Nuclear Bomb Connection in United States Fusion Breakthrough

The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory’s advance in achieving fusion energy using lasers has been splashed as a huge success worldwide. So what is the success all about? The joint press release of the United States Department … Read more

Is Revised Data Protection Bill a Charter of Surveillance Capitalism?

The new avatar of the Indian Data Protection Bill 2022 is not simply a rebirth of its 2019 version. Its earlier objective was to provide a legal framework to the Supreme Court’s Puttaswamy judgement that … Read more

Chip War v2: US Decoupling from China or Declaring War by Other Means?

The United States has gambled big in its latest across-the-board sanctions on Chinese semiconductor companies, believing it can kneecap China and retain its global dominance. From the globalisation and “free trade” slogans of the neo-liberal … Read more

Draft Telecom Bill: Surveillance Paradise and Gift to Telecom Monopolies

The government recently released a draft Indian Telecommunication Bill 2022 for public comment. It follows the withdrawal of the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill, which had been in the making for five years. The PDP … Read more

Self-Reliance and Nuts & Bolts of INS Vikrant

India’s first indigenously built aircraft carrier, named INS Vikrant and assigned the same ensign number R-11 as its illustrious predecessor, was commissioned and joined service with the Indian Navy on September 2, 2022 at a … Read more

Game of Nuclear Chicken in Zaporozhye

The Zaporozhye (also spelt Zaporizhzhia) Nuclear Power Plant has become a focal point in the Ukraine war, as any major nuclear incident risks radioactivity release over a vast area. In such an accident, not only … Read more

Where are Science and Development After 75 Years of the Indian Independence?

A scientific vision—conceived to encompass the social and the natural sciences—was profoundly a part of the Indian national movement. India’s struggle for independence was not simply to free itself from British rule. It was also … Read more

Webb Telescope Opens New Window in the Sky

The new Webb telescope has shown that NASA’s $10 billion investment and 26 years are finally delivering their promise: pictures of the cosmos in depth, detail and quality far beyond what we had. The first … Read more

Building an India with a Scientific Vision

India’s struggle for independence was not simply to free India from British rule, but also to build a nation that would deliver development to its people. The fruits of independence would be bitter indeed, if … Read more

Whistleblower: How Facebook’s Algorithms Promote Hate and Toxic Content

FACEBOOK is in the limelight for both the right reasons and the wrong reasons. The wrong reason is that, what was supposed to be a small configuration change took Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp down for a … Read more

Science Another Casualty in Modi Govt’s Handling of Covid-19

THE New York Times (NYT) has recently published an article (September 14, 2021) detailing how politics overrode science in India’s deadly second wave. It is based on the struggle of a young scientist, Dr Anup Agarwal, who … Read more

Bezos and Musk: Heralding a New Space Age or a Space Grab?

THE space race was once between the Soviet Union and the United States. It is now – on the surface – between the three billionaires, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. Two of them … Read more