sukumar ranganathan

The HT newsroom put out a bunch of specials to mark India@75. For starters, there’s 1947: The road to Indian independence, a podcast anchored by Prashant Jha, featuring experts such as William Dalrymple, Rajmohan Gandhi, Srinath Raghavan, and Durba Ghosh. open.spotify.com/show/2PLudYtwR…

@kushanmitra Moe and Govt Mule have both covered but best ever cover of a CCR song has to be Cat Power doing Fortunate Son. Comes on the soundtrack of season 1 of the Punisher

Listening to covers of the CCR classic ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain’, there are others including one from The Ramones. Any others?

@akm1410 It’s not Mumbai; it’s Indians of a certain economic strata. And it’s quite tiresome.

Did not register this before but in Mumbai real estate small talk is quite prevalent. Conversation starts with too much construction, noise, final destination roads and leads to pricing and new projects.

The soundtrack of my 2026 so far!

I have some major news for you. In a nutshell: The researchers misled the public by using mathematically impossible data to artificially inflate the effectiveness of a papaya leaf extract. In their published study, the authors divided patients into different analysis groups, specifically defining a smaller group of patients as a strict subset of a larger group. However, the authors reported a higher number of recovered patients in the smaller group than in the larger one, which is a glaring arithmetic impossibility. This manipulated mathematical error was only applied to the placebo group, effectively shrinking the placebo's success rate so the papaya treatment would look successful by comparison. When the data is looked at honestly - including all randomized patients without artificially excluding anyone - the extract showed absolutely no benefit at any point during the trial. Furthermore, the researchers changed their own methodical rules after the fact, to hide the treatment's overall failure. The trial was officially registered beforehand to measure patient recovery by Day 7 of the study. Because the papaya extract failed to show any significant benefit by that pre-planned deadline, the authors completely shifted the goalposts, falsely presenting Day 4 as their primary focus in the final publication just to highlight their manipulated data. On top of these changing rules, the researchers broke their own eligibility guidelines by including nearly 40% of patients who did not even meet the correct cancer stage requirements to be in the study. Ultimately, the study's positive conclusions are entirely unsupported and dangerous, potentially tricking vulnerable patients into using an unproven extract instead of reliable medical care.

Ten of my favourite prog epics: Supper’s Ready - Genesis Awaken - Yes Tarkus - ELP Octavarium - Dream Theater Ashes Are Burning - Renaissance Dialectic - Syzygy Anethetize - Porcupine Tree In Held ‘Twas In I - Procol Harum Ocean Cloud - Marillion All Of The Above - Transatlantic

The thread that binds Himachal apples, Dravidian politics, and the Indian freedom movement. Plus, how the sound of America is Canadian. This week’s newsletter open.substack.com/pub/hted/p/all…

It is that happiest of moments in the life of a book — when it gets featured on @MilanV’s epic podcast @CarnegieEndow Grand Tamasha!

Prog-rock Sunday!

The egg is 75% water and the chana is nearly fully dry, so you are really comparing 13g of dry egg matter with about 47g of dry chana. This is also why the egg is 70 kcal and the chana is closer to 300 kcal for the same serving. And on top of that, protein quality of egg is much better. To be clear, eat both, and if one has personal religious reasons to avoid eggs, do that, but this comparison is silly.

@HarshitPai Thank you

Two most challenging things to crack in non-fiction writing is a good lede and a good flow. The former draws the readers in, the latter make them stick till the end. Very few authors are able to crack both. But @HT_Ed has. His weekly newsletters are a master-class in these. I strongly recommend a read. @hted" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack.com/@hted

Eggs, the decline of regional parties, another one bites the dust in the UK, a survivalist handbook, and Steal Your Face turns 50. This week’s newsletter open.substack.com/pub/hted/p/egg…

Now playing!

@nivedita_Him Thank you

@HT_Ed Wish you a very happy birthday!!!

Birthday gift from wife !

@digitalKapil Thank you

@HT_Ed Happy B'day Boss.

@ushrit2020 For almost a six month stretch a few years ago, the soundtrack of my run was Roxy Music

@HT_Ed The unpredictability of (good) prog keeps one curious and engaged! Only this morning I was listening to Caravan's 'For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night' until loud dhing-chak music started on the gym's system and overwhelmed my earphones 😂

@sumit_vera Thank you. Vinyl is incredibly resilient — just bubble wrap in check in baggage is good enough.

@HT_Ed Flex flex flex... What is the smart yet safe way to get these in from international travel in the luggage. Jealousy level 10. HB all the same.

@rahulchandra77 Thank you. Very much so; he was home a couple of weeks back

@HT_Ed Happy birthday. Are you in touch with SD Burman ?

@vasundhar Thank you

@HT_Ed Happy Birthday

@ushrit2020 Thank you. Prog is one of my many musical obsessions

@HT_Ed The best voice in rock. From any era. I could listen to Take A Pebble, C'est la vie, Still You Turn Me On and Epitaph all day long. Oh... and happy birthday 🥂

@ramkid Thank you Ramki

@HT_Ed Happy Birthday, Suku.