In a live address to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India had successfully tested an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile against a live satellite in low-Earth orbit. Though he didn’t explicitly mention a date,…
In November 2018, T.V. Ramakrishnan reviewed a book called Modern Atomism, edited by J. Pasupathy and published in 2017, for Current Science. To the uninitiated, TVR is a condensed matter physicist of considerable repute and…
For as long as there were two political groups at loggerheads with each other, there has been an aspiration to be – or remain – on friendly terms with someone on the other side. “Don’t…
A happy Lord of the Rings Day to you! March 25 is celebrated as such around the world (though not by too many people, I imagine) to commemorate what still endures as an excellent work…
Where did we come from? That’s a really big question for anyone to answer. And if we want to answer such questions, we’re going to have to break it down into smaller questions, and then…
Deadly air exposes rich-poor divide, Channel News Asia, March 21, 2019: Delhi’s affluent, who are often better informed about the dangers of pollution, increasingly expect the same safety measures they have in place at home,…
A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being interviewed – together with the amazing Nandita Jayaraj – by Pavan Srinath on the Pragati Podcast. Our conversation was about science journalism in India, and…
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…
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…
The world was a bowlA container of thingsWith cities at the bottomLike the abyss turned upside downStars blinked back from belowWhen ancient volcanoes eruptedOrange lava assembled on the rimStilled on the cusp, afraid to fallDown…
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…
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…