OPINION

This comment is in response to “ The march from yesterdays ” by Sundar Sarukkai, published on 10 th August 2017. I am surprised to read a comment from a philosopher colleague that suffer from the logical fallacy of ad ignorantiam in its entirety, that too in the same newspaper issue with an excellent politics article full of profound scientific insights from a non-scientist colleague ( When the Paradigm Shifts , Happymon Jacob). The ignorance stems in part from the author’s poor understanding of what construes the science and how it is different from non-science, erroneous science and pseudoscience- three totally unrelated concepts. Non-scientific disciplines like history, sociology, art, literature and so on are of course not pseudoscientific or erroneous science, and the author’s such a claim suffers from a logical fallacy known universally as ‘false dichotomy’. I am a scientist, and I also work on linguistics and evolutionary socio-politics, I have authored an English fictio...

With a good brand value of Lenovo (I am a satisfied customer of their smartphone and tablet) and budget price tag (approx Rs. 1799 through phonepe- Flipkart offer) with one-year warranty I decided to give it a try (it looks way beautiful than Mi bands too, yet another reason). It came with heart rate sensor too, nifty! This is what happened: This band (and most of the other smartbands) support no biking; so if you are planning to do some biking as part of your overall fitness schedule, this band is of no use. HW01 lasts for a day with its heart rate continuous sensor (continuous doesn't mean full time, but one reading every 15 minutes). PLUS, it works on bluetooth, so it drains out phone's battery quite fast. That would mean you are caught up with a dying phone and a dying smartband most of the days . If you disable HR function of the band, it lasts for 2 days. (Compare this with Mi Band 2, which last for a week or so, but again, read the whole story; smartbands ar...

A group of scientists from India and Austria have discovered that the red colored “blood” rain phenomenon sporadically happened at various locations across South India and Sri Lanka was due to the spores of terrestrial microscopic green alga, Trentepohlia annulata . Spells of weird red colored rain –the so-called “blood rain”- across South India had been reported since 1896; the latest one happened in Kerala during December, 2013. Rain droplets were so red that the sun-dried white laundry turns dark-red after drenching in the rain. Since then a number of purported causes for this mysterious phenomenon have been circulating, including divine spell and alien involvement. For example, an American newspaper The Huffington Post reported in 2012 that this was caused by extraterrestrial life (aliens). The present study compared microscopic morphology and DNA sequence data of locally abundant microalgae of the area where the red rain phenomenon happened and confirmed that it was a European s...

Direct banks (online banks) are very popular almost everywhere except in India. Of course you will see online banking aka e/internet banking versions of traditional banks here, but I haven't come across not a single online-only bank. Are we that much traditional not to trust anything which is online? There are indeed a number of benefits online banks offer over the traditional, biggest among them is low cost of maintenance, with minimal physical presence and absolutely no branches. A big chunk of interest rates that you get from traditional banks are eaten by their advertisements and operational costs across hundreds of their branches. Offline banks also have advantages, like depositing physical cash etc. Of course safety is a major concern but e-banking of traditional banks have been thriving in the subcontinent for the last decade and I haven't came across a single case where net banking got hacked leading to loss of money. Of the traditional internet banks, my preferen...

Over the years I came across many tips that I have been using quite often in my algal field expeditions around the coasts. Here is a summary: Always plan the trip with an expedition pack-list Have a plain-text master pack-list with appropriate sections (Before Travel/Hotel Stay/General Items/Cloths/Research/Electronics/Footwear/Documents) and fine-tune with some serious brain-storming at least 5 days before you leave! Websites like Don't forget your toothbrush might help you to get started.This is a section on "Research Expedition" in my pack-list: Binoculars (Carl Zeiss Inc Victory) Point-and-Shoot GPS Camera ( DSC-HX20V ) Ziplock bags Permanent Marker Gum boots Combination carabiner Garmin eTrex 30 Swiss army knife-Victorinox Documents with appropriate permissions Ice box with freeze packs Hat Sun glass with case Water resistant notebook Pencil PS: I do not carry my powerful Canon DSLR (EOS 60D) for two reasons; Camera with lens pack/tripod...

Yesterday Indian parliament lower house (Rajya Sabha)  passed 117th constitutional amendment for reservation in promotions for SC/ STs,  (aka Promotion Quota Bill)  with overwhelming majority despite stiff opposition from the Samajwadi Party (SP). My take on this issue is straightforward, do we need to jeopardize quality for the sake of equality? I always consider that academic institutions, medical firms, governments and business have their main obligation to promote quality, not equality. Here in India, we have quotas for nearly everything; religion, caste, financial status and so on, a strategy promoted by corrupt politicians in an attempt to fish votes and ruining the quality. Many bright students lose out to getting admissions in good universities because of reservations, many bright candidates do not get jobs because of reservations.. it is just getting sick day by day. We Indians call ours the largest democracy in the world. I wonder how you can call it...

Yesterday Indian parliament has passed a bill enabling 30% reservation for women in the national parliament and state legislators, with overwhelming majority. My take on this issue is straightforward, do we need to jeopardize quality for the sake of equality? I always consider that academic institutions, medical firms, governments and business have their main obligation to promote quality, not equality.Here in India, we have quotas for nearly everything; religion, caste, financial status and so on, a strategy promoted by corrupt politicians in an attempt to fish votes and ruining the quality. Many bright students lose out to getting admissions in good universities because of reservations, many bright candidates do not get jobs because of reservations.. it is just getting sick day by day. We Indians call ours the largest democracy in the world. I wonder how you can call it democracy and yet dictate the kinds of people who should get elected?...

 Today New York Times published an interesting note on how increasing evidences argue that physical therapies do not work and more to it, it can actually aggravate injuries; such as "taping an ankle to immobilize it". Massages, including that uses ice and heat, ultrasound etc., are deemed utterly as waste of time and money by the evidence-based modern medicine. One of the largest study so far conducted for assessing efficacy of physiotherapy-as it also known as, researchers concluded that there are no convincing evidences that support this form of topical, alternative therapy relieves common heel pain . Known as marma-therapy, physical therapy are an integral part of Ayurveda and that are, like any forms of massages in general and elsewhere, absurdly expensive. Here in India, Ayurveda is highly subsidized business with some 100 government ayurvedic medical colleges around India; every municipalities having one government Ayurvedic hospital. In the light of increasing evi...

Current status of professional diving in India. The scene of Pro-Diving business in India is still at startup stage, that could perhaps make it an intelligent choice for the future investment. A quick search at PADI would reveal that only 4 major dive schools are situated in India, 2 in Andaman Islands and 2 in Goa, both are beach/ocean tourist destinations. In parallel to PADI, SSI also administer few diving schools in Goa. Ideal location to Invest Consideration of Indian coral-reef distribution for a thoughtful integration into pro-diving business would be a good approach. 4 major reef locations in India are GULF OF KACHCHH LAKSHADWEEP ISLANDS GULF OF MANNAR ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS Only Andaman Island in the above list is being utilized as a dive location at the moment. By far, the most wide-stretched coral reef ecosystem ...