Scicomm
Firstpost's selfish journalism
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 what the other side is. I'
Latest
Scicomm
Diversifying into other beats
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 opportunity to request them to consider diversifying into other subjects. Most, if not all, journalists
Culture
The usefulness of good grammar
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 will notice – and many will avoid – bad writing; at the same time, readers are unlikely to credit
Life notes
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 least one book every month. This is
Life notes
Blogging as a response to the times
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 around that time, especially those on the history and philosophy of science. Shortly after, I
Op-eds
Why are we going to the Moon again?
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 payload, the orbiter, in a highly elliptical orbit around Earth. Over the next 16
Culture
Fanning the flames
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 detention centres to find a cheaper way to house asylum seekers instead of saying this is bad no matter what
Scicomm
A different kind of refrigerator
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. You dip the empty pail into the water and fill it up 2.
Culture
To understand Spivak
It is quite bizarre to read Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and be able to understand anything. It is even more bizarre to agree with her views about mundane things like the news or being a little anxious about having a job next year, to find out the toilet bowl is one
Scicomm
Groundwater extinction
In a report published on June 14, 2018, NITI Aayog, a policy think-tank established by the Government of India, claimed that 21 Indian cities would run out of their supply of groundwater by 2020. The report, especially this statistic, went on to be widely cited as a figure representing the
Op-eds
Assuming you speak Hindi…
I can't use the terms 'Gaganyaan' and 'Vyomanaut' or 'Gaganaut' in place of 'Indian human spaceflight mission' and 'Indian astronauts' because of the bad taste the use of Hindi leaves on my tongue these days. I speak Hindi
Life notes
To be a depressed person reading about research on depression
It’s a strangely unsettling experience to read about research on an affliction that one has, to understand how scientists are obtaining insights into it using a variety of techniques that allow them to look past the walls of the human and into their mind, so to speak, with the