Shubashree Desikan | சுபா

“People of Gopallapuram” my translation of the famous novel by legendary Ki Ra ( Gopallapurathu Makkal) reviewed by Sudha Tilak for The Hindu… made this Sunday special! Read the review here… Madras Book Club event on April 8. @Moutushi2382 @peerjournalist @thoongumoonji1

@Vincentsjotting @Moutushi2382 @peerjournalist @thoongumoonji1 CP Arts Centre - Apr 8, 6.30 pm

@Shubawrite @Moutushi2382 @peerjournalist @thoongumoonji1 Book Club details plz

“People of Gopallapuram” my translation of the famous novel by legendary Ki Ra ( Gopallapurathu Makkal) reviewed by Sudha Tilak for The Hindu… made this Sunday special! Read the review here… Madras Book Club event on April 8. @Moutushi2382 @peerjournalist @thoongumoonji1

Tha Abel prize for 2026 goes to German mathematician Gerd Faltings!

We congratulate Gerd Faltings as the 2026 Abel Prize laureate! 🎉 He recives the Abel Prize "for introducing powerful tools in arithmetic geometry and resolving long-standing diophantine conjectures of Mordell and Lang".

Shiraz. The city of Saadi and Hafez. A place where Tagore once lingered and wrote, drawn by the fragrance of Persian poetry and memory. Persian wisdom carries a sombre proverb: when the fire spreads, the dry wood and the green wood burn together. The innocent and the guilty perish in the same blaze. I think of Persepolis — the great capital of the Achaemenids — burned by Alexander more than two thousand years ago. Empires rise, destroy, and pass. Yet Persian civilisation endured: in poetry, language, music, and memory. From Babylonia and Mesopotamia to the Indus, these lands carry humanity’s earliest chapters. They are not merely territory. They are the archives of civilisation. Saadi wrote that humanity is “one body.” Hafez warned that the pride of kings passes like dust. And Yeats, in another age of turmoil, sensed the widening gyre — a moment when the centre struggles to hold. Powerful states speak today of deterrence and strategy. History speaks in a quieter, sobering voice. It reminds us that when war spreads across landscapes layered with millennia of memory, the flames do not distinguish between soldiers and children, between stone and story. And so the old Persian warning returns: when the fire spreads, the dry and the wet burn together. #WestAsia #Civilisation #History #Iran

@radhikasan Congratulations!

Thrilled to be The Hindu's new Books Editor (non fiction), commissioning reviews and interviews, in addition to other roles. Do email me with ideas, suggestions, and pitches: radhika.s@thehindu.co.in And here is the my first books newsletter - do subscribe! thehindu.com/newsletter/the…

@ConfluenceSSS @GautamDesiraju @joshiamitabhevo @Pavan_KumarGV @SumanPhysChem @Abhadra7 Not loading the article! Will try again

The latest article in Confluence by Prof. Gautam R. Desiraju (@GautamDesiraju) discusses why science must engage with politics to inform evidence-based decision-making. Read here: confluence.ias.ac.in/why-science-mu… @joshiamitabhevo @Pavan_KumarGV @SumanPhysChem @Shubawrite @Abhadra7

@ConfluenceSSS @TVVen @InspireFaculty I could not read it - says server error - page cd not be found. Will try again .

On National Science Day 2025, we bring to you three articles that provide important perspectives on the science ecosystem of India. The authors are TV Venkateswaran, L S Shashidhara and Sriparna Chatterjee. confluence.ias.ac.in/special-collec… @TVVen @InspireFaculty

Four mathematicians posted the first significant advance on Chowla’s cosine problem, a question about the Fourier transform, in 20 years. Their strategy had almost nothing to do with traditional Fourier analysis. In fact, before last summer, the foursome had never even heard of Chowla’s cosine problem. quantamagazine.org/networks-hold-…

@Jairam_Ramesh A fitting tribute to a great scientist!

Madhav Gadgil, the pre-eminent ecologist, has just passed away. He was a top-notch academic scientist, a tireless field researcher, a pioneering institution-builder, a great communicator, a firm believer in people’s networks and movements, and friend, philosopher, guide, and mentor to many for over five decades. Trained at the very best universities in modern science, he was at the same time a champion of traditional knowledge systems - especially in biodiversity conservation. His influence on public policy has been profound going back to his crucial role in the Save Silent Valley Movement in the late 70s and early 1980s. His intervention to protect forests in Bastar was crucial in the mid -80s. Later, he gave shape to a new direction to the Botanical Survey of India and the Zoological Survey of India. During 2009-2011, he chaired the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel and wrote its report in a most sensitive and democratic manner that remains unmatched in both substance and style. He had studied biology at Harvard under E. O. Wilson, who had been hailed as Darwin’s Heir. Although inspired by Wilson, Madhav Gadgil - unlike most others who went to study abroad - came back to India to build its own research capacities and capabilities, guide students, engage with local communities, and make a difference to policy. In all of these he succeeded more than admirably. Luckily three years back he was able to bring out his delightful memoir, which is at once educative, entertaining, and enlightening. Madhav Gadgil’s life was devoted to scholarship in the noblest sense of the term. He will remain an iconic and inspirational figure. Speaking on a personal note, in the twenty-six months I was Environment Minister during May 2009- July 2011, I turned to him every other day for guidance and advice. And our conversations were not confined to matters related to ecology. We spoke often of his father Dhananjay Gadgil, one of India’s greatest economists and author of that classic The Industrial Evolution of India in Recent Times, first published in 1924. We would also speak of the intricacies of the Indian monsoon, since his wife Sulochana was an authority on the subject. Nation builders come in different forms and varieties. Madhav Gadgil was definitely one of them. Above all he had the hallmark of a true scholar— he was gentle, unassuming, and exuded empathy and humility behind which was a vast ocean of knowledge and learning.

@anilananth @iitmadras Wow Anil that’s fantastic ! Hope to see you more and listen to you more!

Beginning the New Year at my alma matter, IIT-Madras, for reasons I'd not have imagined a few months ago. I've joined @iitmadras, as Professor of Practice, in the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. Decades after having been here for my Bachelor's, the campus feels simultaneously unchanged and different! The deer, the occasional monkey (this one's checking out the dining room), the gorgeous banyan trees are all there, as are many, many more students, new buildings, etc. ... Looking forward to this year.

@sowmiyashok @CholamandalPann Congratulations on the success of the book! Best wishes for your talk.

Excited to discuss The Dig with @CholamandalPann tomorrow at the Chennai Institute of Journalism. Books will be available for purchase. Drop by if you are free?

@peerjournalist Poor scientists have to go to all this trouble to prove some mistaken illusions wrong.

Thank you Chittajit! This is an impressive list!!! @cjmitra

@padmajaJ_ Someone recommended this writer…

📚 Tried reading The Women by Kristin Hannah. I couldn’t get past the second chapter. It felt like a school project written with AI: flat, rushed, and weirdly juvenile. It is first-person, and so inauthentic and wannabe. I really don’t get the hype. Left me with a bad aftertaste.

Announcing my hands-on workshop: "AI in Research: A User's Perspective" at IISER Pune, Dec 12-14. Responsible AI use for literature search, brainstorming, writing & presentation. tinyurl.com/5n96d48k #workshop #researcher #artificial_intelligence #phdlife #STEM #Education #AI

CG was joined by senior TN officials - Dr. B. Chandra Mohan, IAS & Dr. M. Aarthi, IAS to launch 2 books - "Meereswellen und andere Geschichten" by publishers Mr. Christian Weiss of Draupadi Verlag & "The Comparative Etymological Dictionary of Tamil and Indo-European Languages" edited by Dr. G. Arasendiran. @MEAIndia @eoiberlin @IndianDiplomacy @EduMinOfIndia @nbt_india

@kaneenikasinha @MoumantiP That’s a lovely image of a researcher!

@Shubawrite @MoumantiP I must mention: I am usually content to see these flowers towering over me, but Moumanti likes to climb on the rim to reach the height of the flowers :-)

Couldn’t help sharing this. Two lotuses blooming under the watchful eyes of the Bauhinia tree behind. Thanks to @MoumantiP for pointing out that it is unusual to see two lotuses blossoming at the same time in our campus pond!