Privatising Research in India

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceON February 1, 2024 while presenting the interim budget 2024-25 in parliament, the union minister for finance and corporate affairs said the government proposed to create a corpus of one lakh crore rupees to boost private investment in sunrise technologies. It was to mark a golden era for our tech savvy youth with India showing solutions through innovation and entrepreneurship of its people.

Killing Welfare Algorithmically

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceSOME of the most prominent AI startups, tech companies, their executives, researchers and engineers would have us believe that artificial intelligence (AI) poses an existential risk to humanity and should be considered a societal risk on par with pandemics and nuclear wars.

Tapas Drone Project Scrapped

IN a shocking development earlier this month, the government made clear its de-funding of the Defence Research & Development Organisation’s (DRDO) mission-mode project to develop the advanced Tapas-BH 201 drone. The Tactical Airborne Platform for Aerial Surveillance (Tapas, also Sanskrit for heat) – Beyond Horizon unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was, according to reports till just a few months ago, nearing preparedness for the final round of field trials prior to certification and thence to production.

Hasdeo in Trouble: Peoples Struggle to Continue

THE newly-elected BJP government in Chhattisgarh is proceeding with full force to clear large tracts of the Hasdeo-Arand forest, paving the way for open mining in two large coal blocks allotted to the Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam operated by the Adani Group to supply coal for generating electricity for Rajasthan and adjoining states. Permission has been granted to clear around 135 hectares of forests in the Parsa East and Kanta Basan (PEKB) coal blocks, and a notice to that effect was issued on September 18, 2023.

Chip Wars: Breaking the Siege

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×THE chip wars launched by the United States and its allies against China show no signs of abating and have escalated further in 2023 with indications of more to come. These wars are, in effect, a siege on China’s technological progress and economy.

Attempts to Poison and Choke the Indian Science Congress

OVER the decade rather successfully the current government and the Sangh Parivar have poisoned the more than 100 year old Indian Science Congress (ISC) by injecting controversies deliberately since 2014. As a last blow and an attempt to strangle the ISC, the Modi government’s Department of Science and Technology cancelled the funding for ISC which was to have been held in January 2024.As an economist puts it in the larger perspective “The commitment to promoting scientific temper, self reliance in S & T, and spread of science education was relatively strong in the first three decades f

Secretive US X-37B Military Spacecraft

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×THE highly secretive X-37B military spacecraft of the US Space Force took off on December 28, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on its seventh and hitherto most extensive test.

Biodiversity (Amendment) Act 2023: Profits First

THE president of India recently gave her assent to the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act 2023, amending the original Act of 2002, despite strong objections by the ministry of tribal affairs. Most opposition parties, activists from different sections, and other stakeholders had also opposed the amendment in parliament.

Medicine Nobel: The Greatest Benefit to Mankind?

ON December 10, 2023, the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology was awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, to Dr Katalin Kariko and Dr Drew Weissman jointly “for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.” The citation said these “were critical for developing effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 during the pandemic that began in early 2020 and contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times.” Presumably, this satisfied the condi

COP28: Small Gains, Big Losses

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connectionor reload the browserDisable in this text fieldRephraseRephrase current sentenceEdit in Ginger×ALL COPs are important and deal with issues vital for the world. Yet some COPs stand out for their special significance, milestones, major decisions to be taken and of course for their outcomes. For instance COP3 in 1997 launched the Kyoto Protocol (KP) which shaped the architecture for the emissions control regime for almost two decades.

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