•  In the face of a surging pandemic, the United States has exhibited a near-total evacuation of responsibility and political leadership, argues David Wallace-Wells in the Intelligencer.
  • NRC-CAA-NPR fallout: For the first time in the history of India, states are refusing to follow a Union law. This has serious consequences for the federal structure and leaves a dangerous precedent for the integrity of the Indian Union, explains Akshat Bajpai in the Times of India.  
  • In the Telegraph, Ramchandra Guha writes in praise of the Ranji Trophy, and the old men who follow it.
  • After years of locking horns with Modi-Shah, Mamata Banerjee broke bread with them recently, prompting comparisons with the politics of her contemporaries Arvind Kejriwal and Naveen Patnaik. In the Hindu Business Line, Debaashish Bhattacharya explains what’s going on with the chief minister of West Bengal.
  • The Delhi riots were stoked by a series of factors, but it is the stark police ineptitude that must prompt much introspection, argues MK Narayanan in the Hindu.
  • Are Indian judges in danger of becoming representatives of a populist state? Anjana Prakash makes the argument in Live Law.
  • In Taxis, Ferenc Laczó explains the sceptical utopianism of Hungarian novelist György Konrád.
  • In the Guardian, Peter Frankopan reviews Christina Lamb’s Our Bodies, Their Battlefield , a harrowing account of the thousands of rape victims airbrushed from history.
  • Tips for the depressed: The stupidest, most exasperating piece of advice commonly offered to suffering people is also the truest and most comforting, says George Scialabba in NPlusOne magazine.