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Sunday View: The Best Weekend Opinion Reads, Curated Just For You

Here is a compilation of the best opinion pieces across newspapers.

The Quint

India

Updated: 06 Oct 2019, 07:26 AM IST

Nothing like a cup of coffee and your Sunday morning reads.

(Photo: iStockphoto)

Cases Against PC, Letter-Writing Celebs Show Liberties Are at Risk

In a rather scathing article on how various government agencies and the judiciary have repeatedly failed when faced with the task of protecting liberties, columnist Aakar Patel has opined that the mantra, "I have full faith in the judiciary", is formulated more out of fear than respect.

In his article for The Times of India, he has touched upon recent incidents like the arrest of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and sedition charges against eminent personalities who wrote an open letter to the prime minister, to back his arguments.

“The question we should ask ourselves as citizens is: why is this allowed to happen in our democracy? The answer is that our polity has no defence against strong leaders who want to impose their will. Two reasons for this: one, there is no real rule of law in India; two, the judiciary does not do its job.”

Fifth Column: Hatred Harms India

In her weekly column for The Indian Express, journalist Tavleen Singh has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak on the atrocities on minorities and the way some people from his camp are encouraging the culture of it.

She has also argued that such remarks from "people on Narendra Modi’s team" bolsters Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's claim that India is being led by a "Hindu fascist".

“I am not repeating the things that have been said because they are unrepeatable and also because I refuse to give hate-filled bigots the oxygen of publicity. But, it could be time for the Prime Minister to speak up. He took too long in his first term to condemn the lynchings, so by then it was not just Muslims who were being targeted but Dalits as well.”

Never a Good Sign if RBI Has to Reassure Consumers Their Money's Safe

In the wake of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) slashing the repo rate for the fifth straight time and lowering growth forecast from 6.9 percent to 6.1 percent for the current fiscal year, senior business journalist Paran Balakrishnan has opined that the country's economy is "going to be stuck in the ICU for what could be a long time."

In his article for The Telegraph, Balakrishnan paints an overall picture of the current state of economy and takes cues from the central bank's recent policy meeting to highlight the uphill task it is currently facing.

“When announcing the rate cut, the RBI noted tersely “private consumption, which has supported economic activity, is now beginning to slow down due to a host of factors. In this context, the performance of large employment-generating sectors like automobiles (which contributes half of India’s manufacturing production) and real estate remains less than satisfactory.” In other words, the central bank gave the economy a ‘D’ for performance.”

PMC’s Brazen Crookery Shows Why Industrialists Should Not Own Banks

Addressing yet another crisis on the economic front, the scam in PMC Bank, senior journalist and columnist Swaminathan Aiyar made a case on why private businesses should stay away from owning banks.

Picking on the conflict of interest that has emerged in the initial investigations into the alleged wrongdoings in the bank, Aiyar in his article for The Times of India, argues how such arrangements end up in businessmen "milking depositors’ money for private ends".

“Countries like Japan and Germany have become star economies despite close interholdings between businesses and banks. But that requires a far superior culture of governance. Some may think that India’s biggest business houses have the might to manage the risks inherent in banking. Alas, the recent collapse of one big name after another shows otherwise.”

How the World Sees India’s Kashmir Policy

Journalist Karan Thapar in his Sunday column for The Hindustan Times has opined that while the international community has largely regarded India's action in Jammu and Kashmir as an 'internal' one, it has been vocal against the "communications lockdown, detentions and allegations of human rights abuse."

He suggests that the question whether PM Modi's visit to the US and the UN is a success or if Kashmir has been "internationalised to India’s disadvantage", does not have a clear-cut answer.

“I find it hard to deny Kashmir has been internationalised. It actually began with the informal meeting of the Security Council in August. Second, even though most countries haven’t criticised the change in Kashmir’s status, they still regard it as disputed territory. Finally, even if they agree the solution has to be sought bilaterally, they’re also encouraging India to get on with it.”

The Cities That Shaped Gandhi, the Cities He Shaped

The weekend following Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary, historian Ramachandra Guha, in his column in the Hindustan Times, contests the father of the nation's observation, “India lives in her villages”.

Guha, known for his extensive body of work on Gandhi, presents his case by citing how the leader's life and work were prospered in urban areas, not just in India but in cities like London, Durban and Johannesburg, as well.

“Gandhi’s claim was wrong not merely in a historical sense. It also militated against the facts of his own life. He grew up in towns in Kathiawar, and then went to study in the greatest city in the world, London. In South Africa, he lived and worked in the cities of Durban and Johannesburg. It was in these urban centres that he cut his political teeth; it is here that he made his closest friends and found his true vocation.”

Plastic Will Choke India in the Long Run. Tackle It

Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not announce a ban on single-use plastic on 2 October, as was widely expected. Writing for The Hindustan Times, Kumkum Dasgupta explains why such a ban is difficult to impose, given the existing regulations and widespread use of single-use plastic in our daily life.

Apart from the infrastructure that India lacks in order to treat plastic waste, Dasgupta writes how millions of jobs and businesses, too, are intimately linked to the problem.

“What is most troubling is not the plastic challenge in cities because they would still have the first access to information, technology, funds, and expertise to tackle the problem. The real challenge lies in smaller towns and kasbahs, especially those tucked away in pristine areas, and ecotourism and adventure tourism destinations, especially when the government is opening up newer areas for tourism.”

Healthy Ageing Needs Public Health

In the light of the prospect of India's elderly population bulging to 20 percent by 2050, up from the current 8.5 percent, K Srinath Reddy, in an article in the New Indian Express, makes an argument that countries which coupled economic development to greater social equity reaped better benefits in terms of both total and healthy life expectancies in their populations.

“The vision of public health envisages a long and productive life span between the book ends of ‘birth without danger’ and ‘death with dignity’. Public health aims to achieve this through multi-sectoral policies, creation of strong health systems capable of effective delivery of a wide range of health services, and active engagement of enabled communities in the co-creation of health at the population and personal levels.”

Less-Than-Brilliant Science Fiction Offers More Joy Than Mainstream Novels

For his Sunday piece for The Telegraph, columnist Mukul Kesavan chose to write about his liking and binge-reading habit of science fiction novels. He draws references from the entire range of novels from the genre to argue that they "offer greater pleasures than most mainstream stand-alone novels paralysed as they are by the stasis of literary seriousness."

“Any extended reading of science fiction prompts a revaluation of literary fiction. After reading Frankenstein, it is obvious to the meanest intelligence that Shelley’s husband was a minor poet with a striking turn of phrase, and she was the literary giant who literally transformed the human imagination with her writing. Besides a writer really can’t call himself Percy Bysshe and expect to be taken seriously unless he’s auditioning for a part in a Drones Club scene written by Pelham Grenville.”