• The National Register of Citizens has torn apart the state of Assam. In Mint, Abul Kalam Azad writes about his struggle to rent a house as Muslims with origins in Bengal.
  • In sharp contrast to the claims of the Bharatiya Janata Party that Bangladeshis are swarming into India, people across the border actually enjoy a better standard of living than Indians, notes Swati Narayan in the Indian Express.
  • If the Jaipur Literature Festival is increasingly being accused of failing to live up to expectations, equal blame must be laid at the doors of the publishing industry ecosystem, writes Aditya Mani Jha in the Hindu Business Line.
  • It is tragic that the Modi government has snuffed out mainstream Kashmiri politics, argues Ramchandra Guha in the Telegraph. 
  • In Aeon, Alexander Klein explains how English philosopher Bertrand Russell’s “scientific” philosophy was a bulwark against nationalism
  • The trouble with anti-populism: In the Guardian, Benjamin Moffit explains why the champions of civility keep losing.
  • Managment consulting firm McKinsey destroyed the middle class in the United States, argues Daniel Markovits.
  • A growing chorus says that science has shown free will to be an illusion. But it actually has offered arguments in its favor, argues Christian List in the Boston Review.
  • About 50,000 years ago, ancient humans in what is now West Africa apparently procreated with another group of ancient humans that scientists didn’t know existed. In NPR, Merit Kennedy explains how this ghostly human ancestor was discovered.
  • What is wrong in being tacky, asks John Semley in the Walrus.