aroonwithaview

  • Cry me a river

    A recent UN study projected that India could be the most populous country as early as next year. Around the same time, the results of a national survey were released, showing that fertility rates have dropped just below replacement rate for the first time. Both seem to be good news, in that there’s a large…

  • Look West policy

    In an increasingly interconnected world, it is hard to be ignorant of international news. But news from the West, especially the United States, seems to have a prepotence over people around the world, especially the youth. A stark reminder of this effect came recently in the form of the Roe v Wade controversy. The US…

  • Ask what your country can do for you

    One of the things that used to fascinate me early on in the pandemic was how officials could track down how someone contracted the virus, and create a chain of transmission events, literally like an infection network. Admittedly there is uncertainty in this model and events are probabilistic rather than certain, but it certainly was…

  • The science is dismal

    A Twitter thread got me thinking about the widespread disagreement about how to respond to the covid pandemic, especially how it relates to “following the science”. From one perspective, it is hard to wrap one’s head around the idea that scientific and rational people can disagree so starkly on what to do. Assuming that everyone…

  • In dependence

    Independence day evokes memories of outsized displays of patriotic fervour for me, from loudspeakers blasting a medley of songs centred around watan, desh, and bharat, to the upright posture of bodies staring at a flag fluttering happily, oblivious to the demand for stationarity. Dignitaries ranging from the Prime Minister (on TV) to the Secretary of…