India has made a habit of using ad hoc mechanisms to resolve conflicts between its economic and climate commitments, leaving environmental law to absorb the political pressure. The Aravalli issue is the latest example. My analysis: www.thehindu.com/opinion/arav...
Aravalli question faces the brunt of India’s fondness for ‘strategic exemptions’
Explore India's strategic exemptions impacting the Aravalli Hills, balancing mineral mining needs against environmental protections and public scrutiny.
www.thehindu.com
December 29, 2025 at 5:35 AM
India has made a habit of using ad hoc mechanisms to resolve conflicts between its economic and climate commitments, leaving environmental law to absorb the political pressure. The Aravalli issue is the latest example. My analysis: www.thehindu.com/opinion/arav...
A tremendous piece by Anita Ratnam www.thehindu.com/entertainmen...
Margazhi special: Andal and the evolution of feminine expression
A dancer's journey with Andal
www.thehindu.com
December 28, 2025 at 5:40 PM
A tremendous piece by Anita Ratnam www.thehindu.com/entertainmen...
Someone asked me recently to name the thing I've been most grateful for in 2025. After giving it some thought, I realised it had to be the heat capacity of water. rootprivileges.net/2025/12/26/h...
Heat capacity
Someone asked me recently to name the thing I’ve been most grateful for in 2025. After giving it some thought, I realised it had to be the heat capacity of water. And not just for 2025. Tea i…
rootprivileges.net
December 26, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Someone asked me recently to name the thing I've been most grateful for in 2025. After giving it some thought, I realised it had to be the heat capacity of water. rootprivileges.net/2025/12/26/h...
The instruments at Jantar Mantar make measurement inspectable. Protests, in their best form, have a similar demand. www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/sci...
National Mathematics Day and the double life of Jantar Mantar
Explore the dual significance of Jantar Mantar as both a mathematical observatory and a designated protest site in Delhi.
www.thehindu.com
December 23, 2025 at 2:38 AM
The instruments at Jantar Mantar make measurement inspectable. Protests, in their best form, have a similar demand. www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/sci...
While the laureate has done well to force economists to take technology, culture seriously as historical forces, the picture he offers of a competitive market for knowledge yielding sustained improvements in welfare isn't borne out by history. My piece: www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/sci...
Why Joel Mokyr’s story of how science becomes technology is incomplete
Explore the limitations of Joel Mokyr's narrative on science, technology, and economic growth, emphasizing broader societal influences and historical complexities.
www.thehindu.com
December 16, 2025 at 3:23 AM
While the laureate has done well to force economists to take technology, culture seriously as historical forces, the picture he offers of a competitive market for knowledge yielding sustained improvements in welfare isn't borne out by history. My piece: www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/sci...
Vijay's alpha-male roles aren't just fictions: they’re part of the public persona he has deliberately converted into his newfound political authority rootprivileges.net/2025/12/15/j...
Joel Mokyr, Gita Chadha, Lawrence Krauss, Joseph Vijay
All that thinking about Joel Mokyr and his prescription to support society’s intellectual elite in order to ensure technological progress took me back to a talk Gita Chadha delivered in 2020, and t…
rootprivileges.net
December 15, 2025 at 3:07 AM
Vijay's alpha-male roles aren't just fictions: they’re part of the public persona he has deliberately converted into his newfound political authority rootprivileges.net/2025/12/15/j...
Joel Mokyr lauds the Nobel Prizes as an incentive today's intellectual elite deserve to have, yet they're part of the same system of social relations he underplays in his theory of progress rootprivileges.net/2025/12/14/m...
Mokyr hearts Nobel Prizes
I don’t like Joel Mokyr’s history of progress and have written about that before. I also have a longer analysis and explanation of my issues coming soon in The Hindu. On December 8 I got more occas…
rootprivileges.net
December 14, 2025 at 6:04 AM
Joel Mokyr lauds the Nobel Prizes as an incentive today's intellectual elite deserve to have, yet they're part of the same system of social relations he underplays in his theory of progress rootprivileges.net/2025/12/14/m...
"Prison rules and oversight mechanisms have repeatedly normalised the idea that the discomfort faced by some bodies is part of the sentence rather than something the state has a duty to prevent." www.thehindu.com/opinion/edit...
Carceral culture: On prisons and disability-related facilities
Many State prison manuals still reflect older assumptions about a prisoner who is physically able
www.thehindu.com
December 9, 2025 at 3:09 AM
"Prison rules and oversight mechanisms have repeatedly normalised the idea that the discomfort faced by some bodies is part of the sentence rather than something the state has a duty to prevent." www.thehindu.com/opinion/edit...
If you want to censor something, you must show it crosses a legal line. But in the new culture of "we don’t know if…", the artist needs to prove the unprovable: that no unknown hurt sentiment will ever surface. This is the story of Arundhati Roy's beedi. www.thehindu.com/society/arun...
Arundhati Roy’s beedi and the Republic of What-if
Explore the controversy surrounding Arundhati Roy's book cover, highlighting societal panic over artistic expression and its implications for creative freedom.
www.thehindu.com
December 7, 2025 at 3:32 PM
If you want to censor something, you must show it crosses a legal line. But in the new culture of "we don’t know if…", the artist needs to prove the unprovable: that no unknown hurt sentiment will ever surface. This is the story of Arundhati Roy's beedi. www.thehindu.com/society/arun...
You’re probably using AI to write. You’re probably going to continue using AI to write. And there’s nothing I can do about that. farfromeq.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/s...
So you use AI to write…
You’re probably using AI to write. Both ChatGPT and Google AI Studio prefer to construct their sentences in specific and characteristic ways and anyone who’s been a commissioning editor for a…
farfromeq.wordpress.com
December 6, 2025 at 12:31 PM
You’re probably using AI to write. You’re probably going to continue using AI to write. And there’s nothing I can do about that. farfromeq.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/s...
There are many ideas in particle physics that, even as they are derived from other theoretical constructs that have been tested to extreme precision, physicists insist on testing them anew as well. Why do they go to this trouble? farfromeq.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/w...
Worlds between theory and experiment
Once Isaac Newton showed that a single gravitational law plus his rules of dynamics could reproduce the orbits of planets that Johannes Kepler had predicted, explain tides on Earth, and predict tha…
farfromeq.wordpress.com
December 6, 2025 at 6:55 AM
There are many ideas in particle physics that, even as they are derived from other theoretical constructs that have been tested to extreme precision, physicists insist on testing them anew as well. Why do they go to this trouble? farfromeq.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/w...
On Tom Stoppard's play 'Arcadia' and what it says about the life of scientific ideas, plus an attempted use of the play's staging and characters to critique CP Snow's "gulf of mutual incomprehension" between science and the arts www.thehindu.com/entertainmen...
How Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia reimagines science and literature as entwined pursuits
Explore how Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia intertwines science and literature, challenging the divide proposed by C.P. Snow.
www.thehindu.com
December 5, 2025 at 5:01 AM
On Tom Stoppard's play 'Arcadia' and what it says about the life of scientific ideas, plus an attempted use of the play's staging and characters to critique CP Snow's "gulf of mutual incomprehension" between science and the arts www.thehindu.com/entertainmen...
Reposted by VM
Geneticist here. Anyone telling you that they can just change intelligence (which isn't what IQ measures well anyways) by fiddling with a few genes is just straight-up grifting, it doesn't work like that. And yes it's basically definitionally eugenics.
December 4, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Geneticist here. Anyone telling you that they can just change intelligence (which isn't what IQ measures well anyways) by fiddling with a few genes is just straight-up grifting, it doesn't work like that. And yes it's basically definitionally eugenics.
China has finished building its Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), a somewhat bittersweet development given that the India-based Neutrino Observatory has been in limbo for years. www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-e...
The INO that wasn’t and the JUNO that is
Study of neutrinos: India had the wherewithal in the previous decade to help crack an important scientific mystery, but now China has surged ahead
www.thehindu.com
November 27, 2025 at 4:56 AM
China has finished building its Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), a somewhat bittersweet development given that the India-based Neutrino Observatory has been in limbo for years. www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-e...
Reposted by VM
Poetry Comics Month, Day 14
November 14, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Poetry Comics Month, Day 14
"The higher turnout of women … brings into focus the ECI's silence on a fundamental question: how did Bihar's electoral rolls end up with a gender ratio significantly lower than what surveys indicate for the State's population?" www.thehindu.com/opinion/edit...
Qualified success: On women’s turnout, Bihar Assembly election
Until the Election Commission of India provides transparent answers about the Special Intensive Revision process, the celebration of the higher women’s turnout in Bihar must remain qualified
www.thehindu.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:20 AM
"The higher turnout of women … brings into focus the ECI's silence on a fundamental question: how did Bihar's electoral rolls end up with a gender ratio significantly lower than what surveys indicate for the State's population?" www.thehindu.com/opinion/edit...
An ad signalling a state administration's willingness to accept floods will cause more and more damage and that it expects to be judged on the speed and size of compensation rather than on the damage it has managed to avoid rootprivileges.net/2025/11/11/f...
‘First state to disburse highest compensation’
The following jacket advertisement (which is expensive) appeared in The Hindu (and perhaps other newspapers as well; I didn’t check) yesterday: Something seemed off about the messaging here w…
rootprivileges.net
November 11, 2025 at 7:24 AM
An ad signalling a state administration's willingness to accept floods will cause more and more damage and that it expects to be judged on the speed and size of compensation rather than on the damage it has managed to avoid rootprivileges.net/2025/11/11/f...
Individuals can't master the mathematics of cryptography or the molecular biology of vaccines, yet they still trust these fields of science to make their own decisions. Why? rootprivileges.net/2025/11/09/w...
Why do we trust scientists?
Individuals can’t master the mathematics of cryptography or the molecular biology of vaccines, yet they still trust these fields of science and the suggestions of their exponents to make decisions.…
rootprivileges.net
November 9, 2025 at 3:13 AM
Individuals can't master the mathematics of cryptography or the molecular biology of vaccines, yet they still trust these fields of science to make their own decisions. Why? rootprivileges.net/2025/11/09/w...
Bill Gates's actions show that sounding the highest alarm on climate change and later leaping back from that position can both cause harm www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-e...
The pitfalls of climate alarmism
Bill Gates's shift in climate messaging highlights the dangers of alarmism and its impact on public discourse and policy.
www.thehindu.com
November 4, 2025 at 3:22 AM
Bill Gates's actions show that sounding the highest alarm on climate change and later leaping back from that position can both cause harm www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-e...
Are we mistaking the idea of knowledge for the object of policy? www.randomwalking.org/2025/11/02/i...
Is the war against science?
From ‘7 basic science discoveries that changed the world’, Nature, October 29, 2025:
Basic research is easily mocked because it can seem impractical, but, in fact, it is a major driver of economic gr...
www.randomwalking.org
November 2, 2025 at 3:16 AM
Are we mistaking the idea of knowledge for the object of policy? www.randomwalking.org/2025/11/02/i...
I've come to dislike the word 'impact'. Climate writing has become rife with it and I'm not sure if all writers appreciate the consequences, especially its contribution to dull and flattened communication. www.randomwalking.org/2025/10/31/t...
The 'impact' of climate writing
The problem begins simply enough. A journalist finds a word that seems to fit almost everything. It might be "crisis", "pivot" or the ever-convenient "impact". It's concise, authoritative, and headlin...
www.randomwalking.org
October 31, 2025 at 2:32 AM
I've come to dislike the word 'impact'. Climate writing has become rife with it and I'm not sure if all writers appreciate the consequences, especially its contribution to dull and flattened communication. www.randomwalking.org/2025/10/31/t...
On Jane Goodall www.randomwalking.org/2025/10/18/o...
On Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall was a celebrated figure in conservation. Her work with chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania redefined primatology. However, more than a few publications as well as co...
www.randomwalking.org
October 18, 2025 at 5:55 AM
On Jane Goodall www.randomwalking.org/2025/10/18/o...
According to Matthew Brown, to fully appreciate the value and scope of the scientific endeavour, we must recognise that science serves a "pragmatic function" as well as its equally significant "religious function" www.randomwalking.org/2025/10/18/t...
The 'religious' function of science
We often understand science primarily in terms of its tangible successes, looking to it for advances in medicine, for the foundations of technologies, and for the tools with which to predict and manag...
www.randomwalking.org
October 18, 2025 at 2:07 AM
According to Matthew Brown, to fully appreciate the value and scope of the scientific endeavour, we must recognise that science serves a "pragmatic function" as well as its equally significant "religious function" www.randomwalking.org/2025/10/18/t...
While it's heartening to tout the virtues of doing science led only by the guiding light of curiosity, it's important to remember that there's a bigger world out there and that science is a part of it. www.thehindu.com/newsletter/n...
Science for all Curiosity-driven research in an unequal world
In this week’s edition of our newsletter, Vasudevan Mukunth looks at a deeper topic -- what it takes to conduct scientific research.
www.thehindu.com
October 15, 2025 at 11:46 AM
While it's heartening to tout the virtues of doing science led only by the guiding light of curiosity, it's important to remember that there's a bigger world out there and that science is a part of it. www.thehindu.com/newsletter/n...
Europe's industrial leadership wasn't the result of cultural superiority, as Joel Mokyr would have it, but because of specific material advantages, including those accruing from its colonial exploits and its global trade networks www.randomwalking.org/2025/10/14/a...
A bad Nobel for Mokyr
The American-Israeli economic historian Joel Mokyr has been awarded one half of the 2025 special Nobel Prize for economics "for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technol...
www.randomwalking.org
October 14, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Europe's industrial leadership wasn't the result of cultural superiority, as Joel Mokyr would have it, but because of specific material advantages, including those accruing from its colonial exploits and its global trade networks www.randomwalking.org/2025/10/14/a...