In his weekly column for The Indian Express, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram breaks down the tough choices India faces in the growing tariff war with the US and China."India faces two diametrically opposite challenges when dealing with the two largest economies of the world," he writes.In choosing the title with obscure names I do not intend to flaunt my knowledge of English idioms; I am playing safe. The more familiar idiom ‘between the devil and the deep sea’ would have immediately raised the question ‘which is the devil and which is the deep sea’? In the present tariff war that started on April 2, 2025, India faces challenges from two countries: United States and China. One is the obscure Scylla and the other the obscure Charybdis. Both, in the current context, are unpleasant alternatives.P Chidambaram, The Indian ExpressIn his piece for Deccan Chronicle, diplomat Pavan K Varma says that while "India must give a befitting response" to the recent terrorist attack in Pahalgam, it is also important to demand accountability from those responsible for enforcing security in the Valley.From 2019 to 2024, J&K has been under President’s rule. Even with the election of Omar Abdullah as Chief Minister in 2024, security, police, counter-intelligence and law and order vests with the lieutenant governor and the Central government, since J&K is a Union Territory. True, terrorism by its very nature cannot always be pre-empted, yet the question remains how terrorists could just walk into the Pahalgam valley — one of the densest hubs of tourism — and kill 28 innocent tourists? Why was there — as has been reported — not even a policeman — leave alone a police post — at the nearby Baisaran valley, a popular destination for tourists? In a democracy, no authority — however high — is exempt from interrogation and accountability for omissions and commission under its watch.Pavan K Varma, Deccan Chronicle"A new opportunity has emerged for reshaping India’s fraught federal compact," writes Yamini Aiyar in Deccan Herald.She argues that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin's recent announcement of a committee to safeguard state rights is a manifestation of the growing discord between centralisation and federalism in India, particularly when it comes to issues like language imposition.The principle of federal accommodation was baked into the Indian constitution as a necessary mechanism for negotiating and preserving India’s diversity within the nation-state framework. Federalism’s first big test was the linguistic settlement arrived at through the States Reorganisation Act. It underlined federalism as necessary for meaningfully accommodating diversity. The BJP is ideologically impatient with this principle of accommodation, seeking instead to impose a monistic culture within a “one nation” framework. This is placing new pressures on a once-settled idea and sharpening the divide. The battle with Tamil Nadu over the imposition of Hindi is just one illustration of this.Yamini Aiyar, Deccan HeraldAgainst the backdrop of US Vice-President JD Vance's recent four-day visit to India, which coincided with a terror attack in Pahalgam, Chakshu Roy, in his piece for The Indian Express, reflects on Richard Nixon's visit in 1953.Nixon's visit, the first by a US Vice-President, he writes, marked a significant milestone in US-India relations, despite occurring in the wake of tensions over US support for Pakistan at the time.The catalyst for his visit was the US government’s apprehension of India coming close to Communist powers. A year earlier, the US Ambassador to India sent a top-secret communication to President Harry Truman. He wrote, “Recent Communist successes in South India indicate how rapidly political and economic situation here could disintegrate. Failure of Indian democracy would in all probability result in disaster more substantial than Communist victory in China since Southeast Asia and Middle East would become impossible to hold once India is lost."...On November 29, 1953, Nixon, his wife Pat and the American delegation flew into Bangalore from Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). The visit took place at a time when there was news that America was planning to supply arms to Pakistan. But despite this sourness, the V-P received a rousing welcome. The American Ambassador described Nixon’s reception as “unprecedented … with most of the city’s populace lining streets and cheering on way from airport”.Chakshu Roy, The Indian ExpressIn his weekly column for the Hindustan Times, journalist and author Karan Thapar fondly recalls his teenage years, spent immersed in Agatha Christie's mysteries, especially the adventures of Poirot and Miss Marple.Prompted by Lucy Worsley’s biography A Very Elusive Woman, he explores the lesser-known aspects of Christie’s life — her turbulent marriages, adventurous travels, hidden romantic writings, and the mystery of her ten-day disappearance.Most of you probably know Agatha as an author of thrillers. But there was a lot more to her. Writing as Mary Westmacott, she authored six romantic novels. She was also an accomplished playwright. Two of her most famous plays are 'The Mousetrap' and 'Witness for the Prosecution'. The former ran continuously in a London West End theatre from 1952 till 2020, when it had to be temporarily discontinued because of COVID. It reopened in 2021. Poirot is by far her most famous creation. But, in fact, she thought he was “rather insufferable”. Following his last appearance in Curtain in 1975, the New York Times published his obituary on its front page.Karan Thapar, Hindustan TimesIn The New Indian Express, S Vaidhyasubramaniam writes that the time is ripe for Indian institutes to capitalise on the decline in US student visas and shifting global trends."The policies to retain students in India for graduate studies must be aimed with long-term clarity and vision for Viksit Bharat @2047," he writes.It is not a quantity problem that is forcing Indians to move out but a quality and autonomy problem mixed with greener opportunities in the foreign landscape...The loss of America’s inbound Indian talent must be dominantly India’s gain and not some other country’s. The Indian gain must come from Indian HEIs and not foreign education institutions opening campuses in India. To make this happen, Indian HEIs must be enthused and encouraged to freely experiment progressive transformations free from regimental regulations as pointed out by the 2024-25 Economic Survey.S Vaidhyasubramaniam, The New Indian ExpressIn Deccan Herald, philosopher Aakash Singh Rathore discusses Anurag Kashyap's recent run-in with the law over a controversial remark made in defence of his film Phule (a biopic on social reformers Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule). "Kashyap’s case exposes the universal tensions between freedom of expression and legal censorship," he writes.The backlash against him was immediate: an FIR in Jaipur, complaints in Mumbai and Indore, and the inevitable charges under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for outraging religious feelings. He has since apologised on social media, but his apologies dissatisfy both his supporters, who would have preferred that he doubled down, as well as his opponents, who are seemingly unsatisfiable...This situation, for me, resonates with Buffalo Springfield’s 1967 protest anthem For What It’s Worth: "There’s something happening here / What it is ain’t exactly clear / There’s a man with a gun over there / Telling me I got to beware." These lyrics capture the threat of Kashyap’s legal battle. The "man with a gun" could symbolise the vigilantes who have been threatening the filmmaker and his family with violence, rape, and death. It could also symbolise the enforcers of IPC 295A—the police and courts—wielding their power to silence him, warning Kashyap (and others) to "beware." But beware of what, and why exactly?Aakash Singh Rathore, Deccan HeraldIn her column for The Indian Express, Tavleen Singh reflects on the Pahalgam terror attack and argues that its roots lie in deeply ingrained anti-India sentiment in Pakistan."The truth is that I have never met a Pakistani, either in the drawing rooms of Lahore and Karachi, or in the streets of these cities who did not bring up Kashmir as the main reason for his hatred of India," she writes.The Pakistani Army Chief is the first high-level Pakistani official who has articulated that deeper reason so clearly. Days before the massacre in Pahalgam, General Asim Munir addressed a group of overseas Pakistanis in Islamabad. He told them that it was their duty to tell their children ‘The story of Pakistan’. Tell them, he said, how we fought and sacrificed to create this country because we knew that we could not live with Hindus. They are different in every way to us, he said, their culture is different, their religion is different, they have different goals and ambitions. It was only at the end of this speech, that he reminded his audience that ‘Kashmir is Pakistan’s jugular vein’. Were the murderous fanatics who came to Pahalgam inspired by this speech? Possibly.Tavleen Singh, The Indian ExpressIn her piece for The Telegraph, writer and poet Sumana Roy explores how the shift in focus from metropolitan settings to small towns in Indian cinema and literature has shaped a new cultural narrative that moves beyond urban-centric perspectives.The mofussil as prop, the village as a Gandhian abstraction for natural nobility, the town as a set in Film City, would gradually, in this new century, give way to film-makers and script writers who, having been raised in small towns, would import the provincial as an aesthetic...Bareilly would have its revenge. Relegated to one half of a nearly meaningless alliterative phrase in the song from Mera Saya, “Bareilly ke bazaar mein”, it would, exactly half a century later, return as the title of a film, again, of course, as alliteration: Bareilly Ki Barfi.Sumana Roy, The TelegraphManipur Was Burning, Now Kashmir Bleeds: A Call for National ReckoningPahalgam Is the Price of New Kashmir'Phule', Caste, and Control: Hindutva’s Rewriting of OppressionWhy the Pakistani Military Can’t Quit the ‘Two-Nation Theory’How BSP's Family Drama is Eroding Mayawati's Influence in Dalit PoliticsPope Francis: A Moral Voice on Gaza and the World(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)