Since PyPi accepts Markdown formatted README.md, there is less reason to use the more complicated syntax of ReStructured Text .rst files. We have converted hundreds of README.rst to README.md with the process below.

ensure minimum requirements

Be sure your computer has Python packages:

setuptools >= 38.6
pip >= 10
wheel >= 0.31

Bulk convert RST to Markdown

Initial conversion from .rst to .md

pandoc -f rst -t markdown README.rst -o README.md

Slight hand correction: remove most \ that were inserted (find and replace with nothing)

Replace in Git repo:

git rm README.rst
git add README.md

For Python repos, be sure that setup.py and setup.cfg are configured for README.md