Weekend reads

  1. The recent arrests of activists in connection to the Bhima Koregaon violence are not isolated cases, argues Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express. They are just one element in the roduction of a new and dangerous ideological complex. 
  2.   India’s refusal to take help in times of natural disasters is self-defeating and goes against the federal spirit, writes Happymon Jacon in The Hindu. 
  3.   The reaction to the racist attacks in Chemnitz suggests the mainstream is appeasing extreme views, says Doris Akrap in Guardian on the worsening political stage in Germany. We could be heading for dark times.  
  4.   Torture imbued John McCain with a humanity that transcended politics and a belief in the centrality of American values in the battle for freedom, Roger Cohen in the New York Times on what the veteran Republican meant for the US. 
  5. In this investigation, Buzzfeed News reveals shocking details of abuse and murder of children in Catholic orphanages in the United States. 
  6.   Two unlikely dudes took on Wall Street, pharma nerds and God – and got America hooked on a little blue pill. David Kushner in Esquire reportson howViagra tablets went from almost being a failure to what they are today.   
  7.   Last year, French president Emmanuel Macron gave liberalism a hip young face. Now the golden boy’s shine has started to come off, writes Clementine Autain in Jacobin. 
  8. India is a country tailor made for communists but they have failed to arouse public enthusiasm by completely misreading of the common man’s temperament, argues Rakesh Ankit in Fountain Ink. 
  9.   The enigmatic marginality of Dalit politics in Punjab, despite forming the highest proportion among Scheduled Castes, partly exposes the limitation of numbers as indicators of social dynamics in a democracy, says Santosh K Singh in Economic and Political Weekly. 
  10.   In Imran Khan’s choice of the federal cabinet and advisers so far, there are signs of compulsions of statecraft rather than statesmanship, writes Tariq Khosa in Dawn on the new government in Pakistan.