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Government by Supreme Court
On February 27, a bench of the Supreme Court upbraided Patanjali Ayurved and its chairman Acharya Balkrishna for continuing to disparage systems of medicine other than Ayurveda (technically, what it
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A Q&A about philosophy in journalism
Earlier this year, Varun Bhatta, assistant professor of philosophy at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal, reached out to ask me some questions for something he was
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Schrödinger's temple
On January 22, in a ceremony led by Prime Minister and now high-priest Narendra Modi, priests and officials allegedly consecrated the idol of Lord Ram at the new temple in
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Ram temple at science 'festival'
The Surya Tilak project had courted controversy in the past with Trinamool Congress's Mahua Moitra flagging it on social media in November 2021. The CSIR officials, however, defended
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Char Dham will go on
"One of the greatest rescue missions in history" necessitated by a construction project pushed through at high cost, beginning with the safety and well-being of workers. Madam, what
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On India's new 'Vigyan Puraskar' awards
The Government of India has replaced the 300 or so awards for scientists it used to give out until this year with the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar (RVP), a set of
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Hasan Minhaj's search for the premise
When Hasan Minhaj spoke on his show about living through some dangerous experiences as a Muslim man from an Indian family growing up in the US of A, he wasn&
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A difficulty celebrating Chandrayaan 3
I'm grateful to Avijit Pathak for his article in Indian Express on August 29. After the Chandrayaan 3 mission achieved its primary objective, to soft-land a robotic lander
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A request to ISRO about Chandrayaan 3
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said its launch window for the Chandrayaan 3 mission is July 12-19. For now, the mission is expected to lift off on July
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Real heat
In the aftermath of Chicago's infamous week-long heatwave in July 1995, the city's residents, but including the mayor Richard Daley and his administration, couldn't
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Something more foolish than completing phase 3 trials in 1.5 months?
That the Union government and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had entered into a more intimate, but not necessarily more beneficial, relationship became evident in 2019 when then ISRO
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US fusion bhashan
Nuclear fusion? Yay! Climate finance? Shh!
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The biopolitics of Covaxin
In a new investigation, STAT has reported fresh problems with Covaxin’s approval process in India, including the phase 2 trial dropping its placebo arm in favour of one preordained
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A story of dogs
This article in The Wire, while entirely compelling, also contains an unarticulated tension. Headline: 'How a Missing Stray Dog Led to the Withdrawal of a Caribbean High Commissioner to
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Bad responses to The Wire's Meta reports
Note, September 18, 2023, 6:40 am: I've often returned to this post since The Wire retracted its 'Meta' reports, to see if I still stand