• Forget artificial sweeteners. Researchers are now developing new forms of real sugar, to deliver sweetness with fewer calories. But tricking our biology is no easy feat, reports Nicola Twilley in the New Yorker.
  • America’s President Trump is gone. But, argues Andrew Sullivan, Trumpism just arrived.
  • The changing legacy of the Second World War in China: nder Mao Zedong the subject of the war was avoided. Now it is used to illustrate the country’s rise to power, writes the Economist.
  • Immorality, sexism, politics, war: the polychromatic Indian epic the Mahabharata pulses with relevance to the present day, writes Audrey Trushke in Aeon.
  • In Southasian Monitor, Suvjit Bagchi charts the rise of Muslim politics in West Bengal.
  • Trump failed as an autocrat but – from globalisation to endless war – succeeded in breaking the neoliberal consensus in US politics, argues Samuel Moyn in the New York Review of Books.
  • It’s still early days. But Pfizer’s stunning Covid-19 vaccine results could be a real game-changer, explains Jeffrey S Flier in Quillette.
  • In the Hindu, Sajjan Kumar explains how the silent voter played a major role in the recently concluded Bihar elections.
  • What does caste profile of MLAs in Bihar tell us about politics? Gilles Verniers and Basim U Nissa explain in the Hindustan Times.
  • In the Indian Express, Teesta Setalvad points out that it’s not only Hindutva politicians: even the judiciary is increasingly pushing the “love jihad” conspiracy theory.