The last few weeks carried very few news items worth paying attention to, one of which was undoubtedly the consummation of scientist-entrepreneur Craig Venter’s project of creating life in the lab, or to be fair, the very first steps toward artificial life. In this edition, we get to know a little more about the man of the moment, with a very clean profile of the very controversial Venter by our science writer Mila Mitra. As expected, the journalistic community pounced upon this scoop, and perhaps in their excitement ‘over-reported’ the news. In the throes of inane headlines like ‘Man Plays God’, and ‘Man Creates Life’, writer Nikhil Pawar provides a much needed balance, and points out the flaws in scientific journalism, a form of reporting that generally tends to be exaggerated. Passing the baton to our science writer Preshant Jagannathan who talks about how the Grand Unified Theory remains an unlikelihood. Finally, to lighten the tone a bit, we have a brand new and thrilling science fiction, or as the afficionados would call it, SF, by our fiction writer Aruna Rao.
Moving further from the scientific theme and carrying on, our feature writer Suhas Munshi sketches out the history of political cartooning and the use of humor as a revolutionary tool in his insightful essay. And we end the features with an argument in support of pornography, and that too not just for onanistic purposes.
Author and RJ Ujjwal Bhattacharya continues his enlightening series of literary essays on Rabindranath Tagore with his second installment from a three part series on the poet.
Visions and Perspectives showcase a wonderful painting feature on the fairer sex by Shubnum Gill, a unique perspective of a filtered world and a world bathed in moonlight by our lensmen Sunny Lamba and Atish Aman.
Articles and essays embellished like always with witty and appealing graphics and paintings by the very talented Niharika Singh, Sumit Sond, Raghav Arumugam, Rupesh Dutta, Shubnum Gill and Anarya.
this issue contains
Creating Life, Playing God by Nikhil Pawar
The Maverick Genius – Craig Venter by Mila Mitra
Liberty And Libido – A Case for Pornography by Vineet Gill
That’s Not Funny – The Art of Political Cartooning by Suhas Munshi
Fiction: The Journey’s End by Aruna Rao
Tagore: Seeking God in Pursuit of Self by Ujjwal Bhattacharya
No GUTs No Glory By Preshanth Jagannathan
An Artistic Perspective – Tender to Touch by Shubnum Gill
A Filtered Perspective by Sunny Lamba
Moonlit Nights by Atish Aman
