Weekend reads

  1.   The 2019 elections will be an important moment to see whether India can remain a civilisational state cultivating coalition politics as a way to perpetuate the unity in diversity formula the federalist way, argues Christophe Jaffrelot in Indian Express. 
  2.   Episodes of mass communal violence have given way to smaller-scale attacks against individuals, says Zoya Hasan in The Hindu. 
  3.   The World Health Organisation has added gaming disorder to its latest draft of the International Classification of Diseases, a highly regarded compendium of medical conditions. Sapna Agarwal in the Mint writes on why it is time to take note of this addiction.  
  4. The abhorrent phenomenon of lynching is fuelled by politics and also by the boundaries people erect between themselves, says Narendar Pani in BusinessLine. 
  5.   Multimillion-dollar lawsuits, a haze of booze and hash, a marriage gone very wrong and a lifestyle he can’t afford – Stephen Rodrick in Rolling Stone onthe personality of Johnny Depp. 
  6. In the Hakai magazine, Shanna Baker writesabout the efforts to preserve C. rhombifer, Fidel Castro’s beloved breed of Cuban crocodiles. 
  7.   The most famous psychology study of all time was a sham. Why can’t we escape the Stanford Prison Experiment? Ben Blum in Medium on the lies and manipulations of the experiment.   
  8. What happens to the thousands of things that get lost everyday in Tokyo, the largest city in the world? Mizuho Aoki in Japan Times on the misery of unclaimed items. 
  9. If humans have any idea of travelling deep into space, they have to master the trick of growing food in space. In Popular Science, Sarah Scoles reports on how NASA is learning to crack this science. 
  10.   Amid the Seleção’s customary overblown operetta of fear, joy and lurking emotional collapse, Brazil football star Philippe Coutinho is an island of self-assurance, balance and skill, says Barney Ronay in Guardian.