In the last couple of blog posts for CAT preparation, I have talked about the importance of reading and what kind of books you should be reading. In this post, I talk about the newspapers, columns, magazines and online newspaper columns you should be following.

Part-A: Indian Newspapers
The best columnists in the Indian newspapers are as follows:

1. Bachi Karkaria: for abstract representation of topics, awesome vocabulary, dark humor and a lot to infer.

Her blog link: Erratica

2. Jug Suraiya: For wit, humor, looking at things on the lighter side, above average vocabulary, and having fun while reading, you can and should read this guy.

His blog link:  Juggle-bandhi

3. Swamithan Aiyar: For rigorous economic and political analysis, dig into this guy. Your general knowledge about law and economics is bound to increase.

His blog link: Swaminomics

4. Gurcharan Das: Want to read more about the Indian political and business scene? Read this guy, the former head of Proctor & Gamble in India.

His blog link: Men & Ideas

5. P Sainath: Wish to expand on knowledge of rural affairs in India? Want rigorous analysis, backed by factual ground research of important government actions? Wish to know where our systems are going terribly wrong? Read the factual narratives of P Sainath and you would be enriched for sure, in terms of knowledge.

To read his articles, run a quick Google search; I could not come up with a centralized blog link.

As far as newspapers go, this is the analysis from a CAT perspective:

1. The Hindu: Gives you an option to explore factually dense material, informative and challenging at the same time.
2. Times of India/Hindustan Times: Good options in terms of the language used by the some of the authors, most of the articles do not match CAT standards.
3. The Economic Times: Vital to read a few articles in order to read business and economics; do not need to read it daily but make sure you read it twice a week; skip your regular newspapers on these days.

For all of the above, focus on the editorials.

International Newspapers:
1. The New York Times: Should be read for sure but the problem is it has a paid subscription; so you won’t be able to read a lot of articles on the websites. Focus on blogs such as ‘The Stone’ on the New York Times to derive maximum benefit; try to run Google search for previous New York Times articles that you might be able to read. But overall, this is still a bummer. Limited access to reading online!

2. The Guardian Blogs: The Guardian has not gone the New York Times route, and this means it still offers us great reading material. Read its comment section.

Also use its subject wise filtering of article. This is amazingly useful as you can read articles from specific areas for your CAT prep. Here is the link for the same. Make sure you search for the topic-wise index for this website and read articles topic-wise.

3. Explore websites such as the New Yorker, Scientific American and so on for more such great material.

A low-down on Magazines and their strengths:

1. Frontline: This magazine is comprehensive; in fact, this is mammoth reading. Brilliant articles featuring stories from all over the world, this gives immense value addition. Highly recommended though with a pinch of salt; the magazine does entail heavy reading.

2. Outlook/India Today/The Week: These magazines have a few articles but are pretty frothy more or less. Read one occasionally; from a CAT perspective, these might not solve the purpose.

3. Business Today/Business India: Recommend you to read one out of these; these would provide some definite value addition.

An absolute must-do:

For those of you who do not wish to explore and search articles on their own, we have done the job for you. Use our ‘Daily Reads’ Section’, and explore the best picks from a CAT perspective. Remember, these selections are not dependent upon when they were published, they are about the topics relevant for CAT reading.