I recently came across a Youtube video of Genelia Deshmukh, famous Indian actress, promoting homeopathic products. Along with her husband, they have invested in a startup called Welcome Cure. Science has repeatedly dismissed homepathy as quakery or at best placebo, but that has not deter government of India to fund & research homeopathy under AYUSH ministry.
As a kid I usually heard about two types of medicine. One was allopathy which is a pejorative term for modern science. It was always blamed for side effects. “Only if you are really sick”, my uncle used to say, “should you take allopathy”...Continue reading → pseudoscience homeopathy ayurveda india
India is currently witnessing multiple protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed by the BJP (the ruling party of India). In a nutshell it fast tracks citizenship to few religiously persecuted refugees like Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian and Parsi from neighbouring countries.
Some argue this act brazenly violates secular structure of India by explicitly inserting religious clause in the constitution...Continue reading → faiz india urdu bjp nationalism caa nrc npr
I wanted to decode an old debate 1 that I saw on ndtv. It was about a controversy erupted by the comments of a junior Indian education minister, Satyapal Singh. He is India's Minister of State for Human Resource Development. He had claimed that evolution is "scientifically wrong" because he never "saw an ape turning into human being".
How does he claim evolution is "scientifically wrong"? Does the said minister have a degree in biology or have published a paper that can be peer reviewed? On the contrary, he had a career of Police Commisioner of Mumbai...Continue reading → pseudoscience evolution india ndtv news debate
On a brisk day, I was carpooling with my manager. Amidst the roaring traffic, was the familiar melodious voice on the radio. We have grown accustomed to the RJ who played songs that was music to our ears. As my manager revved up the engine, with the occasional drip in audio of the AM, often we broke into conversation.
Amartya Sen in his book, The Argumentative Indian, has argued the Indians are inherently loquacious. True to the argumentative traditions, our conversation percolated through the porous soil of sports into the sedimentary rocks of politics while amassing lump of Bollywood, music, economics, etc along the way. While an old classic Bollywood song played on the radio and I hummed along, dragging our conversation to halt. I gazed out of the window, many sign posts passed by, most of them visibly crestfallen like me...Continue reading → india pakistan cow vigilantism
It was just another day in Bangalore. I caught the bus from the Kormangala bus depot. Amid exhausting heat & nudging elbows, I somehow managed to grab a seat in the bus. Securing a seat in the Indian bus during peak time is considered a fortune. This often attracts resentful eyes. However my Indian genes have made me immune to both pani puri & judgment.
If you are lucky, you could get a window seat. This saves you from claustrophobia of the overcrowded isles. And today was my lucky day. I happily slumped down into my seat and peeped out of my window catching some glimpse of just another life on just another `Indian road`...Continue reading → story india fiction bangalore sci-fi
"India’s Daughter”, a documentary on Gang rape of 2012 has been officially banned. The Indian government went all gun to arrest the release of the documentary in India & abroad. BBC, Google, Youtube have all been sent legal notices to comply with the government’s diktat. Congratulations! We have shown the world that we will silence anything that will make us uncomfortable.
Leslee Udwin, the maker of the documentary, has flown out of India citing her security. In an interview to BBC, she said, “But I’m not muzzled. Nor will I be muzzled”. India’s Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, was furious & sought report from Tihar’s jail authorities on how the Nirbhaya's rape accused had given a controversial interview to BBC. "This is an international conspiracy to defame India. We will see how the film can be stopped abroad too", said parliamentary affairs minister M. Venkaiah Naidu...Continue reading → bbc india ban