Firstpost Editor's Picks: Rahul's 'tragic hero' act, Modi 2.0, Payal Tadvi suicide case; today's must-read stories

Rahul Gandhi's 'tragic hero' act deserves no sympathy; Congress needs honest assessment if it wants to be politically relevant The first step towards redemption for the Congress is to acknowledge and internalise that the party’s poll disaster is of Rahul Gandhi’s own making. This is easier said than done for a family enterprise. No amount of deflection from this truth may work. If the Congress tries to shield Rahul from criticism and pretends as if everyone else is at fault, the paradox quoted above will eventually obliterate the party as we know it. Narendra Modi 2.0: Why landslide mandate, right conditions make it perfect time for govt to kick-start weak PSBs’ sell-off As Narendra Modi is set to begin his second term in office with an even bigger majority and less political resistance from a decimated Opposition, he has a better opportunity to do what he promised five years ago. At least in the public sector banking industry, there are quite a number of good reasons why Modi can think of selling each PSB to private parties which will help it get rid of the burden of capitalising these banks every year and ensure only the fittest survive. Payal Tadvi's suicide exposes how casteism dehumanises doctors who study to give care and stains their education Ragging is only the highlight of the full-on dehumanised medical college experience. Modern medicine and medical education around the world is highly alienating and needs a permanent mirror held up to it to show it its power-hungry face. But in India, on one hand we have a perfect storm of gender, caste and class that produces the majority of our doctors French Open 2019: Caroline Wozniacki’s early exit questions the effectiveness of her ‘grinding’ style of play Caroline Wozniacki is just a year and a half removed from her breakthrough Grand Slam win at the Australian Open, but it feels much longer than that. While this loss is not a disaster, it is one more in a series of setbacks dating back to the start of 2019 – Wozniacki is just 9-8 on the year and has reached the only quarter-final (at Charleston) so far. Alpa Shah on '_Nightmarch_', her Orwell Prize-longlisted account of journeying into India’s Naxal heartland Alpa Shah, a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, trekked with a Naxal platoon through a 250-kilometre-long stretch of the troubled belt in 2010. Unarmed, dressed in an olive-green guerrilla uniform, the writer was the only woman in the unit, but disguised as a man. “Hopefully, one of the outcomes of Nightmarch being longlisted will be that many more people will come to understand the story of India’s Adivasis and the Naxalites who have lived amidst them,” the anthropologist said.