Hindutva - Catabatic

Developing Tamil Nadu

Feb 3, 2026 3 min read

“If the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) comes to power, it will ruin the developed State of Tamil Nadu” — Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said this in his address to a local conference organi…

Anonymity in journalism and a conflict of ethics

Apr 12, 2022 13 min read

Scicomm ABVP anonymity Bharatiya Janata Party CCS Rules 1964 Hindutva Jawaharlal Nehru University pseudonymity Rolling Stone science journalism The Wire Science

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 publ…

Political merch from a newsroom

Oct 12, 2021 3 min read

Analysis autocracy Hindutva journalism Prime Minister Narendra Modi The Print view from nowhere

Shekhar Gupta, the editor of The Print, shared the following image on his Instagram profile a couple days ago: The post had the following note: Since we so love politics at ThePrint, we are developi…

Ending 2020

Dec 23, 2020 2 min read

Life notes 2020 blogging Hindutva public dialogue right wing whataboutery

My blogging took a hit this year – as did everything for everyone. I couldn't publish nearly as much as I'd have liked. While the average post length was the highest it's ever been – 989 w…

'Hunters', sci-fi and pseudoscience

Mar 8, 2020 3 min read

Culture Scicomm Science Adolf Hitler Bharatiya Janata Party civil aviation Delhi riots Edward Bulwer-Lytton electricity ethnic cleansing Hindutva Hunters identity politics John Forster Nazism occult provincialism pseudoscience sci-fi science fiction technology The Coming Race Vril

One of the ways in which pseudoscience is connected to authoritarian governments is through its newfound purpose and duty to supply an alternate intellectual tradition that subsumes science as well as…

Why are the Nobel Prizes still relevant?

Oct 16, 2019 6 min read

Culture Op-eds Science Abhijit Banerjee Albert Einstein Appa Rao Podile Booker Prize Brian Keating Caltech Chien-Shiung Wu CV Raman Esther Duflo Fermilab Göran Hansson gender-based discrimination Hindutva Hugo Award impact factor Isaac Asimov John B Goodenough late capitalism Lise Meitner Margaret Atwood nationalism Nature journal Nobel laureates Nobel Prize prestige bias Prime Minister Narendra Modi sexism The Big Bang Theory Vera Rubin

Note: A condensed version of this post has been published in The Wire. Around this time last week, the world had nine new Nobel Prize winners in the sciences (physics, chemistry and medicine), all bu…

Religious sentiments: upsetting them v. getting upset

Apr 4, 2017 2 min read

Uncategorized gopis Hindutva Honour killings Krishna Prashant Bhushan religious myths religious sentiments Romeo Romeo and Juliet self-determination Uttar Pradesh women women's empowerment Yogi Adityanath

If the BJP/Congress have been offended by Prashant Bhushan's tweet, it could only be because they have interpreted his tweet offensively.…