On Somanath withdrawing his autobiography

Excerpt from The Hindu, November 4, 2023: S. Somanath, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), told The Hindu that he’s withdrawing the publication of his memoir, Nilavu Kudicha Simhangal, penned in Malayalam. The decision followed a report in the Malayala Manorama on Saturday that quoted excerpts from the book suggesting K. Sivan, former ISRO chairman … Read more

R&D in China and India

“A great deal of the debate over globalization of knowledge economies has focused on China and India. One reason has been their rapid, sustained economic growth. The Chinese economy has averaged a growth rate of 9-10 percent for nearly two decades, and now ranks among the world’s largest economies. India, too, has grown steadily. After … Read more

‘Free Indian science’: Responses, rebuttals and retrenchments

In the April 3 issue of Nature, Joseph Mathai and Andrew Robinson published a Comment on the afflictions of scientific research in India – and found the interference of bureaucracy to be chief among all ills. Most of the writers’ concerns were very valid, and kudos to them for highlighting how it was the government mismanaging science in … Read more

A case of Kuhn, quasicrystals & communication – Part IV

Dan Shechtman won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2011. This led to an explosion of interest on the subject of QCs and Shechtman’s travails in getting the theory validated. Numerous publications, from Reuters to The Hindu, published articles and reports. In fact, The Guardian ran an online article giving a blow-by-blow account of how the … Read more