- The pandemic has resolved many of Modi’s challenges –- protestors have dispersed, state governments are queuing up for support and all India’s economic problems can be laid at the door of Covid-19, writes TN Ninan in the Business Standard.
- If the government runs a huge deficit to tackle crisis and asks the Reserve Bank of India to monetise part of it, we must accept it, argues former Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha in the Indian Express.
- The Modi government and the elite know nothing of the problems of the working poor, argues Prabhat Patnaik in the Telegraph.
- First thought up in China, now much of Europe and the Unites States is adopting social distaning to country Covid-19. But poor countries need to think twice about social distancing, write Ahmed Mobarik and Zachary Barnett-Howell in Foreign Policy.
- The normal economy is never coming back – even after the pandemic gets over, predicts Adam Tooze in Foreign Policy.
- The world after coronavirus: the future of neoliberalism. Adil Najam interviews Noam Chomsky.
- Theories of perception are heavily tilted to the visual: we have much to learn from our surprisingly acute sense of smell, writes Ann-Sophie Barwich in Aeon.
- In Literary Review Dominic Green reviews One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time, a study of cultural time, social space and the madness of fame around the British pop band.
- In Undark, John Charpentier explains the 19th-century roots of modern medical denialism.
- Marriage is practised in every society yet is in steep decline globally. Is this it for long-term intimate relationships, asks Manvir Singh in Aeon.
Reading
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1
‘The Shudra Rebellion’: Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd studies the vital role of oppressed castes in India
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2
Start the week with a film: Why ‘Kishkindha Kaandam’ is all the rage
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3
Cash transfers, caste calculus: What was behind the Mahayuti’s sweep in Maharashtra?
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4
How Adani Group misled Indian stock exchanges on the bribery investigation against it
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5
Upamanyu Chatterjee’s ‘Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life’ wins the JCB Prize for Literature
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6
Why the imagined opposition between academic and public historians needs to be questioned
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7
A new book shows why the super-rich in India must strive to alleviate poverty and reduce inequality
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8
Amazon Karigar for ‘Made in India’ handicrafts a bust for artisans
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9
Did Indian culture recognise an independent field of study called philosophy?
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10
Gulzar on his daughter Meghna: ‘A piece of sun mingles in my blood, day and night’