Bharatiya Janata Party
The space to disagree with the Election Commission’s position vis-à-vis the integrity of electronic voting machines without finding oneself backtracking into the Congress or the BJP camps is shrinking, and both national parties as well as the Supreme Court have been wilfully engendering this state of affairs at the
Bharatiya Janata Party
From my article in The Hindu today, New science awards, old political project: The government has been trying repeatedly to shut … the opposition to its policies and world view emanating from academia, a space the Hindutva programme has thus far failed to breach by choking funding and revenue through the
women in space
The headlines in Indian mainstream media over the course of June 6, after Boeing (finally) launched its Starliner capsule on its first crewed test flight… … betray a persistent inability to let go of the little yet also false pride that comes with calling Sunita Williams an “Indian-American” astronaut. This is
Bharatiya Janata Party
As of 4.25 pm on June 4, the NDA alliance stood to win 294 seats in the Lok Sabha while the INDIA bloc was set for 225 seats. This is more than a pleasant surprise. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) consumed everything in its path in its aggressive bid
Sharda Ugra
Sharda Ugra has a sharp piece out in the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack 2024 laying bare the ways in which the BJP hijacked the 2023 ODI Cricket World Cup via the BCCI, whose secretary Jay Shah is the son of Union home minister Amit Shah. The Reddit thread on the article
Bharatiya Janata Party
The electoral bonds release has been reassuring on one count. For some time after the (new) BJP first rose to power in 2014, with a groundswell of support (but arguably also because of the ‘first past the post’ system) I used to think it represented an ideology that I’ve
ASAT test
On January 22, in a ceremony led by Prime Minister and now high-priest Narendra Modi, priests and officials allegedly consecrated the idol of Lord Ram at the new temple in Ayodhya, with many celebrities in attendance. (‘Alleged’ because I don’t know if it’s a legitimate consecration, given the
Ayodhya
The Surya Tilak project had courted controversy in the past with Trinamool Congress’s Mahua Moitra flagging it on social media in November 2021. The CSIR officials, however, defended the project arguing the scientific calculations that went into making the system. ‘Surya Tilak at Ram temple at the India International
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party in power in India knows that the process is the punishment, that the amount of punishment imposed depends on the law invoked in the chargesheet, and that no law is as ripe for misuse in this regard as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) 1967. In
Bharatiya Janata Party
This bit of news is so chock full of metaphors that I’m almost laughing out loud. Annotated excerpts from ‘CSIR’s new lotus variety ‘Namoh 108’ a ‘grand gift’ to PM Modi: Science Minister‘, The Hindu, August 19, 2023: It’s a triviality today that the Indian government ministers’
ABVP
I wrote the following essay at the invitation of a journal in December 2020. (This was the first draft. There were additional drafts that incorporated feedback from a few editors.) It couldn’t be published because I had to back out of the commission owing to limitations of time and
Bharatiya Janata Party
Reuters published a very interesting report on February 2, entitled ‘Exclusive-In heated meeting, India seeks tougher action from U.S. tech giants on fake news’. Excerpt: Indian officials have held heated discussions with Google, Twitter and Facebook for not proactively removing what they described as fake news on their platforms,
