Overconfidence Unmasked: An Entomologist Explores Human Self-Deception

Thursday, January 9, 2025

Illusions Fostered by Primates

Vivek Nityananda is an entomologist by profession. He studied katydids and their secretive communication methods, the wing rustling among leaves that eluded human ears. Somewhere along the way, his academic curiosity strayed from the natural world into a distinctly human phenomenon: overconfidence.

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From Bridget Jones to Eleanor Oliphant: Imperfect Protagonists and Unlikely Friendships

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Bridget Jones broke a certain stereotype. That romcom protagonists must be, by default, somewhat put together. Till then, they were often fiercely intelligent, sparkly with words, discerning, virtuous et al, till Jones swept into our cultural lenses with her endearingly human,

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From Berlin to Jamia Millia: A Woman’s Enduring Legacy

Thursday, August 22, 2024

Jamia Millia: Sparked by a Crisis

Jamia Millia Islamia was forged by a crisis. A response to Gandhi’s call for non-cooperation required an abandoning of settings funded or supported by the British. Indian Muslims who withdrew from Aligarh Muslim University had to quickly cobble together a place that would fuse modern lessons with Islamic traditions.

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Nora Ephron’s Recipe for a Second Marriage (And a Second Breakup)

Wednesday, May 1, 2024

In her Introduction to Heartburn, Nora Ephron, observes how women novelists are often diminished for borrowing stuff from their own lives. Often, with the aspersion that their novels are memoirs, “thinly disguised.” It’s not as if male writers do not rake through the skeletal remains of past marriages or other story-worthy life events.

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Navigating AI’s Fakery

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

We are awash with news and commentary about AI. The huge boons and concomitant scares, the soft and perilous blurring between human cleverness and machined ingenuity. We’re inundated to a degree where we might feel surprisingly lured by natural stupidity.

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Shaping Sustainable Tomorrows

Monday, December 11, 2023

From Boardrooms to Backstreets

Arun Maira has been in the trenches. Of business and government. Despite occupying some of the highest positions – as Chairman of the Boston Consulting Group, as a Member of the Planning Commission under Manmohan Singh or currently as Chairman of HelpAge International – he has never lost sight of those at the lowest rungs of the ladder.

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