The HMPV cascade
I sense the public panic over the HMPV outbreak in China is finally dying down. I don’t know which TV news channel picked up on it first and blew it out of proportion but it created the sort of time i…
Indian Council of Medical Research
14 posts
The HMPV cascade
I sense the public panic over the HMPV outbreak in China is finally dying down. I don’t know which TV news channel picked up on it first and blew it out of proportion but it created the sort of time i…
The BHU Covaxin study and ICMR bait
Earlier this month, a study by a team at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi concluded that fully 1% of Covaxin recipients may suffer severe adverse events. One percent is a large number becaus…
On Agnihotri's Covaxin film, defamation, and false bravery
Vivek Agnihotri's next film, The Vaccine War, is set to be released on September 28. It is purportedly about the making of Covaxin, the COVID-19 vaccine made by Bharat Biotech, and claims to be ba…
Hot in Ballia
More than half of the deaths reported during the heatwave in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar this week were reported from just one district in the former, called Ballia. On (or around) June 17, the medical su…
Disappointing persons of the year 2021
I’m starting to think that in this day and age, you will but err when you pick individuals for traditionally ‘prestigious’ awards, prizes, recognitions, etc., probably because the sort of people who c…
The vaccine that was built from scratch
I have no plans to read ICMR chief Balram Bhargava’s new book, Going Viral, about the “inside story” of Covaxin’s making, and am grateful for that reason for Dr Jammi Nagaraj Rao’s quick but seemingly…
Is Covaxin's WHO approval guaranteed?
I suspect after reading this PTI report that the WHO is practically helping Bharat Biotech put together a better application to have its COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, get the body's approval for inte…
Where the atmanirbharta in spine?
Truth be told, I didn't expect CSIR chief Shekhar Mande could be so disingenuous. "India didn't have to depend on western countries," he says. What is this abject refusal to thank ot…
India's missing research papers
If you're looking for a quantification (although you shouldn't) of the extent to which science is being conducted by press releases in India at the moment, consider the following list of studi…
Journalistic entropy
Say you need to store a square image 1,000 pixels wide to a side with the smallest filesize (setting aside compression techniques). The image begins with the colour #009900 on the left side and, as yo…
In conversation with Sree Srinivasan
On May 1, I was hosted on a webinar by the American journalist Sree Srinivasan, along with Anna Isaac of The News Minute and Arunabh Saikia of Scroll.in. As part of his daily show on the COVID-19 cris…