- In the Wall Street Journal, Sadanand Dhume argues that pop star Rihanna has rallied to the wrong cause: Modi’s news farm laws are actually good for India.
- In the Indian Express, Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes that the overwhelming political power Hindu nationalists have will not be seriously challenged in the near future, notwithstanding a few social movements.
- There is nothing like a “Chinese debt-trap”, explain Deborah Brautigam and Meg Rithmire in the Atlantic. The narrative wrongfully portrays both Beijing and the developing countries it deals with.
- The stand-off over the farm laws has become international farce, writes TN Ninan in the Business Standard. The best course would be to toss issue back to Parliament.
- In the Indian Express, Suhas Palshikar writes about the extraodinary sight of the Union government literally barricading itself and its seat of power – Delhi.
- The Modi government has lost farm laws battle, argues Shekhar Gupta in the Print. Now raising the Sikh separatist bogey will be an even graver error.
- Neither the government nor the urban middle classes have felt a sense of unease over the farmers’ despair, argues Krishna Kumar in the Hindu.
- The GameStop rally exposed the perils of “meme populism”,writes Eric Levitz in the Intelligencer.
- In Public Books, Joanne Randa Nucho explains how Treaty of Versailles still haunts the world.
- In the New York Times, Liz Day ruminates on what the wall-to-wall coverage of pop star Britney Spears means.
- Whiteness is the greatest racial fraud argues Luvell Anderson in the Boston Review.
Reading
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1
India’s cyber-scam epidemic is part of a multibillion global industry. This series traces a full arc
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2
February nonfiction: Six new books that take deep dives into Indian history
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3
‘The Secret of the Shiledars’ review: An amateurish hunt for Shivaji’s hidden treasure
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4
Mumbai’s architecture is losing its poetry
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5
Budget 2025 key takeaways: No income tax till Rs 12 lakh, healthcare for gig workers and more
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6
Pope Francis’s autobiography: We’ve never known so much about the pontiff before
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7
Rona Wilson interview: ‘My arrest was a warning to others who stand against the abuse of power’
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8
Budget 2025: No income tax payable on income up to Rs 12 lakh under new regime
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9
Why the push by India’s tiger conservation body to relocate forest-dwellers is contentious
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10
Ads selling illegal wildlife products, animal parts thrive online in Vietnam