I am saddened to hear about the death of author-traveller Bill Aitken. Although I don't share his admiration for Indian Swamis, his books 'Footloose in the Himalayas' and 'Seven Sacred Rivers of India' are amazing traveĺogues.

Pope Francis: The 2015 encyclical 'Laudato Si' calls for a radical shift in our approach to environmental issues. In a world characterised by conflict, pain, turbulence and war, we will miss him. I add here that I am irreligious and believe that religion is the bane of society.

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New Research paper published in the Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, by Rinku Mahanta, Vipul Silwala, Adarsh Dwivedia, Vipin Kumar Maurya, C.P. Rajendran (Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India; National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, India)

This is written by Devangana Kalitha and Natasha Narwal in the Indian Express about their friend Gulfisha Fatima, who has been in jail for years, waiting to get bail. I teared up reading this:

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“Eppur si muove”; “and yet it moves”, whispered by Galileo at the 1633 trial - a byword for resistance against religious bigotry

“I want to make it clear that India is a secular country and its army is a beautiful reflection of India’s constitutional values.” Indian military spokesperson Colonel Sofiya Qureshi proved that India can establish its superiority over its rival Pakistan (Apoorvanand in The Wire)

This is a conversation with Prof P. Balram published in Mathrubhumi Weekly (Malayalam): "Scientists should be free of fear - for it impairs rational thought"

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Jana Mohammed Khalil Musleh Al-Skeifi, a 12-year-old girl, carries buckets of water for her family in Gaza City. What's happening in Gaza is a colossal failure of humanity. Jana has been responsible for getting supplies for them all since a sniper killed her brother (CNN).

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The stupidity of Indian media - from top to bottom is sucked into this echo chamber as 'victims' of a post-truth world. Read the statements from the politicians, like the CM of Andhra Pradesh and 'the Telugu daughter'.