In response to the piece ‘Modi Wants the DNA Profiling Bill Passed Right Away. Here’s Why It Shouldn’t Be‘, published July 24, 2015, Dr. J. Gowrishankar, Director of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics,…
The Human DNA Profiling Bill which the Narendra Modi government wants to pass in the current session of Parliament is one of the most intrusive enactments of its kind anywhere in the world, a measure…
The Department of Telecommunications’ new report (PDF) on net neutrality is a deceptive piece of work. Drawn up by a committee set up in January 2015, it was perceived as a reaction to the Telecom…
Spending money on science has been tied to evaluating the value of spin-offs, assessing the link between technological advancement and GDP, and dissecting the metrics of productivity, but the debate won’t ever settle no matter how…
The Wire July 17, 2015 A Department of Telecommunications committee has released a report on the issue of net neutrality, following the controversial policy consultation paper that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India put out…
The Wire July 16, 2015 We may all harbour a gene that moves us to explore and find new realms of experience but the physical act of discovery has become far removed from the first…
The Wire July 15, 2015 Once at the centre of the Indian government’s half-baked schemes to make classrooms tech-savvy, the Aakash project wound down quietly in March 2015, an RTI has revealed. The project envisaged…
The Wire July 18, 2015 Particle physics is an obscure subject for most people but everyone sat up and took notice when the Large Hadron Collider discovered the particle named after Peter Higgs in 2012. The Higgs boson…
The Wire July 14, 2015 In under seven hours, the NASA New Horizons space probe will flyby Pluto at 49,900 km per hour, from a distance of 12,500 km. It’s what the probe set out to do…
The Wire July 14, 2015 “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” – thus spake Sherlock Holmes. Particle physicists at the Large Hadron Collider today announced the discovery…
The Wire July 10, 2015 Bangalore: Indian intelligence agencies and police forces are listed among the customers of an Italian company accused of selling spyware to repressive regimes. Apart from the NIA, RAW, the intelligence wing…
The Wire July 7, 2015 Eradicating open defecation has become one of the biggest, and most daunting, challenges faced by the Narendra Modi government. Poor sanitation practices like open defecation have been known to cause…