Tag Archives: democracy
An ambigram in The Hindu
The Hindu has an unusual ad in today’s paper (at least in the Chennai edition, which I get) on the occasion of Republic Day. At the middle is an ambigram that reads “journalism” one way and “democracy” upside down. Below the … Continue reading
Posted in Life notes
Tagged ambigram, democracy, journalism, Republic Day, The Hindu
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Free-speech as an instrument of repression
One of the more eye-opening discussions on Elon Musk’s attempt to take control of Twitter, and the Twitter board’s attempts to defend the company from the bid, have been playing out on Hacker News (here and, after Twitter’s response, here) – the … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Tech
Tagged democracy, Elon Musk, free speech, Hacker News, Parag Agarwal, poison pill, social media, Twitter
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On the NBDSA opinion against Zee News
On April 5, JNU PhD student Shehla Rashid tweeted that the National Broadcasting and Digital Standards Agency (NBDSA) had ordered Zee News to remove links to a show it had broadcast in November 2020, alleging that Rashid was indulging in “anti-national … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis
Tagged democracy, journalism, NBDSA, objectivity, Shehla Rashid, Sudhir Chaudhary, Zee News
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Cooperative distrust
Is there a doctrine or manifesto of cooperative distrust? Because I think that’s what we need today, in the face of reams of government data — almost all of it, in fact — that is untrustworthy, and the only way … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis
Tagged cooperative distrust, democracy, history, institutional memory, journalism, memory, skepticism
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Pandemic: Science > politics?
By Mukunth and Madhusudhan Raman Former Union health secretary K. Sujatha Rao had a great piece in The Indian Express on January 14, whose takeaway she summarised in the following line: Science, evidence and data analytics need to be the … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Op-eds, Science
Tagged Central Drug Standards Control Organisation, Covaxin, COVID-19 pandemic, Covishield, criminal negligence, democracy, middle class, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, scientism, Tamil Nadu elections, West Bengal elections
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“Enough science.”
Edit, 6.04 pm, December 15, 2020: A reader pointed out to me that The Guardian may in fact have been joking, and it has been known to be flippant on occasion. If this is really the case, I pronounce myself … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged arts, astrology, capitalism, democracy, empowerment, humanities, pseudoscience, The Guardian
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Retrospective: The Wire Science in 2019
At the start of 2019, The Wire Science decided to focus more on issues of science and society, and this is reflected in the year-end list of our best stories (in terms of traffic and engagement; listed below). Most of our … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Scicomm, Science
Tagged democracy, Dinamalar, history of science, independent journalism, Indian Express, Mongabay, nationalism, Philosophy of Science, R&D, science communication, science journalism, social science, sociology of science, The Hindu, The Print, The Wire
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My country is burning. Why should I work?
A few days ago, I found asking myself the following question: My country is burning, why should I work? I ended up with some (admittedly inchoate) thoughts, delineated below. I’m trying to fight off this abject helplessness I’m feeling and … Continue reading
Posted in Life notes, Scicomm
Tagged authoritarianism, Citizenship Amendment Act, critical thinking, democracy, fascism, individual responsibility, ISRO, pluralism, protest, science communication
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False equivalency
Margaret Sullivan in the Washington Post on August 16: Does finding these powerful ways to frame the [Charlottesville] situation amount to abandoning journalistic impartiality? “The whole doctrine of objectivity in journalism has become part of the [media’s] problem,” Jay Rosen, a journalism professor … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Charlottesville, Dalits, democracy, Donald Trump, Jay Rosen, journalism, Margaret Sullivan, view from nowhere
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