Culture
Hail the Royal Society
The Royal Society's appointment of its first Brazilian member since 1871 brings an underappreciated form of our colonial hangover to the fore.
Latest
Life notes
10 years in journalism
Thinking about the number '10' is hard. It's the number of years I will have soon been a journalist for (as will my ACJ batchmates). Why commemorate it? * In this time, I've seen many of my colleagues and peers in different organisations quit journalism
Analysis
Some comments on India's heat
Responses to a few questions from BBC World reporters about the temperature crisis in India's centre and north.
Analysis
The problem with giving “Mother Nature” rights and duties
Recently, the Madras high court passed a curiously worded order in which Justice S. Srimathy extended the Uttarakhand high court's 2017 order, granting the rights due to citizens to the Ganga and the Yamuna rivers, to "Mother Nature" in toto. It's hard to say
Analysis
India – where repairing a bad road could make life worse
There is a long road that runs from Mantri Mall to Sankey Road, in Malleshwaram, Bengaluru, called Sampige Road. There are eighteen smaller roads that branch off from it on either side (straightforwardly numbered one through 18), and both the main stem and almost all of these side roads, or
Science
There's a scientistic eclipse
There is a solar eclipse today and news websites are as usual participating in amplifying nonsense. It's prima facie not nonsense in and of itself but because it's not qualified as astrological material. That is, it's an example of news sites not exercising good
Culture
Why there's no guarantee that Musk's Twitter will resemble Dorsey's
Many folks are saying they're not going to leave Twitter in the wake of Elon Musk's acquisition because Musk and Jack Dorsey aren't different.
Life notes
2.5 weeks since WP.com's price revision
WordPress.com squandered the trust of bloggers it had accrued for almost a decade (approx. since the advent of their Calypso editor) with the decision to introduce the Pro plan the way it did. There were many proclamations – direct and indirect – in between, chiefly by Automattic CEO Matt Maullenweg, about
Op-eds
To be better at being anti-crypto
Molly White has a difficult read, one that I'm forced to agree with in spite of my vehemently anti-cryptocurrency position. Three representative paragraphs from her post: I … think that [cryptocurrency-based financial solutions] are enormously attractive to people who see them as a tangible option in a
Op-eds
Renewable energy and technological debt
Renewable energy is a bit like oil.
Scicomm
Sci-Hub isn't just for scientists
Quite a few reporters from other countries have reached out to me, directly or indirectly, to ask about scientists to whom they can speak about how important Sci-Hub is to their work. This attention to Sci-Hub is commendable, against the backdrop of the case in Delhi high court,
Scicomm
Middle fingers to the NYT and NYer
American outlets will steal our journalists' ideas and obfuscate memories of their initiative and the Indian government will treat them like they don't exist.