Op-eds
“If the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) comes to power, it will ruin the developed State of Tamil Nadu” — Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said this in his address to a local conference organised by the Indian Union Muslim League in Kumbakonam on January 28. While Stalin’s claim
Op-eds
From ‘7 basic science discoveries that changed the world’, Nature, October 29, 2025: Basic research is easily mocked because it can seem impractical, but, in fact, it is a major driver of economic growth. “The return on investment in basic research — the return to society — is very high, typically multiple
Analysis
The American-Israeli economic historian Joel Mokyr has been awarded one half of the 2025 special Nobel Prize for economics "for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress". Now, by rewarding particular achievements over others, the Nobel Prizes are in general guilty of rendering them seemingly
Analysis
Rahul Gandhi is free to voice himself but on the question of the Election Commission “stealing votes”, as he has been claiming to the press, he needs to offer the proof he claims he has right away. By repeatedly claiming the Commission has been “stealing votes” for the Bharatiya Janata
Op-eds
Right now, Shubhanshu Shukla is on his way back to Earth from the International Space Station. Am I proud he’s been the first Indian up there? I don’t know. It’s not clear. The whole thing seemed to be stage-managed. Shukla didn’t say anything surprising, nothing that
Op-eds
NASA/SpaceX/Axiom will make their next attempt to launch the Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station on June 11. Axiom Space's tagline for the mission is "Realizing the Return", alluding to three of the mission's four crew members, including India's
Analysis
Russia began its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. On March 8, a poll conducted by independent survey organisations in Russia among a randomly selected cohort of 1,640 people reported around 46% supported the war, 13% supported it somewhat, 23% opposed it, and the rest were undecided
Op-eds
From 'Meghalaya’s new cave-dwelling fish adapts to streams overground', The Hindu, May 25, 2025: An underground cave in Meghalaya, in focus for a conflict over a Shivalinga-like stone formation, has yielded a new-to-science fish that adapts to streams overground. A team of zoologists, led by Kangkan Sarma
Op-eds
There's a concept in quantum mechanics, and also in parts of classical mechanics, called the Berry phase. Say you're walking around a mountain. You start off along a path and follow it all the way until you're back to the point where you started.
Op-eds
A day before NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore were to return onboard a SpaceX crew capsule, Prime Minister Narendra Modi published a letter in which he said he had inquired after her when he met U.S. President Donald Trump and that even if “you are thousands of
Op-eds
‘The Lunacy Of Rebuilding In Disaster-Prone Areas’, Noema, April 25, 2024: In the months after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans proposed a flood control program unlike any other in U.S. history. Developed by the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, a diverse group of stakeholders appointed by the mayor, the resulting
Culture
I recently came across an initiative called “Industrial47”. Someone had shared a link to it on a group I’m part of, and when its card loaded, the image was of a nuclear weapon going off. I found on LinkedIn that “Industrial47” is a fund with the aim of “backing