- The obsessive concern about the fiscal deficit, so deeply embedded in government thinking, suggests a narrow and limited understanding of macroeconomics, which has often gone wrong even in good times, writes Deepak Nayyar in the Indian Express on the Centre’s economic stimulus package to counter Covid-19 effects.
- More than 90% of India’s workforce is employed in the informal sector, with no social security. Weakening labour laws just when they need greater social cover shows a lack of empathy for them, says Himanshu in Mint.
- Despite Covid-19 lockdown, the Delhi Police has continued to make arrests, sometimes without bothering to follow procedures of law, in connection with February’s communal violence. Vijayta Lalwani documents several of these cases in a series for Scroll.in.
- At 22, Marcus Hutchins single-handedly put a stop to the worst cyberattack the world had ever seen. Then, he was arrested by the FBI. This is his untold story, reports Andy Greenberg in Wired.
- For decades, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei has professed enmity with America. Now his regime is threatened from within the country, writes Dexter Filkins in the New Yorker.
- A couple returned from overseas and entered a 14-day quarantine in a Beijing hotel, but in separate rooms. This is their journey in photos, comics and words in the Washington Post.
- The greatest problem with the recent enthusiasm for tree-planting is disease. Large-scale projects mean large-scale movement of tree stock, which in turn has helped spread a number of highly contagious arboreal pathogens, says Philip Marsden in Granta.
- The German state emphasises the need for social distancing – except for the Romanian migrants working in its farms. The European Union’s neoliberal order has deepened the continent’s labour market inequalities, making a mockery of the rhetoric of European solidarity, argues Florin Poenaru in Jacobin.
- It has become increasingly clear that money intended to rescue small businesses during Covid-19 pandemic has often gone not to those with the greatest need but rather to those with the most shameless lawyers. They are part of the US national equation: power creates money creates more power creates more money, says Nicholas Kristof in New York Times.
- Our inherited biases about who should write what live deeper than most of us realise or want to acknowledge, argues Kiley Bense in Longreads as she deals with what it means to be a woman writer.
Reading
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1
The Indian media is acting like a Hindutva ally in its coverage of the violence in Canada
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2
‘The Fertile Earth’: An epic debut novel about how class and caste dictates whom and how to love
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3
Explained: Why Kenya cancelled Adani airport development deal after US indictment
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4
Jharkhand election results: JMM-led alliance crosses halfway mark, leading in 51 seats
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5
India’s food plate and palate have changed – but anxieties old and new persist
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6
‘A Tamilian trapped among three Punjabis’: Subhash Ghai rewinds to the ‘Taal’ soundtrack
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7
Screen time can involve several activities and not all of them are bad
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8
How an Indian monk contributed to the understanding of Buddhism in China
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9
Interview: How the 16th-century Basilica of Bom Jesus became an icon of Goan identity
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10
Explainer: What does US law say about Adani’s indictment – and can he be charged in India?