Science
Did the Indian Air Force strike the various structures at the madrasa in Balakot with lethality sufficient to have caused “heavy casualties”, as foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale told reporters on February 26? Sections of the Indian media and of course BJP politicians believe it did and have even put a
Op-eds
Ashok Khemka, the senior IAS officer famous for having exposed numerous instances of government corruption, perhaps most prominently the DLF land-grab scam, has been transferred again. This time, he had voiced concerns over the Haryana government’s plans to ‘develop’ the Aravalli hills through what it called ‘consolidation projects’. That
Life notes
The world was a bowl A container of things With cities at the bottom Like the abyss turned upside down Stars blinked back from below When ancient volcanoes erupted Orange lava assembled on the rim Stilled on the cusp, afraid to fall Down the black wall of the world 5.
Scicomm
The following is the text of a speech I prepared to deliver at the 11th Young Investigators' Meeting in Guwahati on March 8, 2019. I wanted to use this opportunity to speak about education, which is one of science communication’s less known yet more important goals. I think
Scicomm
Warning: profanity There are scientists who don’t want other scientists to communicate their work to the masses. There are scientists who want to but don’t have what they need to do it. And there are scientists who want to and are doing it. I love the last group.
Life notes
No, not that sex. Biological sex. In the past eight years, an astounding 80 percent of those killed by lightning strikes have been men. This astonishing statistic is from an article in Bustle, from 2014 – but it quickly stops being astonishing. It seems lightning preferred men because they were more
Life notes
What is a short story? If you were to visualise the completeness of a 'long-story' as arcs of different lengths on a circle, then I would say a finished novel could be 90% of the circumference. Or an epic fantasy series like Lord of the Rings to be
Op-eds
Arup Dasgupta's incisive article about ISRO's human spaceflight mission, published on The Wire Science yesterday, is drawing a lot of civil, critical engagement from our readers. While this is good news from the newsroom's perspective – civil engagement is always golden – I'd like
Culture
Stanley Donen, who co-directed the famous 1952 Hollywood film Singin' in the Rain with Gene Kelly, passed away on February 21. Though it released to moderate success at first, the film went on to become a cult classic. The titular song, first composed in 1929 and which "inspired&
Scicomm
Science Day isn’t a very meaningful occasion in and of itself. It is the day C.V. Raman discovered the light-scattering effect named for him. Raman won a Nobel Prize for his discovery, and – by commemorating February 28 as ‘Science Day’ – India has come to celebrate the Nobel Prize
Scicomm
Immense though the threat of war between India and Pakistan is right now, it's not the only thing happening in the world. This is The Wire's lead story right now: No better way to give peace a chance than to talk about all the different things
Science
I wrote the following analysis for chinaindiadialogue.com and China Pictorial. A big thank you to Mithila Phadke for the opportunity and for working on the text to make it sharper and more readable. Beyond the Far Side China has always publicly advocated for the peaceful use of outer space.