Groundwater extinction
In a report published on June 14, 2018, NITI Aayog, a policy think-tank established by the Government of India, claimed that 21 Indian cities would run out of their supply of groundwater by 2020. The…
June 2019
Assuming you speak Hindi…
I can’t use the terms ‘Gaganyaan’ and ‘Vyomanaut’ or ‘Gaganaut’ in place of ‘Indian human spaceflight mission’ and ‘Indian astronauts’ because of the bad taste the use of Hindi leaves on my tongue these days.…
To be a depressed person reading about research on depression
It’s a strangely unsettling experience to read about research on an affliction that one has, to understand how scientists are obtaining insights into it using a variety of techniques that allow them to look past…
Can gravitational waves be waylaid by gravity?
Yesterday, I learnt the answer is ‘yes’. Gravitational waves can be gravitationally lensed. It seems obvious once you think about it, but not something that strikes you (assuming you’re not a physicist) right away. When…
Solutions looking for problems
There’s been a glut of ‘science projects’ that seem to be divorced from their non-technical aspects even when the latter are equally, if not more, important – or maybe it is just a case of…
The ‘could’ve, should’ve, would’ve’ of R&D
ISRO’s Moon rover, which will move around the lunar surface come September (if all goes well), will live and and die in a span of 14 days because that’s how long the lithium-ion cells it’s…
Alt-M.O.M.
Posters for a new TV show called M.O.M. – The Women Behind Mission Mangal, produced by Ekta Kapoor and distributed by AltBalaji, look strange. One poster shows four women, presumably the show’s protagonists, flanking a…
Making history at the speed of light
Last week, Sophia Gad-Nasr, an astroparticle physicist and PhD student at University of California, Irvine, tweeted this question: To which I replied: Once you start thinking about it, this is a really mind-boggling thing. A…
A religious environmentalism
June 5 was World Environment Day, which is presumably why an article entitled ‘Hindu roots of modern ‘ecology” was doing the rounds on Twitter, despite having been published in 2016. In the article, its author…
Justifying organic chemistry
Johanna Miller writes in Physics Today about how she was able to enjoy learning organic chemistry in her senior year of undergraduate study: by understanding that science is a collection of concepts, not a collection…
A Q&A with blinders
The following comment grates on multiple levels: Here’s Mohandas Pai, a Hindutva fanatic known to have a pH of 1, issuing a ridiculous comment against The Hindu, which was simply reporting a statement issued by…
Seven years
Today, I complete seven years as a journalist. Scratch that. Today, I complete seven years in the journalism industry. Wait, scratch that too. Today, I complete 6.58 years in the journalism industry. Is that entirely…