A selection of the best news reports, analysis and opinions published by ThePrint this week.
Behind the impressive Class XII results of Delhi govt schools: 50 per cent students flunk in class IX
The Delhi administration was in quite a celebratory mood over the performance of government school students in the Class XII CBSE exams.
The celebration was well within reason considering the students had outperformed their peers from private schools, with a pass percentage of over 90 per cent. But Kritika Sharma reported that a big factor behind the stellar performance is that about half the students of Delhi government schools fail Class IX, which means that only their most capable students take the Class XII board exams.
Why you shouldn’t watch Veere di Wedding, and why you should
Among the many reasons why Veere di Wedding dominated the news cycle last week was its attempt to depict feminism, and masturbation, in mainstream cinema. Pieces by Ruhi Tewari and Diksha Madhok tell you why the film failed on both fronts. While the film itself is an apology for feminism, its depiction of masturbation is rather prudish, they write. But if you’re still looking for reasons to watch the film, read Harnidh Kaur’s piece on why every “women-centric film” doesn’t have to come with the burden of educating people.
Kejriwal’s wife is now a Twitter warrior against the BJP
Arvind Kejriwal’s wife Sunita is kicking up a Twitter storm, but even AAP leaders don’t quite seem to know why.
Long the Delhi CM’s quiet companion, Sunita is displaying a sudden aggression on Twitter against the NDA, giving rise to speculation about her possible political debut. Read Rajgopal Singh’s report to know exactly what the Delhi CM’s wife is up to on Twitter.
Legalising marijuana would be a boost for the Indian economy, says MP Shashi Tharoor
Legalisation of marijuana would do India, the land of bhang, quite good, and it’s high time India did it, suggested Shashi Tharoor and his nephew Avinash Tharoor, of UK drugs charity Release, in a viral opinion piece.
Surely, legalisation would mean greater regulation, which would allow cannabis buyers to know exactly what they’re consuming and moderate their intake, they wrote.
‘Priyanka Chopra should have known a Hindu cannot be a terrorist’
A recent episode of Priyanka Chopra’s Quantico ended up creating quite a stir here in India by showing an ‘Indian nationalist’ as a terrorist.
The bigger problem, though, seemed to be that he was a Hindu. Shouldn’t Priyanka have known that only Muslims are terrorists, Vandana Menon asks in her opinion piece about how Quantico has played dangerously with stereotypes in past episodes when no Indian batted an eyelid.
India’s top revenue-generating monuments were all built by Muslim rulers
While Hindutva groups and some political leaders have sought to divide India’s heritage by belittling the significance of monuments built by Muslim rulers, official data from the Archaeological Survey of India shows that country’s top five revenue-generating monuments were all built by Muslim rulers – the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, Qutub Minar, Fatehpur Sikri and Red Fort. Read Sanya Dhingra’s report on India’s most popular heritage monuments of 2017-18.