“Today is not your first arrival here.” — Hongzhi Zhengjue, 1091-1157 CE Astrobiology is rewiring our understanding of the intimate connection between life and planets as they appear in the universe. By Adam Frank Across 15,000 generations, human beings have looked out at the sentinel stars and felt the pressing weight of myriad existential questions: Are… Read More The Coming Second Copernican Revolution
In some ways, zero is just like any other number on a number line. But a new study suggests that the mind may treat the symbol for absence differently. Yasemin Saplakoglu Around 2,500 years ago, Babylonian traders in Mesopotamia impressed two slanted wedges into clay tablets. The shapes represented a placeholder digit, squeezed between others,… Read More The Strangeness of Zero
NB: Israeli depravity has equaled Belsen, Maidanek and Auschwitz. Do Israelis not know what ‘the most moral army in the world’ is doing in Gaza? How can you make your young soldiers run over fleeing Palestinians with tanks and think it a good thing to do? Is not this akin to what the Waffen SS… Read More Settler Colonial Contagion: A Long Simmering Plague / Gaza Catastrophe — Checking Israeli and Western Elites
The only difference between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is this: Old money is supporting Harris while Trump has the backing of new czars such as Elon Musk Jey Sushil Thinking about America makes me ponder the first word of the country’s official name: “United”. Various American states that were not united at one point… Read More The Irony That Is American Democracy
Anti-immigration parties are pushing policies that are hostile or indifferent towards science. David Matthews A surge in far-right parties entering governments across Europe is raising concerns for science. The parties, whose focus is typically immigration, care little about research, say policy experts. In the Netherlands — where the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by the… Read More Far-right governments seek to cut billions of euros from research in Europe
NB: An important thinker, Fr Pannikar combined compassion with thoughtfulness; and sought dialogue as a means of addressing the worlds problems. I empathise with him, and am sorry to note (for my part) the absence of divine compassion for the innocents of Gaza; not to mention the millions of innocents who suffered and died in… Read More Eruption of Truth: An Interview with Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010)
Shobhit Mahajan Hindustan Times, October 29, 2024 A week before the prospective groom’s family were to visit my uncle’s house, the preparations had started. The outside and the drawing room were quickly whitewashed, the furniture cleaned and polished, the flower pots in the garden got a fresh coat of geru (red ochre powder) and the… Read More NAAC Lessons on How not to assess a Varsity.
The Big Picture: How Israel Won the West examines how Israel has come to occupy such a privileged and protected place in the Western world. It traces the journey of the Jewish people from biblical stories of origin through centuries of persecution and the advent of Zionism, all the way to the creation of Israel… Read More How Israel Won the West: The Big Picture
Despite Swachh Bharat Mission’s giant promises, 1,600 tonnes of unsegregated waste continues to poison groundwater in villages near Mangarbani forest. Deepanshu Mohan and Shubhangi Derhgawen The air around the Bandhwari landfill in Gurugram is thick with the stench of decay. “We earn our living here, but at what cost to our health?” asks Joginder, a… Read More A sacred forest dies in Gurugram as Bandhwari landfill’s toxic waste breaches Aravalli sanctuary
Consumption of world’s wealthiest people also making it increasingly difficult to limit global heating to 1.5C The high carbon emissions of the world’s richest 1% are worsening hunger, poverty and excess deaths, a report has found. Owing to luxury yachts, private jets and investments in polluting industries, the consumption of the world’s wealthiest people is also making… Read More Carbon emissions of richest 1% increase hunger, poverty and deaths, says Oxfam
After the truth-shower 