Op-eds
Renewable energy and technological debt
Renewable energy is a bit like oil.
Op-eds
Op-eds
Free-speech as an instrument of repression
One of the more eye-opening discussions on Elon Musk's attempt to take control of Twitter, and the Twitter board's attempts to defend the company from the bid, have been playing out on Hacker News (here and, after Twitter's response, here) – the popular discussion board
Op-eds
JWST and the imagination
When the Hubble space telescope launched in April 1990, I was too young to understand what was going on – but not yesterday, when NASA launched its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Every once in a while, the Hubble telescope team releases an image of thousands of stars packed
Op-eds
About vaccines for children and Covaxin…
I don't understand his penchant for late-night announcements, much less one at 10 pm on Christmas night, but Prime Minister Narendra has just said the government will roll out vaccines for young adults aged 15-18 years from January 3, 2022 – around the same time I received a press
Op-eds
Disappointing persons of the year 2021
I’m starting to think that in this day and age, you will but err when you pick individuals for traditionally ‘prestigious’ awards, prizes, recognitions, etc., probably because the sort of people who can stand out by themselves have to have had the sort of clout and power that typically
Culture
Don't donate bad food and call it 'dharma'
There's a troubling pattern among some people who give food away to homeless people and beggars. I have seen this happen first-hand with my folks, my extended family and their wider group of neighbours and acquaintances. All of them are Brahmins, so I don't know if
Op-eds
The 'one billion doses' hype
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has addressed India's people 10 times during the country's COVID-19 epidemic. This is fairly regular but also not frequent – that is, Modi's addresses are something of special occasions, especially since it's one of the few ways he interacts
Op-eds
He is never wrong
Akshay Deshmane reported for The Morning Context on October 20 that the Union environment ministry has reversed two important decisions it made earlier this year: (a) to invite private law firms to help amend the Indian Forest Act 1927 and (b) to oppose the Delhi high court's directive
Op-eds
NCBS retraction – addenda
My take on the NCBS paper being retracted, and the polarised conversation that has erupted around the incident, is here. The following are some points I'd like to add. a. Why didn't the editorial and peer-review teams at Nature Chemical Biology catch the mistakes before the
Analysis
The problems with one-shot Covishield
NDTV quoted unnamed sources in the Indian government saying it will be conducting a study to assess the feasibility of deploying the Covishield vaccine in a single-dose regimen instead of continuing the extant double-dose regimen. At any other time, such a statement may have been sufficient to believe the government
Op-eds
The political theatre of Vardhan v. Ramdev
Last week, Baba Ramdev made offensive remarks against allopathic medicine and against people desperately looking for oxygen for their loved ones hospitalised with COVID-19. On Sunday, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan sent a letter to Ramdev asking him to withdraw his comments. On Monday morning, news reports suggested Ramdev had
Op-eds
On the PSA's new COVID-19 advisory
The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India, K. VijayRaghavan, has issued a new advisory emphasising the roles of "masks, distance, sanitation and ventilation" to end the country's COVID-19 epidemic. Over the last few weeks, VijayRaghavan has been sharing similar messages