Tag Archives: Bharatiya Janata Party
Marginalia: On NewsClick, NYT, toolkits, etc.
The Bharatiya Janata Party in power in India knows that the process is the punishment, that the amount of punishment imposed depends on the law invoked in the chargesheet, and that no law is as ripe for misuse in this … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis
Tagged Bharatiya Janata Party, Kavita Krishnan, Neville Roy Singham, NewsClick, parachute journalism, Prabir Purkayastha, The New York Times, The Wire, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act
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A lotus for Modi, with love from Manipur
This bit of news is so chock full of metaphors that I’m almost laughing out loud. Annotated excerpts from ‘CSIR’s new lotus variety ‘Namoh 108’ a ‘grand gift’ to PM Modi: Science Minister‘, The Hindu, August 19, 2023: It’s a … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm
Tagged Bharatiya Janata Party, Genetic Sequencing, Jitendra Singh, Manipur, Naga chilli, Namoh 108, National Botanical Research Institute, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, The Hindu
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Anonymity in journalism and a conflict of ethics
I wrote the following essay at the invitation of a journal in December 2020. (This was the first draft. There were additional drafts that incorporated feedback from a few editors.) It couldn’t be published because I had to back out … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged ABVP, anonymity, Bharatiya Janata Party, CCS Rules 1964, Hindutva, Jawaharlal Nehru University, pseudonymity, Rolling Stone, science journalism, The Wire Science
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The BJP’s fake news (fake?) meeting
Reuters published a very interesting report on February 2, entitled ‘Exclusive-In heated meeting, India seeks tougher action from U.S. tech giants on fake news’. Excerpt: Indian officials have held heated discussions with Google, Twitter and Facebook for not proactively removing what they described … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis
Tagged Bharatiya Janata Party, Big Tech, Facebook, fake news, Google, social media, takedown requests, Twitter
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Anti-softening science for the state
The group of ministers (GoM) report on “government communication” has recommended that the government promote “soft topics” in the media like “yoga” and “tigers”. We can only speculate what this means, and that shouldn’t be hard. The overall spirit of … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Scicomm, Science
Tagged Bharatiya Janata Party, COVID-19 pandemic, free press, Gautam Adani, government communication report, Group of Ministers report, independent media, Mukesh Ambani, neglected tropical diseases, Patanjali Ayurved, Principal Scientific Adviser, research and development, S.S. Bhatnagar Award, science journalism, soft topics, tigers, vaccine apartheid, vaccine nationalism, yoga
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Vaccines for votes
A week or so ago, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar released its poll manifesto, the first point on which was that should the party win, it would make a COVID-19 vaccine cleared by the ICMR available for free to … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds
Tagged Bharatiya Janata Party, Bihar polls, COVID-19 vaccine, Election Commission, ethics, Joe Biden, Nitish Kumar, NYAY scheme, polio vaccine
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Ayurveda is not a science – but what does that mean?
This post has benefited immensely with inputs from Om Prasad. Calling something ‘not a science’ has become a pejorative, an insult. You say Ayurveda is not a science and suddenly, its loudest supporters demand to know what the problem is, … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged allopathy, authoritarianism, Ayurveda, bhakts, Bharatiya Janata Party, far right, hospital care, Imre Lakatos, Karl Popper, knowledge systems, modern science, nationalism, Paul Feyerabend, pseudoscience, reason for state, social science, state, Thomas Kuhn, view from nowhere, welfare, welfare state, welfarism
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The life and death of ‘Chemical Nova’
You know how people pretend to win an Oscar or a Nobel Prize, right? Many years ago, I used to pretend to be the author of a fictitious but, blissfully unmindful of its fictitiousness, award-winning series of articles entitled Chemical … Continue reading
Posted in Life notes, Science
Tagged aachaaram, Bharatiya Janata Party, Brahminism, caste apartheid, casteism, chemical reagents, class apartheid, hand washing, Hema Malini, Kent, manual scavenging, pseudoscience, running water, soap, untouchability
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‘Science alone triumphs’: A skeptic annotates
An article entitled ‘Science alone triumphs: Providing a true picture of the world, only science can help India against coronavirus’, penned by a Jayant Sinha, appeared on the Times of India‘s editorials page on April 8, 2020. My annotated reading … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Bharatiya Janata Party, COVID-19, hydroxychloroquine, Indian Council of Medical Research, Jayant Sinha, novel coronavirus, virus
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