A list of good reads
- JNU activist Umar Khalid—currently in prison for inciting the 2020 Delhi violence—pens a lovely tribute in The Telegraph to historian Ranajit Guha. It highlights an important question: how do we document the lives of the marginalised who don’t leave any documents or letters behind?
- Bloomberg BusinessWeek has a riveting tale of industrial espionage of a scientist who tried to steal one of Coke’s most closely guarded secrets—and, no, it was not the recipe.
- Atmos looks at the surprising large carbon footprint of the music industry—and what we can do to reduce it.
- We greatly enjoyed Ben Burgis’ love letter to time travel movies—which looks at their theories of causation. Can we really change the past a la ‘Back to the Future’?
- One of evolution’s biggest moments was the transition from single-celled organisms to multicellular organisms. The Atlantic offers a fascinating look at how a lab replicated that moment.
- New York Times (splainer gift link) has an alarming report on the plague of witch-hunting in India.
- Scroll has a lovely story of how the Mughal badshahs and begums inspired playing cards in 19th century France.
- Even as the rest of the tech industry struggles with layoffs, Rest of World looks at Apple’s hiring spree in India.
- BBC Science Focus offers a handy guide to spotting a liar.
- Revealer has an intriguing trend piece on Muslim women using the feminine pronoun for Allah.
