Stephanians

BG Verghese Memorial Lecture, by P Sainath, founder-editor of PARI | IIC March 20, 6 pm In memory of BG Verghese (Econ '46 @StStephensClg), editor and Magsaysay awardee. Supported by Rahul Verghese (Econ. '80.) & Vijay Verghese (Hist. '77) | @rahulsverghese @ShumaRaha

@CafeSSC Stephania 🗞️: By alum Ashavari M class 1999 english! The Masterclass on Indian dance-filmmaking by *Ashavari and *Abhyuday Khaitan* - of the MANIFEST - will introduce to the Indian context of dance-films. *Fri 27th Mar 3.30* at *Cinedans, Eye Film Museum, Amsterdam*

India's envoy in London, Vikram Doraiswami (History '89 @StStephensClg), named new ambassador to China msn.com/en-in/news/ind…

Fulbright-Nehru Fellowships for Indian citizens for 2027-28 | @USIEF. via @arjendu Physics '86 @StStephensClg linkedin.com/posts/fulbrigh…

@CafeSSC Stephania Books 🗞️: By alum Mahmood Farooqui - My book is now out on Amazon amazon.in/dp/9377371678

The SKT (Senior Kooler Talk) Stephanian Alumni group lunch at the Delhi Gymkhana Club, Saturday, 14 March.

@CafeSSC Sad news! 1980 batch 🙏Condolences 🙏

Warmest congratulations to my friend Taranjit Sandhu on his swearing-in as Lieutenant-Governor of Delhi. Though I was unable to honour his personal invitation to attend, I will be with him in spirit as he seeks to “turn challenges into opportunities”. I have seen him do just that in four previous postings and I am confident he will excel with tact, diplomatic skill and administrative competence here too. @SandhuTaranjitS @LtGovDelhi

@CafeSSC Stephania News 🗞️: By Alum Pooja Kashyap class 2000 - A walk through the bylanes of Hauz Khaz Village thehindu.com/news/cities/De…

In the midst of all the doom and gloom, a spot of sunshine ☀️ Thank you so much for this honour @forum_diplomacy @ratan_mrs Lovely to have @SanjoyRoyTWA chairing our panel and @ShashiTharoor thank you for giving us the awards! 🔥👏🏾 and huge Thank you @akumar2408 🧿🌻

Meet the jury of The Media Foundation Journalism Awards -SEEMA CHISHTI, Editor, The Wire -PARSA VENKATESHWAR RAO Jr, Senior Journalist -RUPA JHA Editor-in-Chief, Collective Newsroom (BBC India’s sole content provider) Awards Event: March 20, 6PM, IIC-Delhi @seemay @rupa_jha

'This house believes in pragmatic, nationalist foreign policy' | Shashi Tharoor [Hist. '75 @StStephensClg] debates Mani Shankar Aiyar [Econ. '61]

JUST IN: The sound you are hearing in the Baghdad footage is a machine gun firing 4,500 rounds per minute at objects in the sky above the US Embassy. That is the C-RAM. A land based Phalanx naval defense system on a trailer in the Green Zone, firing 20 millimeter tungsten rounds at incoming Iranian drones. The radar acquires the threat. The fire control computer calculates the intercept. The six barrel Vulcan cannon opens up with the sound every American soldier in Iraq knows means something is inbound and the last line is engaging. CENTCOM confirmed the engagement. No casualties. Embassy secure. Threats intercepted. Now look at the numbers behind the sound. The C-RAM carries 1,550 rounds. At 4,500 rounds per minute, that is approximately twenty seconds of continuous fire. Twenty seconds. Each burst against an incoming drone consumes a portion of that magazine. The system must then be reloaded by hand. Against a single drone or a pair of rockets, twenty seconds is generous. Against a swarm of ten or twenty Shaheds arriving simultaneously, twenty seconds is the entire engagement window for the last weapon system protecting the largest American diplomatic compound in the Middle East. The effective range is 1.5 to 2 kilometers. That means the drone is already close when the C-RAM fires. Everything farther out was supposed to be handled by Patriot batteries, THAAD systems, and the layered air defense architecture that is being depleted across the Gulf at rates the production line cannot replace. The C-RAM is the last layer. When it fires, every other layer has already been penetrated or saturated or bypassed. The footage from Baghdad is not evidence that the defense is working. It is evidence that the defense is working at maximum range and minimum margin. RAND Corporation analyses estimate C-RAM success rates at 70 to 80 percent against individual drones. Against swarms the rate drops because the system cannot engage multiple targets simultaneously fast enough to prevent saturation before the magazine empties. Iran produces over 100 missiles and hundreds of drones per month. The C-RAM’s magazine holds twenty seconds of ammunition. This is the cost asymmetry rendered in sound. A $20,000 Shahed forces expenditure of hundreds of rounds of specialized tungsten ammunition from a system costing millions. The Shahed destroyed costs Iran $20,000 and costs the C-RAM a fraction of its only magazine. The Shahed that gets through costs whatever it hits. The footage is dramatic. The sound is terrifying. The defense works tonight. The question the footage cannot answer is what happens on the night when the swarm exceeds the magazine, which at current Iranian production rates and current American reload logistics is not a hypothetical but an arithmetic inevitability approaching on a timeline measured in weeks. Twenty seconds of ammunition. That is the sound of the last line of defense. And twenty seconds is all there is. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

I grew up reading Byomkesh Bakshi and Feluda: two legendary Bengali detective series that almost no one outside India knows. Now all ~70 novels are translated to English and free to read on grandoldbooks.com. My goal: build the world’s internet library. Every great book, in English, free forever. We shipped 10x more books in the last 48 hrs. Follow @grandoldbooks for more.

Taranjit Singh Sandhu is Delhi's new lieutenant governor | @StStephensClg History class of '82. Congrats @SandhuTaranjitS ndtv.com/india-news/ex-…

Breaking. @CafeSSC

Celebrating the ineffable experience of spending my flight from Chennai immersed in my friend @PavanK_Verma’s new novel “The Lady Who Carried the Monk Across the River”. A brilliant parable of Hindu philosophy, it builds upon the tradition of shashtrarth to expound the timeless lessons of the Devi Sukta through the story of a monk’s encounter with desire and his debate with his guru. Intensely readable, lucidly narrated and profoundly erudite, this short novel offers an immersive reading experience that I heartily recommend to all interested in reading an accessible account of Hindu philosophy in the form of a heartwarming love story. A real pleasure! @PenguinIndia

We had an incredible book launch for WILD CAPITAL. The room was packed to the rafters- someone told me she had found 'her tree', another bought a foraged tendu patta, a third brought a painting of a coppersmith barbet, also on the cover of the book. Through all the pain and joy of writing a book, this is what we write for: for the reader. Thank you all for coming on a Thursday, and @nilanjanaroy for moderating so beautifully!

#StephaniansInAntarctica #AntarcticaMatters (Pics/videos: Kamal Malhotra, Econ. '76 @kmalhotra401)

I am so lucky to have readers who paint my work. Pied myna on semal by Neha, and by Aruvi. #SemalStories