Weekend reads

  1. Manu Pillai in Mint looks back at ‘Rama Retold’, the first book to be banned in independent India.
  2. “A mix of aggression, elation, hope, anger, disappointment, and insecurity marks the mood of Bihar, exactly a month after Nitish Kumar took oath as chief minister, in a new avatar, with the BJP,” writes Prashant Jha in the Hindustan Times.
  3. Vidya Venkat and R Krishna Kumar in the Hindu write of a new passive restoration effort – and an insect – in Bandipur National Park that could help fight an invasive plant.
  4. “And yet, a mission for the eradication of surprise seems to be on adrenaline,” writes Sumana Roy in Blink. “Nature is being bleached of the possibility to surprise.”
  5. Aarti Gupta writes about an initiative of the Maharashtra government that has seen three blocks of a district data-mapped to an unprecedented level.
  6. “Peterloo was one of the first confrontations between people and power in the modern age when a new abundance of machinery appeared to revolutionize industry,” writes Sunanda K Datta-Ray, remembering a massacre that would, via a Shelley poem, inspire Mohandas Gandhi’s satyagraha.
  7. “Imagine a world where two lakh people took to the streets to support rape survivors instead of rapists, where a woman filing a complaint against her rapist would be cheered on the streets,” writes Shruti Sunderraman in the Ladies Finger.
  8. Zara Choudhary on Sacred Footsteps writes about a 17th century Indian pilgrim and his amazing Hajj maps.
  9. Manisha Pande in Newslaundry describes how Gurmeet Singh’s ‘premis’ turned into a violent mob, with even the authorities running away.
  10. Bret Stephens in the New York Times gives aspiring opinionators 15 tips for good Op-Eds.