History and Philosophy of Science
THE disturbing murder of Dr Narendra Dabholkar, rationalist campaigner, political activist, and social reformer, is a cause for concern at many levels. It is yet another example of the extent of intolerance that our society … Read more
Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh last week unveiled a new Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (henceforth STI for short) at the centenary-year Indian Science Congress in Kolkata. The STI Policy is conceived as the next important … Read more
The study of the past has never been an easy exercise. We earlier had two sources of data – textual and archaeological. All this had to be fitted into patterns for a coherent and consistent … Read more
THE H5N1 CONTROVERSY FOR the last two months, a raging controversy is going on amongst virologists around the world on whether the research done by two groups, one in Netherlands and the other in the … Read more
(Below is an abridged version of the background paper circulated at a workshop, organised to examine the notion of Science Commons – a collaborative, open source framework for promoting advances and innovations in Science. … Read more
THE ALL-INDIA People’s Science Network (AIPSN) is a network of various organisations with people’s science movement (PSM) throughout the country. It was formed in 1988, just after the successful completion of Jan Vigyan Jatha in … Read more
The belief of Aryan superiority and identifying Aryans with white skin and blue eyes was a strong component of Nazi Germany’s racial beliefs. It was intimately connected to the larger racial construction underlying imperialism. A … Read more
Racism is intimately connected with imperialism and serves as one of its ideological underpinnings. The growth of racism in the West has been historically co-terminus with the growth of colonialism. Colonising Africa, Asia and the … Read more
In Alexandria, Egypt, there is a Greco-Romanic museum founded by two Frenchman in 1890’s. The striking feature of this museum is its attempt to portray Egypt under the Ptolemy’s as essentially Greek. Alexander founded Alexandria … Read more
The evolution of humanity from the more ape like ancestors may appear to be only a scientific question. However, race and class viewpoints are intimately connected to such questions as they impact the structure of … Read more
The history of human evolution has always been deeply tainted by the politics of race. Initially, the reigning anthropologists argued that the races were virtually different species, descended independently from the apes — the thesis … Read more
Are we moving forward or backward in time? The recent proposal of the University Grants Commission to introduce courses on astrology, vastushastra and Hindu mathematics in science curricula, has been greeted with exclamations of disbelief … Read more