- The Mughals were highly extractive – but not qualitatively different from previous or future rulers in South Asia, argues Razib Khan in Brown Pundits.
- Does the anti-defection law serve any purpose? In the Hindu, Srinivasan Ramani discusses the issue with PDT Achary, former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha, and MR Madhavan, president of the PRS Legislative Research.
- Given the targeting of Bengalis, both Hindu and Muslim, even pro-Bharatiya Janata Party groups recognise that the National Register of Citizens in Assam could end up condemning many Indians to an appalling fate, notes Sanjoy Hazarika in the Telegraph.
- Why did rural distress not hurt the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections? Roshan Kishore explores the question in the Hindustan Times.
- Without the glue of the Gandhis, the Congress will come unstuck, writes SA Aiyar in The Times of India.
- Recent events lay bare the underlying bigotry of the Carnatic music scene. It is time to rediscover the music’s origins in the radical and democratic bhakti movement, argues Garimella Subramaniam in the Hindu Business Line.
- On NDTV.com, Mukul Kesavan recounts his schoolboy memories of the 1969 moon landing and how the event was used for propaganda purposes by the United States.
- In The Point, Martin Jay explores if liberalism has become obsolete.
- How to survive in a world run by machine: Tim Rogan lays out a roadmap for a near-future world dominated by artificial intelligence in the New Statesman.
- It’s not only the state’s use of facial recognition technology we should worry about – private companies could also present huge risks, explains Rachel Connolly in the Baffler.
- In his new Netflix comedy special, Right Now, Indian-American comic Aziz Ansari excoriates “wokeness” – a cultural phenomenon on the back of which he had built his career, until he he was accused of sexual misconduct in 2018 as part of #MeToo. In the New Yorker, Doreen St Felix finds the contradictions of the show destabilising enough to draw her back in.
The Weekend Fix: Can the Congress survive without the Gandhis and ten other Sunday reads
Eleven pieces curated by Scroll.in from across the week.
