Weekend reads

  1.   Although no city has been spared by terrorists, some areas of Pakistan are seriously lacking in the state’s outreach and are beyond the control of Islamabad, explains Khaled Ahmed in Indian Express. 
  2.   In the recent row over the “autonomous corporation” status of the Prasar Bharati, the fate of state broadcasters like All India Radio is in a deadlock, writes Coonoor Kriplani in Economic and Political Weekly. 
  3.   It seems that a pivotal moment in our political life is approaching, with the BJP and its allied organisations embarking on a strategic course that is far more ambitious and combative than in 2014, seeking as it does to alter the fundamental postulates of the democratic framework of the Indian nation, says Malini Parthasarathy in The Hindu. 
  4.   To ban the term “Dalit” that has now come to be identified with the political awareness of an oppressed community is in itself caste oppression, writes Jeya Rani in The Wire. 
  5. The Indus may be Pakistan’s jugular vein, yet a visionless and water-stressed India has allowed the Indus Water Treaty to hang like the proverbial albatross from its neck, points out Brahma Chellaney in Hindustan Times. 
  6.   The weight of the world sits on our bosom, simply leaving no time to argue with the people who have harmed you. That’s a Black woman’s life, says Brittany Packnett in Elle on the controversy surrounding the US Open finals and Serena Williams.   
  7.   Secrecy and speechifying, collegiality and hierarchy, exceptionalism and opulence mark the Supreme Court  of the United States. An extract from David A Kaplan’s The Most Dangerous Branch: Inside the Supreme Court’s assault on the Constitution. 
  8.   We have to name the crimes against the Rohingyas, Palestinians, and Kashmiris what they are: genocide, apartheid, and colonialism, Azeezhah Kanji and David Palumbo-Liu write in Jacobin. 
  9. In Esquire, Rose Minutaglio narrates the real life incident claimed to be the inspiration behind the new horror flick ‘The Nun’. 
  10. In the Guardian, a panel of writers weigh in on the 10th anniversary of the event that marked the financial crisis of 2008.