Weekend Reads

  1. If you have not already, take the NRC test: Would you be able to prove that you’re an Indian citizen, in the same way that people in Assam are being expected to? Also, read all the stories from Scroll.in’s The Final Count series, which looked closely at the National Register of Citizens process that could end up with millions being declared stateless.
  2. “The NRC and the [Citizenship Amendment Bill] are the greatest institutional threats to Indian democracy today,” writes Mukul Kesavan in the Telegraph. “As bad as things are now, they can and will be much worse, should Amit Shah, India’s unlikely Isabella, achieve his object: a pan-Indian Inquisition, sanctioned by a poisoned citizenship law.”
  3. “If data can be toxic, centralising and consolidating it, as advocated by the [Economic] Survey, increases its toxicity exponentially,” writes Reetika Khera in the Hindu. “Contrary to the widely advocated principle of decentralised/disaggregated data silos as a first line of defence by data security experts, the Survey portrays decentralisation as an obstacle.”
  4. Shekhar Gupta in the Print writes about three defectors to the Bharatiya Janata Party who have, between them, six accusations of murder and three accusations of rape.
  5. Despite what Home Minister Amit Shah may say, the immigration rate in India is actually coming down and there is clear data to suggest that the country is not being swamped by Bangladeshi migrants, finds Chinmay Tumbe in Mint after looking at the most recent census numbers.
  6. Ayman M Mohyeldin in Vanity Fair tells us how Saudi Arabia ensures that anyone questioning the government ends up disappearing.
  7. What is it like to go to a party where everyone is an influencer? Taylor Lorenz finds out for the Atlantic.
  8. “Writers have their pet themes, favorite words, stubborn obsessions,” Parul Sehgal reviews a book about semi-colons for the New York Times. “But their signature, the essence of their style, is felt someplace deeper – at the level of pulse. Style is first felt in rhythm and cadence, from how sentences build and bend, sag or snap.Style, I’d argue, is 90 percent punctuation.”