Firstpost Editor's Picks: Mahatma Gandhi's culinary experiments, S Jaishankar in Washington, 70 years of Communist China; today's must read stories

**Mahatma Gandhi and food: From shunning 'abominable chocolate' to advocating fruitarian diet, a journey of the culinary cosmopolitan** Mahatma Gandhi was much more than a political leader; and his followers strive to emulate his mode of living, even if symbolically, as is the case with khadi. His experiments in diet, however, are something most diehard Gandhians too have preferred to ignore, while others see him as a food faddist. For Gandhi, ‘asvadvrat’ (palate control) was one of his formative ekadash vrat, Eleven Vows. **S Jaishankar’s punishing Washington schedule aimed at countering Pakistan’s poison, tackling western bias on Kashmir** Foreign minister Subramanyam Jaishankar is currently in Washington DC, running an impossibly punishing schedule. He must, because Prime Minister Narendra Modi has entrusted Jaishankar with a job befitting the profile of India’s foremost strategic thinker, and it may test the limits of his considerable intellectual acumen. **70 years of Communist China: Rise of Xi Jinping as a personality cult worrisome; ruthless suppression of dissent signals an autocratic State** The 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China that was celebrated on Tuesday in Beijing amid a pomp and ceremony parade, was undoubtedly a landmark event in modern human history. However, as the military tanks rolled by in Tiananmen Square and 150 fighters and bombers roared in from the Chang’an Avenue side, the world watched the event with an uneasy blend of admiration and anxiety. **Women's World Boxing Championships 2019: Why Sarita Devi is 'still at it' after spending nearly 20 years in the ring** Success is what L Sarita Devi is after. And she does not mind sweating it out, even at 37. Not that her career has been a failure all this while. She was a world champion in 2006, a Commonwealth Games medalist in 2014, she also has an Asian Games 2014 medal although how she wishes its colour was different after all that had happened in Incheon. **War movie review: Hrithik-Tiger starrer runs a loyalty test for Muslims under cover of an exciting action drama** War could have been a suspenseful, eye-catching and entertaining ride. But for its politics. Behind the guns, gloss and glamour, what this film is is a painfully condescending ode to Muslim loyalty to our vatan, an ode that is particularly cynical and offensive considering that the past five years have heralded unprecedented Islamophobia in India.