End of the line
The folks at The Wire have laid The Wire Science to rest, I've learnt. The site hasn't published any (original) articles since February 2 and its last tweet was on February 16, 2024. At the t…
The Wire Science
12 posts
The foundation of shit
I've been a commissioning editor in Indian science, health, and environment journalism for a little under a decade. I've learnt many lessons in this time but one in particular still surprises…
On Agnihotri's Covaxin film, defamation, and false bravery
Vivek Agnihotri's next film, The Vaccine War, is set to be released on September 28. It is purportedly about the making of Covaxin, the COVID-19 vaccine made by Bharat Biotech, and claims to be ba…
Anonymity in journalism and a conflict of ethics
I wrote the following essay at the invitation of a journal in December 2020. (This was the first draft. There were additional drafts that incorporated feedback from a few editors.) It couldn’t be publ…
Will this blog be online a hundred years from today?
For almost two weeks now, we at The Wire have been dealing with a complaint that someone from Maharashtra lodged against us with Amazon Web Services (AWS), our sites’ host, for allegedly copying one p…
Broken clocks during the pandemic
Proponents of conspiracy theories during the pandemic, at least in India, appear to be like broken clocks: they are right by coincidence, without the right body of evidence to back their claims. Two o…
The Wire Science is hiring
Location: Bengaluru or New Delhi The Wire Science is looking for a sub-editor to conceptualise, edit and produce high-quality news articles and features in a digital newsroom. Requirements * Good…
A Q&A about my job and science journalism
A couple weeks ago, some students from a university in South India got in touch to ask a few questions about my job and about science communication. The correspondence was entirely over email, and I&#…
Ads on The Wire Science
Sometime this week, but quite likely tomorrow, advertisements will begin appearing on The Wire Science. The Wire's, and by extension The Wire Science's, principal source of funds is donations…
Eight years
On June 1 last year, I wrote: Today, I complete seven years of trying to piece together a picture of what journalism is and where I fit in. Today, I begin my ninth year as a journalist. I'm happ…
For coronavirus claims, there is a world between true and false
In high school, you must have learnt about Boolean algebra, possibly the most fascinating kind of algebra for its deceptive ease and simplicity. But thanks to its foundations in computer science, Bool…
Another controversy, another round of blaming preprints
On February 1, Anand Ranganathan, the molecular biologist more popular as a columnist for Swarajya, amplified a new preprint paper from scientists at IIT Delhi that (purportedly) claims the Wuhan coro…