RESEARCH

When archaeology, archaeogenetics, anthropology and palaeontology are introduced to the discourse, we hardly find an era where there was no such thing as an Indian society The recent reports that say Varanasi in particular and India as a land in general are at least 8,000 years old have led to some consternation in the community of historians. While the Marxists among them are deliberately looking the other way, as though no such revelation has taken place, even those who are anti-left find the Times of India stories “sensational” [details in Swarajya ’s July issue in print]. Historians, geologists, archaeologists, evolutionary anthropologists and palaeontologists follow different paths to establish the past of a place under study. Ideally, the historian must emerge at the end of the process when the others have reached their respective conclusions. But most in the profession narrate the past as told by their predecessors through published books. For a scientist, on th...

Screaming headlines declaring India's first 'swine flu' death followed by measured editorials advising people level-headedness, or the sight of people moving about masked followed by pacifying messages from doctors days later. Honey-I-Blew-Up-The-Kid has been the story of media's information management on the potential H1N1 worldwide pandemic, which in India is still merely an outbreak W hen I left Frankfurt, Germany, I got on a deadly 747, and I am gonna go home on a deadly 747 and connect in Chicago, which happens to be a deadly airport, to get back to deadly Atlanta..." Daniel C Rutz, Global Health Communications Team Leader of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was reacting to the opening sentence of a report that had appeared in The Times of India , which said, "The deadly H1N1 swine flu virus continues to spread across school students in Delhi..." Another report that had appeared in Mail Today found the "government in a tizz...