Dear Prof. Chomsky, I first heard your name when, as a Computer Science student at IIT Kanpur, I studied the Chomsky-Normal Form for specifying formal languages. Many years later, I came across…
Author: Sankrant Sanu
Whose New Year? Return to a Better Calendar
In India we increasingly celebrate the New Year according to the Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory, who instituted it. A Calendar has scientific, social and cultural significance. Other than synchronizing activity…
Moral Outrage of EyeStar Seagull
EyeStar Seagull gloomily stared at the television as she flipped channels. “What is this country coming to,” she said to her naukarani Rasika, the only one around who listened to her any more, “I…
Mother Teresa Debate – Of Saints, Priests and Seva
[Avadhoot Bhagwan Ram Kustha Sewa Ashram reportedly treating the highest number of leprosy patients in the world] Avadhoot Bhagwan Ram Kustha Sewa Ashram reportedly treating the highest number of leprosy patients in…
Why is social media criticising Indian mainstream media: the Presstitutes Controversy
“You’re entitled to your own opinions. You’re not entitled to your own facts.” Attributed to US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Gen. V K Singh’s appellation of “presstitutes” in a Tweet caused…
Cultural stereotypes, rapes, and German cannibalism
Note: I posted the following letter on Twitter, as a satirical response to stereotyping about Indian men by a German professor, who was supported by German media. Disclaimer: This is satire about…
Killing the feminine: Misogyny in Christianity
“She can show you the world we come from. There’s no green there. They killed their Mother, and they’re gonna do the same thing here.” From the movie, Avatar. “The Father, the Son, and…
Call out Muslim Phobia, debunk Islamophobia
The attacks in Paris on Charlie Hebdo bring to a fore fault lines in Europe. It has fuelled a European right that is calling for bans on Muslim immigrants. A major French…
Rape in India – Why it becomes a worldwide story
[Plight of Indian women is a marketing tool for the Global evangelical movement.] Rape is a terrible crime, a case where the victims are overwhelmingly women and the perpetrators overwhelmingly men. Every…
RTE Act is destructive and communal
[India needs a decentralised education model that does not impose city standards on schools in villages and tribal areas.] “India is more illiterate than it was fifty or a hundred years…