I got my ten-year-old daughter vaccinated against HPV yesterday. The vaccine is now also part of the Universal Immunization Programme of the Government of India. SII’s CERVAVAC is a four-strain vaccine while Merck’s GARDASIL-9 is a nine strain one with a price difference of almost 6x. GARDASIL is recommended by Merck as a three-shot vaccine … Continue reading HPV Vaccination
During this era Singapore Airlines, a government company, ran a centerfold advertisement that featured an Asian woman of somewhat vague ethnicity. She could have been Chinese, Indian, or Malay. She stood in a misty, impressionistic setting, looking out at the reader demurely, holding a single water lily. There was no information about the airline’s fare … Continue reading Bananas, Beaches and Bases
When something sounds too good to be true, always be suspicious. The incoming revolution in the transport sector heralded by Musk revolutionizing EVs - by making them an object of desire – has been touted as the best thing to have happened to mankind. While the energy to power these vehicles will someday be ‘clean’, … Continue reading The Underbelly of the EV Revolution
During the Great Depression, a decade of droughts and severe dust storms caused an ecological phenomenon called the Dust Bowl in the United States. Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado were gripped by mass rural impoverishment. The situation became more fraught as the period coincided with the introduction of mechanized farming pushing thousands into penury. … Continue reading The Dust Bowl
When I landed in Delhi 14 years ago, I was miserable. Affordable housing was a joke, eating out was costly, travelling home once in a few months was an expensive proposition and to make matters worse, I was surrounded by people who lived in an alternate universe. Economic worries never troubled them. Fast forward to … Continue reading Inequality can be a good thing
Look around yourself and observe all the objects you see. Every one of them will one day be categorized as waste and either end up in a landfill, get decomposed, broken down, recycled or end up in the oceans. Everything we touch was created by generating waste; and will some day end up becoming waste. … Continue reading Thinking about Waste
Earlier this month, while traveling to Bhopal, I was served this powdered concoction by the Indian Railways. Though it looked like chalk powder, the ‘food’ item in question was Knorr Instant soup and is a classic example of what goes as Ultra Processed Food aka UPF. According to the NOVA classification, processed food is categorized … Continue reading Ultra Processed Food
Human beings are self-centered. When I perform an act of altruism or a ‘good deed’, all that I’m doing is meeting my own self-interest – the need for acknowledgement from my peers, an addiction to the warm afterglow or in some cases a quest for glory. This is true for you, me and everyone else. … Continue reading On Philanthropy
We live in a world that places a premium on creativity. Companies expect their employees to be creative, parents want their children to become creative, mayors want to convert their cities to creative hubs, translators want to be acknowledged for their creative skills and artists strive to express their unique visions through creative work. But … Continue reading The Cult of Creativity
Last month, I had two ‘elevating’ experiences in Bombay. The first was my vertical descent from the third floor of a building to the ground floor. No, I didn’t fall from the balcony. I took an elevator – the only catch being that this happened to be the world’s largest. (I’m still trying to wrap … Continue reading Elevators as Mass Transport Systems
