Life has no purpose. We are a conspiracy hatched by thunder and lightning and water and ammonia and hydrogen and methane and dust, as demonstrated by Stanley Miller in 1953, the same year Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA and Elizabeth II became the queen of England.

Hypocrisy may not yet have a gene cluster associated with it unlike homosexuality but it runs the world, providing charlatans an element of self-respect, allowing them to grow their tribe.

This is the first part of the five-part series on demonetisation.

“And in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath.

India wallows in shit and Kolkata is still its capital. It is a city best suited for the metamorphosed Gregor Samsa, a million crumbling horrors to emerge from and hide in, and an equal number of gutters to call home.

This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to

Jean-Pierre Sauvage (University of Strasbourg, France), James Fraser Stoddart (Northwestern University, USA), and Bernard Lucas Feringa (University of Groningen, the Netherlands), for their pioneering work in constructing Molecular Machines.

Ramachandra Guha has, yet again, spoken on Intellectualism and the lack thereof in some quarters, and Raghavan Jagannathan has, yet again, countered him effectively, as is his habit.

When your cupboard is full of skeletons, and you open it, what emerges first is just sound.

If a week is a long time in politics, two years is an eternity. The Modi Sarkar that promised Achche Din for 1.2 billion Indians is yet to come true on its promise.

Science and scripture — both have it in them to not only alter the world, but also to destroy it. In 1891 were born two men who understood this perfectly and who discovered, through life’s journey, this fundamental truth.

He is the man of the moment, a man Indians love and the Indian government hates. Anupam Kher, 60 years young, an actor, an activist, a human rights campaigner, is facing the heat.

Vandana Shiva is a chain reaction that cannot be stopped. It can only be witnessed from a safe distance. The process of achieving critical mass was a slow and arduous one and to understand it one has to go back to her formative years in activism.

Dharna clouds are hanging low. Thunder from the loudspeakers, lightning from the cameras. Except that this time around it has nothing to do with the Aam Aadmi Party.