- The ideas of “revenge” and “lesson” emerging from the Delhi violence take us back to the killings of 1984 and 2002. The magnitude of 2020 Delhi riots may be different, but its impact in terms of ghettoisation of Muslims will probably be equally strong, argues Christophe Jaffrelot in Indian Express.
- If history is a guide, then the Supreme Court should don its judicial garb and pronounce on the legality of the Citizenship Amendment Act without fear or favour. In times of conflict, the power of adjudication is the court’s best weapon in protecting individual liberty, writes Arghya Sengupta in Times of India.
- In the wake of the Delhi riots, there is growing suspicion that the BJP is working to a plan. The BJP is emboldened to pursue its partisan agenda owing to the massive majority it enjoys in the Lok Sabha and the fact that Lok Sabha elections are four years away, says former Union Minister P Chidambaram in Indian Express.
- The last nine months – meaning, the period of time when the second term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi began – have seen Hindutva acquire a new sense of urgency. Even the fig leaf of development is a thing of the past. This, indeed, is Hindutva’s true and unalloyed form, something that was hidden beneath layers of political exigencies for close to a century, writes Vikas Pathak in The Wire.
- In this essay in Vulture, Molly Young digs into why large corporations communicate the way they do and what it means to people within and outside these organisations.
- People used to think Wikipedia, the crowdsourced encyclopedia, represented all that was wrong with the web. Now it’s a beacon of so much that’s right, writes Richard Cooke in Wired.
- Adrienne Miller’s memoir of her relationship with David Foster Wallace is part of an emerging genre of women coming of age via an older, powerful man. Within the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and sexism in the publishing industry, jerks are praised and women are erased, writes Laura Marsh in The New Republic.
- The Trump-Modi relationship brings the lovefest of US-India leadership to a new high. No longer just a neoliberal alliance, Trump and Modi have cemented a bond over machismo-infused right-wing nationalism, argues Thomas Crowley in Jacobin.
- In a few cases in Japan, patients again tested positive for the Coronavirus after they were no longer ill. But little is known about the virus, and it’s possible that testing flaws may be to blame, reports Apoorva Mandavilli in New York Times on an infection that has caused chaos across the world.
- An Aadhaar-based biometric authentication did not reduce public distribution system leakages, finds Jharkhand-based empirical study reported in The Hindu. This raises questions the government’s claim of improving efficiency of services with Aadhaar, which opponents have accused of violating the right to privacy.
Reading
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1
In a new book, Devdutt Pattanaik argues that the Harappan civilisation persists in our memories
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2
Why Indians have always been suspicious that their ghee is adulterated
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3
In Ladakh, a massive energy project is shrouded in mystery
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4
UP court hands Muslim man life term citing ‘love jihad’ despite complainant retracting claim
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5
Maharashtra will pay gaushalas same amount per cow as women get under Ladki Bahin scheme – Rs 1,500
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6
India’s air, water, land are all polluted. The government has failed to tackle this, says a new book
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7
Human sacrifice, blood offerings, greed for gold: Why the 1970s Manwat murders continue to shock
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8
Fiction: A friend’s murder draws Karan into Mumbai’s world of sex, crime and politics
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9
NIF announces five-book shortlist for the 2024 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize for nonfiction
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10
From the memoir: Human rights activist Syeda Saiyidain Hameed writes about her role as a mother