Weekend Reads

  1. In the Indian Express, Pratap Bhanu Mehta disagrees with the contention that the new Goods and Services tax will cut down the autonomy of the states in the Indian Union.
  2. In the Times of India, Ajmer Singh, an ex-Indian Army officer asks if Kashmir is an integral part of the Union, why are pellet guns, not used anywhere else, deployed there?
  3. On his blog, Shekhar Gupta takes Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to task for his absurdly draconian prohibition law.
  4. On Al Jazeera, Sadanand Dhume debates Rana Ayyub over her book indicting the Gujarat administration over the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom [video].
  5. In the News Minute, Tushar Dhara points out the unfairness of India’s Union government negotiating deals in secret, keeping state governments out of the loop.
  6. In the Nation, Ammar Anwer traces the rise and fall of the subcontinent’s most influential Islamic seminary, Deoband.
  7. In the Mint, Arun Janardhan complains about advertisements on the Mumbai local trains.
  8. In the New York Review of Books, Mervyn King explores the contours of a post-Brexit Europe.
  9. In the Boston Review, Elizabeth Anderson points out the odd situation of how, in the United States, social insurance became confused with socialism.
  10. In the Hindu Business Line, Garima Gupta explores a new dish that has exploded onto Delhi food scene: the Moradabadi biryani.
  11. In the Indian Express, Chandrima Pal checks out Kalman, one of Kolkata’s oldest cold storages, famous for their Hungarian sausages, duck and beefsteaks.

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