Weekend Reads

  • The question isn’t whether private money should help in the upkeep of the Red Fort – it is what model under which the money should be spent. How is Dalmia Bharat, with no experience in heritage conservation, expected to do this, asks Mukul Kesavan in the Telegraph.
  • Last month, the Union Home Ministry told a parliamentary panel that nearly 700 personnel of paramilitary forces had committed suicide in the last six years, a figure surpassing those killed in action. In the Indian Express, Rahul Tripathi explores what is pushing these men, posted in some of the toughest terrains and combat zones, with almost no peace postings, to the edge.
  • The order of the vice president disallowing the impeachment motion of the Chief Justice of India is untenable, argues Dinesh Dwiwedi in Deccan Herald.
  • In Caravan, Praveen Donthi profiles Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s man in reserve.
  • The Bharatiya Janata Party-Peoples Democratic Party alliance in Jammu and Kashmir may not end, but it should, writes Barkha Dutt in the Hindustan Times.
  • Anything which arrests India’s potential drift towards the United States and its allies is good for China. This is what led to the Wuhan Summit, explains China scholar Roderick Macfarquhar in an interview to Ashutosh Varshney in the Indian Express.
  • Nehru’s defence minister VK Krishna Menon was abrasive, but got India noticed. He punched above his weight and strode the world stage with regal confidence, writes Manu S Pillai in the Mint.
  • Two centuries on, Karl Marx feels more revolutionary than ever, writes Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian.
  • A growing number of philosophers are conducting experiments to test their arguments. Is this the future for philosophy, asks in Nigel Warburton in Aeon.
  • Copying and pasting emails. Inventing meaningless tasks for others. Just looking busy. Why do so many people feel their work is completely unnecessary, asks David Graeber in the Guardian.
  • Using One Belt, One Road, will China become a colonial power, asks James A Millward in the New York Times.