Weekend reads

  1. According to NCRB data, Aradhna CV in the Ladies Finger finds, if there’s one thing women in Karnataka are guaranteed if they file police complaints about sexual violence, it is that they won’t get justice.
  2. Snigdha Poonam in the Hindustan Times reports on the business of recharge shops selling phone numbers of unsuspecting girls to strangers, leading to harassment. 
  3. “Raees is a Muslim social with the Muslim but without any of the social,” writes Lata Jha in Mint. 
  4. Rukmini Callimachi in the New York Times tells the fascinating story of a young man in Hyderabad who acted as a remote-control operative of the Islamic State. 
  5. Check4Spam.com is a new website that hopes to become India’s Snopes.com, with a specific focus on viral and often fake forwards on WhatsApp, reports Pranav Dixit in Buzzfeed. 
  6. Anna MM Vetticad in Blink considers the phenomenon of that unique category of Indian male actors: Over 50, but still running to packed houses.  
  7. One of Shimla’s coldest winters and a day of heavy snowfall meant Kamini would have to be carried downhill if she was to deliver her child in the hospital. And that’s exactly what happened, reports Ashwani Sharma in the Indian Express. 
  8. Companies working in India regularly end up having to pay fines for corruption, but those are almost always levied abroad, writes Josy Joseph in the Hindu, who says Indian anti-corruption agencies will need reforms and oversight if they are to actually be effective. 
  9. Shivam Vij in the Huffington Post tells you what it is like to be at a Mayawati rally in Uttar Pradesh. 
  10. The child survivors of a Telangana accident when a train hit a school bus struggle to put it behindthem, writes Sreenivas Janyala in the Indian Express.