Tag Archives: democracy

An ambigram in The Hindu

Posted on January 26, 2025 by VM

The Hindu has an unusual ad in today’s paper (at least in the Chennai edition, which I get) on the occasion of Republic Day. At the middle is an ambigram that reads “journalism” one way and “democracy” upside down. Below the … Continue reading →

Posted in Life notes | Tagged ambigram, democracy, journalism, Republic Day, The Hindu | Leave a comment

Free-speech as an instrument of repression

Posted on April 16, 2022 by VM

One of the more eye-opening discussions on Elon Musk’s attempt to take control of Twitter, and the Twitter board’s attempts to defend the company from the bid, have been playing out on Hacker News (here and, after Twitter’s response, here) – the … Continue reading →

Posted in Op-eds, Tech | Tagged democracy, Elon Musk, free speech, Hacker News, Parag Agarwal, poison pill, social media, Twitter | Leave a comment

On the NBDSA opinion against Zee News

Posted on April 7, 2022 by VM

On April 5, JNU PhD student Shehla Rashid tweeted that the National Broadcasting and Digital Standards Agency (NBDSA) had ordered Zee News to remove links to a show it had broadcast in November 2020, alleging that Rashid was indulging in “anti-national … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis | Tagged democracy, journalism, NBDSA, objectivity, Shehla Rashid, Sudhir Chaudhary, Zee News | Comments Off

Cooperative distrust

Posted on August 7, 2021 by VM

Is there a doctrine or manifesto of cooperative distrust? Because I think that’s what we need today, in the face of reams of government data — almost all of it, in fact — that is untrustworthy, and the only way … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis | Tagged cooperative distrust, democracy, history, institutional memory, journalism, memory, skepticism | Leave a comment

Pandemic: Science > politics?

Posted on January 19, 2021 by VM

By Mukunth and Madhusudhan Raman Former Union health secretary K. Sujatha Rao had a great piece in The Indian Express on January 14, whose takeaway she summarised in the following line: Science, evidence and data analytics need to be the … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Op-eds, Science | Tagged Central Drug Standards Control Organisation, Covaxin, COVID-19 pandemic, Covishield, criminal negligence, democracy, middle class, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, scientism, Tamil Nadu elections, West Bengal elections | Leave a comment

“Enough science.”

Posted on December 15, 2020 by VM

Edit, 6.04 pm, December 15, 2020: A reader pointed out to me that The Guardian may in fact have been joking, and it has been known to be flippant on occasion. If this is really the case, I pronounce myself … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Tagged arts, astrology, capitalism, democracy, empowerment, humanities, pseudoscience, The Guardian | Leave a comment

The ignoble president and the Nobel Prize

Posted on September 13, 2020 by VM

What is the collective noun for a group of Nobel laureates? I’m considering ballast. A ballast of Nobel laureates is appealing because these people, especially if they are all white and male, often tend to take themselves too seriously and … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Culture, Science | Tagged Abdus Salam, Barack Obama, Bharatiya Janata Party, Carol Greider, Christian Tybring-Gjedde, civic engagement, democracy, democratic rights, Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger, Joe Biden, Nobel laureatures, Nobel Prize, Nobel Prize for peace, public participation, public stewardship, realpolitik, reason of state, Rep. Bill Foster, scientism, scientocracy | Leave a comment

Retrospective: The Wire Science in 2019

Posted on December 28, 2019 by VM

At the start of 2019, The Wire Science decided to focus more on issues of science and society, and this is reflected in the year-end list of our best stories (in terms of traffic and engagement; listed below). Most of our … Continue reading →

Posted in Op-eds, Scicomm, Science | Tagged democracy, Dinamalar, history of science, independent journalism, Indian Express, Mongabay, nationalism, Philosophy of Science, R&D, science communication, science journalism, social science, sociology of science, The Hindu, The Print, The Wire | Leave a comment

My country is burning. Why should I work?

Posted on December 21, 2019 by VM

A few days ago, I found asking myself the following question: My country is burning, why should I work? I ended up with some (admittedly inchoate) thoughts, delineated below. I’m trying to fight off this abject helplessness I’m feeling and … Continue reading →

Posted in Life notes, Scicomm | Tagged authoritarianism, Citizenship Amendment Act, critical thinking, democracy, fascism, individual responsibility, ISRO, pluralism, protest, science communication | Leave a comment

False equivalency

Posted on August 21, 2017 by VM

Margaret Sullivan in the Washington Post on August 16: Does finding these powerful ways to frame the [Charlottesville] situation amount to abandoning journalistic impartiality? “The whole doctrine of objectivity in journalism has become part of the [media’s] problem,” Jay Rosen, a journalism professor … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Charlottesville, Dalits, democracy, Donald Trump, Jay Rosen, journalism, Margaret Sullivan, view from nowhere | Leave a comment