An award that isn't
ISRO just put out a call for a one-time space journalism award, named for Vikram Sarabhai, with a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh. Here's the doc with all the details. Pay attention to (4), where it says…
VM
1664 posts
The romance of us, as seen from the Moon
4 min read
Note: This post was written before the Chandrayaan 2 launch, which happened at 2.43 pm IST today. We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of walking on the Moon and we are excited about landing on th…
Prestige journals and their prestigious mistakes
3 min read
On June 24, the journal Nature Scientific Reports published a paper claiming that Earth's surface was warming by more than what non-anthropogenic sources could account for because it was simply mo…
Why covering ISRO is a pain
2 min read
The following is a bulleted list of reasons why covering developments on the Indian spaceflight programme can be nerve-wracking. * ISRO does not have a media engagement policy that lays out when it…
Firstpost's selfish journalism
2 min read
I'm sure you've heard of the concept of false balance, which is based on the conviction that there are two sides to every story even when there aren't or when it's not clear to anyone…
Diversifying into other beats
2 min read
I delivered my annual talk AMA at the NCBS science writing workshop yesterday. While the questions the students asked were mostly the same as last year (and the year before that), I also took the oppo…
The usefulness of good grammar
3 min read
Why is good grammar important? In the Indian mainstream media at least, it appears that readers won’t penalise reporters and editors for imperfect use of grammar and punctuation. To be clear, they wi…
Update on the reading habit
My reading habit has taken a hit this year. There has been more to do at work so I haven’t been able to find the time, but for the sake of keeping up the reading habit, I have tried to complete at lea…
Blogging as a response to the times
2 min read
I have been a blogger since 2009. I started during the penultimate year of my undergraduate studies as a way to interrogate my own ideas and interpretations of the nonfiction books I started to read a…
Why are we going to the Moon again?
5 min read
At 2:51 am on July 15, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch its Chandrayaan 2 mission on board a GSLV Mk III rocket from its spaceport in Sriharikota. The rocket will place its pa…
Fanning the flames
1 min read
https://twitter.com/voxdotcom/status/1146773174975156224 This is the second tweet I'm seeing phrased like this. It lacks context and is provocative, perhaps deliberately? It seems to encourage de…
A different kind of refrigerator
5 min read
Say your house on the ground-floor is ankle deep in water – a common sight in most Indian cities during the monsoons. So you grab a pail and start throwing the water out in a four-step process: 1. Y…