Newswallah: Long Reads Edition

ReutersA magazine stand on a railway platform in Mumbai.

The end of the year is always a time of reflection for journalists, who look back on the changes and transformations that occurred in the year gone by. In Open Magazine, Manu Joseph describes the rise of the “New Rebel,” the young, educated and affluent person who is angered by the state of the nation.

He writes: “Till not so long ago, they were never a crowd except in happy times - a college festival or a rock concert. But now they walk in giant furiou s swarms, having done their apprenticeship in rebellion under Team Anna last year, holding English placards, abusing the few politicians whose names they know. Nobody's votebank, orphaned by their own republic, they march to some monument or other to become news.”

Mr. Joseph notes how the protests in New Delhi following the recent gang rape brought out people from various backgrounds to the streets and forced the Parliament and the police to act. The piece raises provocative questions about what has led the formerly disengaged youth to become an active, sloganeering part of the Indian protest.

For its year-end special double issue, Tehelka takes a look at the literary habits of India's political leaders. “Perhaps if politicians read more they might not be so beholden to the expedient,” writes Shougat Dasgupta . “This is not to say that reading makes us wise but it helps, and examining the reading choices of our politicians may reveal something of who they are, more than they might want us to know.” He observes that even in their choice of books Indian politicians wish to appear relatable, unlike their Western counterparts, who prefer to showcase their intellectual depth.

The issue has some surprising revelations. Sitaram Yechury, a
 Rajya Sabha member of Parliament from Andhra Pradesh, says that he finds time to read when he is traveling and enjoys reading Telegu literature and poetry along with the works of Karl Marx. Salman Khurshid, the minister of external affairs, says, “There have been times, particularly when I was younger, when Che Guevara's diaries touched a chord. In my heart, then, I was a secret revolutionary, even as in my mind, intellectually, I remained a steadfast liberal!” Meanwhile, Jaswant Singh, a member of Parliament from Rajasthan, says that the one author he would single out would be the British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who died in October. Shashi Tharoor, the minister of state for Kerala, says that as a child he was particularly fond of P.G. Wodehouse.

In its year-end special, Mint looks at the individuals and institutions that have made their mark in 2012. Anil Padmanabhan writes of the role that India's Supreme Court has pl ayed in the last year while the nation was rocked by one scandal after another. Mr. Padmanabhan says that the Supreme Court lived up to expectations, even as it risked being accused of overreaching, and has “evolved as the conscience-keeper of the nation.”

Virat Kohli is cricket's most dazzling performer of the year, writes Rudraneil Sengupta. At 24, the young man has completed five years of one-day international cricket, and in 2012, he comes in third on the list of the sport's top scorers. “It feels good to play well,” Mr. Kohli says, “but I needed to really prove my worth in test cricket. I have been dying to do that for two years now, and I'm happy that it's started happening.”

The fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukher jee makes Mint's list for taking Indian style to the world. Also profiled is the Raqs Media Collective, a Delhi-based group founded in 1992 that works across the fields of film, literature, art and theater. The group has had an active year, traveling far and wide to showcase Indian artists.

In a turbulent year for the airline industry in India, IndiGo made headlines for all the right reasons. Started in 2006, Indigo is not only the youngest airline flying Indian skies but also the largest, and as of November, it is the most profitable. P.R. Sanjai writes, “The airline's advertising campaign is consciously hip and sexy (and all its air hostesses wear wigs straight out of a French New Wave movie), but the company's promoters, Rah ul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal, and president Aditya Ghosh prefer to have their ears to the ground rather than their heads in the skies.”