Weekend Reads

  1. The battle over Bhima-Koregaon is not just one of history, it is a battle for identity and equality, Shiv Vishwanathan writes in  The Hindu.
  2. In this photo essay for Fountain Ink, Sugato Mukherjee captures the difficult life of the Agariyas of Bhuj, who toil hard to put the salt on our plates. 
  3. “We cannot allow ourselves to be caught between a hard place and a hard place,” writes former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram in The Indian Express. “If we do, the losers will be the people of Jammu & Kashmir and India will lose the opportunity to find a political solution.”
  4.   The Parayars of Madras too have a legacy of valour, and other martial caste groups of Tamil Nadu cannot snatch it away. D Ravikumar details a little-known battle that Dalits fought as part of the British Indian Army in the Madras Presidency.   
  5. How long can an administration work around an incapable President? Ross Douthat in the New York Times on the travails of the US administration under Donald Trump.  
  6.   The much-maligned Paris climate deal has the potential to transform capitalism – if we know how to use it, says Michael Dobson in Jacobin. 
  7.   We are alienating each other with unrestrained callouts and unchecked self-righteousness, says Frances Lee about the trajectory that rights activism is taking.   
  8.   While banks have been regulated since their inception, the approach to regulation has followed an evolutionary path, saysHarsh Vardhan in Mint. 
  9.   The theory and praxis of social ecology remains our best hope to fend off a dystopian future and meaningfully reshape the fate of humanity on this planet, argues Brian Tokar in the Roar Magazine.
  10. None of the experts featured in a recent video released by the Science Channel makes any claim on the Ram Setu as a human construct nor does this video cite any published scientific results, points out CP Rajendran in The Wire.