May 2022
Thoughts on the WordPress.com ‘Starter’ plan
WordPress.com announced a new ‘Starter’ plan for its users on May 25 after significant backlash from many members of its community of users that a previous price revision had completely disregarded the interests of bloggers…
A tale of two myopias, climate change and the present participle
The Assam floods are going on. One day, they will stop. The water will subside in many parts of the state but the things that caused the floods will continue to work, ceaselessly, and will cause…
With Gyanvapi article, Abhinav Prakash Singh does logic wapsi
The national vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, Abhinav Prakash Singh, published an article on May 22 on the Gyanvapi mosque issue that is from start to finish an exercise in verbal sophistry. But…
Nothing cryptic about another ‘crypto’ disaster
Earlier this month, a cryptocurrency token called Luna crashed in price – an event that also brought down the value of bitcoin, became the biggest crash in cryptocurrency history thus far, earned the person or…
Press releases and public duty
From ‘Science vs Marketing’, published on In The Dark, on May 20, 2022: … there is an increasing tendency for university press offices to see themselves entirely as marketing agencies instead of informing and/or educating the public.…
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.
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…
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.
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,…
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…