If you were the point of contact for an alien civilisation, what's the first thing you would say? I would probably tell the aliens about coffee, and then have them try some. That would surely, and perhaps literally, warm them up to us. I ask this because I’m a complete sci-fi romantic, and some recent astronomical news has left me daydreaming like Cinderella before she met Prince Charming. Full disclosure: no, we have not found evidence of an alien civilisation.

In fact, my starting off the way I did was probably misleading. However, the detection of repeating fast radio bursts – only the second of its kind to ever be discovered – is significant. Let me tell you why.

After the Canadian government arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer and daughter of the founder of Huawei, a Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer, upon an extradition request by the United States, relations between China and Canada have taken a nosedive.

In barely concealed retaliation, China arrested two Canadians over the past month, and then summarily re-sentenced a third, a convicted drug smuggler to death. The official rhetoric from Beijing has become increasingly strident, like what we saw during the Doklam stand-off. Beijing has taken off its gloves and is baring its teeth.

Such political aggression is part of President Xi Jinping’s foreign policy, and the Chinese establishment might well justify the impatient, aggressive, gangster-like diplomacy as befitting a great power of its stature.

If you are looking for judgement on the film –‘Uri: the Surgical Strike’, then it is good to commence this film review by being upfront.  I can do this by unequivocally stating that the Ronnie Screwvala film is a highly-entertaining film – well-acted, story-lined and well-directed.

However, if you are going to watch it for the sake of gaining some insight into how military operations at the LoC are conducted, then forget it. As a former Commander of the Uri Brigade, I can say that realism is not the strongest part of the film, but then again, I did not expect it from the film.

Over the years, the annually-held Indian Science Congress has been in news for all the wrong reasons. The dais of the Indian Science Congress has become the platform of absurd claims made by Indian academics and politicians.

In the recently-held Indian Science Congress, the Vice Chancellor of Andhra University claimed that ancient India had fighter jets and airports, while another person claimed that the theories of Einstein and Newton are wrong, and yet another academic from Punjab claimed that dinosaurs found mention in the Vedas.

At the height of the dissatisfaction with Dipak Misra’s tenure, senior advocate and the de facto Bhishma Pitamah of the Indian legal world, Fali S Nariman, is reported to have said that any action against Misra was pointless.

Nariman also said that we would have to wait for Justice Ranjan Gogoi to take over, for any real changes in the system. Well, Nariman has been proved wrong. By Justice Ranjan Gogoi himself.

At their best, books aid our own efforts at making meaning, and stories help us narrativize our own lives. But they can only do that if we give them room— carry them to our journals, our work, and our conversations with friends.

So, while we may not follow Marie Kondo’s advice to cull all the unread tomes, making this room requires that we buy— and read—fewer books.

This is my story of making room.

The coal mine tragedy in Meghalaya, where 15 miners are feared dead, trapped in an illegal rat-hole mine for a little over a month, has come as a shock to many. There have been calls for stringent action against errant miners, dealers and government officials, so as to prevent such tragedies in the future.

Even as around 200 rescue personnel of the Indian Navy, Coal India, NDRF, Odisha fire service and private pump-maker Kriloskar are involved in rescue operations, apart from volunteers from other quarters, the Supreme Court is hearing a PIL in the matter for immediate and stringent action.

But as someone like me who was born and grew up in Asansol, a mofussil town in eastern India’s coal belt, incidents like this are routine. Sometimes so routine, that a single column mention in the newspapers is all it warrants, if at all.

The rise of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ajay Singh Bisht aka Yogi Adityanath, has posed an unprecedented threat to the innate culture and intrinsic nature of Hinduism.

Furthering the Yogi government’s hobby of changing the names of everything that doesn't align with their vichar-dhara, the ‘Ardha’ from ‘Ardha-Kumbh’ has been dropped, and is now being incongruously called just the ‘Kumbh’, which is different.

On the occasion of Javed Akhtar’s birthday, The Quint presents a special podcast of his poem ‘Naya Hukmnama’ (new ordinance) and parts of the hard-hitting farewell speech he delivered in the Rajya Sabha two years ago.

In response to transfer letters given to four Kerala nuns, who campaigned against former Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal for sexually assaulting a nun in Kerala, the nuns have refused to leave. “Let them send the letters. But we are not going anywhere. Till this case is complete and we get justice for our Sister, we will not go,” said Sister Ancitta. Listen in for more.