1. In The India Forum, eminent academic Jean Dreze writes that the surge of Hindu nationalism in India can be seen as a revolt of the upper castes against the egalitarian demands of democracy. The Hindutva project is a lifeboat for the upper castes in so far as it promises to restore the Brahminical social order.
2. In The Indian Express, Christophe Jaffrelot, the French political scientist sepcialising in India and Pakistan, writes that violence in Delhi is intended to polarise as well as to teach a lesson. "The ideas of “revenge” and “lesson” take us back to the killings of 1984 and 2002. The magnitude of Delhi riots may be different, but its impact in terms of ghettoisation will probably be equally strong," he writes.
3. In The Times of India, Manoj Joshi writes that Delhi riots show what can happen when there is political interference with police.
4. Again in The India Forum, CM Naim, Professor Emeritus, South Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago, writes that the protesters at Shaheen Bagh have built a solidarity that has not been derived from some legal or religious text but is drawn from their own direct experience. They say in their own plain fashion: we are our brother’s keepers.
5. In The Economic Times, Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar argues why India needs to scrap its sedition law, as it was enacted by the British to suppress any Indian dissent.
6. In The Atlantic, James Hamblin writes that most Coronavirus cases are not life-threatening, which is also what makes the virus a historic challenge to contain.
7. In The Irish Times, Paraic O'Donnell's moving essay - titled MS is meticulously destroying me. I am being unmade - charts out the progression of his multiple sclerosis against the changing seasons.
8. In Slate, a real doctor answers all our weird questions about hand-washing best practices, such as do you really have to wash your hands for 20 seconds and what if there’s no soap.
9. In Aeon, Huw Green, a clinical psychologist working in neuropsychology at the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, writes that a psychiatric diagnosis can be more than an unkind ‘label’.
10. In Scroll.in, Probal Dasgupta writes about the tale of two ‘Chicken’s Necks’ and how India’s armed forces kept Pakistan and China at bay.