On the PSA's new COVID-19 advisory
The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India, K. VijayRaghavan, has issued a new advisory emphasising the roles of "masks, distance, sanitation and ventilation&…
On The Lancet editorial
On May 8, The Lancet published an editorial criticising the Narendra Modi government's response to India's second COVID-19 outbreak, which has been redefining the meaning of 'snafu'. A…
Melinda, Bill and Jeffrey (Epstein)
I'm not sure what to make of Bill Gates as he features in the New York Times's report on his divorce with Melinda French Gates, although it's tempting to see hints of that attitude so ofte…
Review: 'Love Death + Robots' 2 (2021)
I've been curious why the Marvel Cinematic Universe picked the Malthusian catastrophe for the ultimate disaster the superheroes rescue everyone else from. Narendra Modi has invoked the misguided i…
On the International Day of Light, remembering darkness
Today is the International Day of Light. According to a UNESCO note: The International Day of Light is celebrated on 16 May each year, the anniversary of the first successful operation of the laser i…
Courts and COVID
India's courts have played a prominent in helping (or not) the country manage its COVID-19 epidemic, especially during the second wave this year – from asking the government to explain which proof…
Being apolitical doesn't mean politics doesn't exist
A few years ago, we had a writer who would constantly pitch articles to us about how the Indian government should be doing X, Y or Z in the fight against this or that disease. Their submissions grew q…
COVID-19, AMR and India
Maybe it's not a coincidence that India is today the site of the world's largest COVID-19 outbreak and the world's most prominent source of antimicrobial resistant (AMR) pathogens, a.k.a.…
The constructionist hypothesis and expertise during the pandemic
Now that COVID-19 cases are rising again in the country, the trash talk against journalists has been rising in tandem. The Indian government was unprepared and hapless last year, and it is this year a…
The Government Project
Considering how much the Government of India has missed anticipating – the rise of a second wave of COVID-19 infections, the crippling medical oxygen shortage, the circulation of new variants of conce…
Exporting risk
I’m torn between admitting that our cynicism about scientists’ solutions for the pandemic is warranted and the palliative effects of reading this Reuters report about seemingly nothing more than the b…
US experiments find hint of a break in the laws of physics
At 9 pm India time on April 7, physicists at an American research facility delivered a shot in the arm to efforts to find flaws in a powerful theory that explains how the building blocks of the univer…