in Iraq. 
  5. In Mozambique and around the world – and throughout history – cholera outbreaks have caused riots. Why? And what does it have to do with bicycles?  
  6. A feature on a growing secret network of women who – bucking the law and the medical establishment – are being trained to offer abortions, safely and inexpensively, in the privacy of women’s homes. Lizzie Presser reports in the California Sunday Magazine. 
  7. Nonviolent struggle against violent occupiers is politically effective. That’s why Israel fears and represses it. Bashir Abu-Manneh in Jacobin deconstructs the strategy behind Israel’s continuing attack on Palestine refugees. 
  8. On the road, you’re forced to take down the walls you’ve built around yourself, cemented by your own fears and insecurities. Nicole Karlis on what her Tinder date in Thailand taught her.   
  9. For centuries, witches have personified fear of assertive women. But why does the stereotype persist?  Madeline Miller in the Washington Post writes on the misogyny of casting powerful women as witches in Hollywood movies. 
  10. In the Indian Express, former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram writes on the challenges facing  the 15th Finance Commission.