Nothing like a cup of coffee and your Sunday morning reads.
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T N Ninan writes in his column for Business Standard that India has to "destroy less of the old" in order to meet the net-zero goals. He argues that India being a late-comer in this race has an unplanned advantage.
He further writes that some businesses will suffer in this de-carbnonisation of human activity. But these could spur longer-term lifestyle changes. Like moving away from metros in newer places with supporting infrastructure. While the Ukraine conflict has pushed many countries to carbon dependence, Ninan states that countries still have to meet emission targets and are prompting incentives and subsidies for these investments.
Tavleen Singh writes in The Indian Express about how democracy cannot prosper if the process of justice is turned into a weapon to curb dissent. Taking the case of Umar Khalid and Siddique Kappan, she argues that if India wants to redeem its image from an elected autocracy, an excellent start would be to release the two men, as they didn't deserve to be in jail in the first place.
In an insightful column for The Telegraph, politician and former diplomat Gopalkrishna Gandhi draws up an intellectual link between the "five powerful minds that have influenced the world's thinking" – Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Mahatma Gandhi, and Albert Einstein.
He talks about how the books they read influenced their thoughts and helped in their respective works. He lists the books that connect Darwin to Einstein and how each of them interpreted these writings into works that impacted the world.
Towards the end, he asks whether a single book in the last seventy-five years of freedom captured our thinking as a people.
American journalist Pamela Paul writes in The New York Times on the new British Prime Minister Liz Truss's Cabinet and the larger question of diversity in leadership positions.
Even though her Cabinet boasts of being ethnically diverse, Paul argues that ethinic and racial diversity might not be enough if the Cabinet isn't diverse in ideology.
Congress leader and former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram writes in The Indian Express about the two ideas of Kashmir, and how his former colleague and MP Ghulam Nabi Azad voted for honoring Article 370 in a Congress Working Committee meeting in August 2019.
But he asks, why then does Azad say that a political party promising to restore Article 370 would be "telling lies" to the people.
He states that in his interaction with the people of Kashmir, he was convinced that they do not demand azadi, or freedom, or secession. They seek a larger degree of autonomy. And the abrogation of Article 370 was a step back in this direction.
In his piece for The Times of India, Badri Narayan argues that Nitish Kumar's break-up with the BJP should not be seen as a revival of Mandal politics against the ruling party. He states that the political nature of the Indian public has changed drastically in the recent past. Along with caste and religious identities, development issues play an important role in determining political choices of Indians. And in such an India, caste-based political assertion may not be fully realised.
Narayan also writes that another reason why Nitish's move would not be able to transform into a Mandal kind of politics is that Hindutva mobilisation has shown its capacity to submerge caste-based assertations. He sees Kumar's act influencing Bihar politics in some sense but says that it is unlikely to influence the national politics in any transformational way.
Palash Krishna Mehrotra writes in his column for Economic Times about the "attack mode" of Indian dogs in the recent past. Referring to the Ghaziabad and Lucknow pit bull attacks, Mehrotra makes a point about the fascination of breeds like dalmations and the White Indian Spitz, owing the trends to movies like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun.
He claims that he saw a change in the behaviour of stray dogs. The empty streets brought out "the worst aggression" in them, he states. He then jokingly remarks about how in England, the pet dogs were polite.
Chanakya writes in his piece for Hindustan Times about the performance of the Indian economy in the financial year 2022-23. He states that halfway through the year, the Indian economy is in a good place, things could have been better, but they could have also been worse.
He talks about the three largest economies "the United States, China and the EU," and how they are slowing down sharply. He also mentions that even though food security may work to India's advantage, our energy insecurity could work to its disadvantage.
Author and former diplomat Pavan K Varma writes in The Asian Age about how bureaucrats have become yes men, willing to do whatever is required to win approbation so that their careers are not jeopardised.
He talks about a time when bureaucrats could fearlessly give impartial advice to their political masters. He then mentions a story he used to hear as a child about a king and a wazir. Through this story, Varma argues that it is immoral to change one's views to agree with the king.
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