Category Archives: Culture
So many cynical ads on TV
I wrote about cynical ads airing on Indian cable TV a while ago. Since then I’ve started to notice more such ads and thought it might be useful to maintain a running list. To be continued…
Posted in Culture
Tagged advertisements, Fogg, Manyavar, PharmEasy, PhonePe, Rapido, Sony Ten, Star Sports, Swiggy Instamart, Uber, Vimal Elaichi, Voltas AC
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Gaganyaan: The ingredient is not the recipe
For all the hoopla over indigeneity – from ISRO chairman S. Somanath exalting the vast wisdom of ancient Indians to political and ideological efforts to cast modern India as the world’s ‘vishwaguru’ – the pressure vessel of the crew module … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Science
Tagged crew module, Gaganyaan, Indian Space Research Organisation, S Somanath, The Hindu
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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’t speaking the truth. He told Clare Malone of The New … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Op-eds
Tagged Clare Malone, Devesh Kumar, Hasan Minhaj, journalism, Ronan Farrow, The New Yorker, The Wire
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Review: ‘Oppenheimer’ (2023)
Oppenheimer was great. I really liked it. I don’t have a review as much as some notes that I took during the film that I’d like to share. But before diving into them, I should say that I got a … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged atomic bombings, blue sky research, Edward Teller, George Kistiyakowsky, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Kenneth Bainbridge, Leslie Groves, Lewis Strauss, Los Alamos, Manhattan Project, nuclear weapons, Oppenheimer, Robert Serber, Trinity test, Vannevar Bush
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Rob McKenna
Anyone who reads Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and doesn’t come away thinking it belongs on the list of the best books they’ve read has to get themselves checked. I don’t think this about many things but if I had … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Life notes
Tagged Douglas Adams, H2G2, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, rain, Rob McKenna
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A well-meaning manel is not a good panel
It’s time the good intentions of the organisers cease to matter. Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged history of science, manel, Meera Nanda, women in science, women in STEM
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What ‘The Kerala Story’ and ‘The Old Guard’ share
I was rewatching The Old Guard last week; the film is a bit of a favourite because a) Charlize Theron and b) it explores, even if in passing, the sometimes horrific terms on which science feels free to progress. But … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Science
Tagged Charlize Theron, Enthiran 2.0, fantasy films, Mersal, Mission Mangal, pseudoscience, science fiction, telomere extension, The Kerala Story, The Old Guard
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Marginalia: Romila on textbooks, Rapido ad, Nobel nonsense
We may go on deleting sections of our history but in the world outside where there are multiple centres of research into the Indian past, and many scholars, there these expunged sections from books used in India will continue to … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture
Tagged Ayurveda, Brian Keating, Charles Lieber, Elon Musk, Hyperloop, NCERT, Nobel Prizes, prestige bias, public transport, Rapido, Romila Thapar, Vedas
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Marginalia: Romila on textbooks, Rapido ad, Nobel nonsense
We may go on deleting sections of our history but in the world outside where there are multiple centres of research into the Indian past, and many scholars, there these expunged sections from books used in India will continue to … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture
Tagged Ayurveda, Brian Keating, Charles Lieber, Elon Musk, Hyperloop, NCERT, Nobel Prizes, prestige bias, public transport, Rapido, Romila Thapar, Vedas
Comments Off on Marginalia: Romila on textbooks, Rapido ad, Nobel nonsense