Category Archives: Science
Justice delayed but a ton of bricks await
From ‘SC declines Ramdev, Patanjali apology; expresses concern over FMCGs taking gullible consumers ‘up and down the garden path’’, The Hindu, April 10, 2024: The Supreme Court has refused to accept the unconditional apology from Patanjali co-founder Baba Ramdev and … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Op-eds, Science
Tagged Baba Ramdev, contempt of court, Coronil, COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Harsh Vardhan, Manmohan Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Patanjali Ayurved, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Supreme Court of India, Uttarakhand State Licensing Authority
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Farce and friction over an Indian astronaut
When we met Mr [Morarji] Desai, he was totally relaxed even after the long journey from Delhi. Squatting on a carpet in the Kremlin and spinning his favourite charka, he received us very gracefully and congratulated us on the impressive … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Science
Tagged Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Bhaskara I satellite, Indian Space Programme, Morarji Desai, Satish Dhawan, UR Rao, Vikram Sarabhai
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To the moon – or the stock market?
Now this is quite upsetting. I learn from Jatan Mehta’s Moon Monday #166 that Intuitive Machines – the maker of the Odysseus spacecraft that landed on the moon on February 22 – may have lied about the circumstances of the … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Science
Tagged 166, Commercial Lunar Payload Services, Intuitive Machines, Jatan Mehta, lunar landing, Moon Monday, NASA, NASA LiDAR, public communication
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Why not increase ISRO’s budget?
This post is in response to a question on Reddit about why the Indian government won’t increase ISRO’s space budget. There’s a good analogy in India’s research budget. As a share of the GDP, the national expenditure on R&D has … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Department of Space, Indian Space Research Organisation, K VijayRaghavan, public outreach, Reddit, Sundar Sarukkai
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Poonam Pandey and peer-review
One dubious but vigorous narrative that has emerged around Poonam Pandey’s “death” and subsequent return to life is that the mainstream media will publish “anything”. To be sure, there were broadly two kinds of news reports after the post appeared … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged adversarial journalism, investigative journalism, journals, peer review, Poonam Pandey, publishing, scientific publishing
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Violence shuts science? Err…
Dog bites man isn’t news. Man bites dog is news. I’m reminded of this adage of the news industry – and Nambi Narayanan’s comment in August 2022 – when I read reports like ‘Explosion of violence in Ecuador shuts down … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged CONDESAN, Ecuador, Nambi Narayanan, Science journal
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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 the project arguing the scientific calculations that went into making the system. … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Science
Tagged Ayodhya, Bharatiya Janata Party, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Department of Science and Technology, India, India International Science Festival, Indian Science Congress, Ram temple, Ram temple consecration, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, religion, Surya Tilak, Vijnana Bharati
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An odd paper about India’s gold OA fees
A paper about open-access fees in India published recently in the journal Current Science has repeatedly surfaced in my networks over some problems with it. The paper is entitled ‘Publications in gold open access and article processing charge expenditure: evidence … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Achal Agrawal, APC discount, APC waiver, article processing charge, Current Science, Elsevier, gold OA, Hindawi, MDPI, Moumita Koley, Open Access, Plan S, Springer-Nature
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What Gaganyaan tells us about chat AI, and vice versa
Talk of chat AI* is everywhere, as I’m sure you know. Everyone would like to know where these apps are headed and what their long-term effects are likely to be. But it seems that it’s still too soon to tell … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged chat AI, ChatGPT, crew module, electronic calculator, Gaganyaan, GSLV Mk-III, Hope probe, Indian Space Research Organisation, Lvm 3, S Somanath, Ship of Theseus, space programme, UAE, United Arab Emirates
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