Articles by Vidya Subramanian
Reflections on surveillance in the middle of a pandemic | Opinion
While it may seem like it’s a worthy trade to sacrifice individual privacy to contain the pandemic, it is decisions taken in the eye of the storm that will ripple outwards, creating situations and precedents for future emergencies

Updated on Apr 04, 2020 04:49 PM IST
To the stars and beyond: A hundred years of Isaac Asimov
Interstellar travel, sentient robots, and supercomputers... on writer Isaac Asimov’s birth centenary, a look back at his legacy

Updated on Jan 04, 2020 07:51 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
An Isaac Asimov quiz on his birth centenary year
Little-known details about Asimov and his work .

Updated on Jan 03, 2020 01:58 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Develop effective policies to regulate tech giants
The crux of the matter is that Facebook — and indeed Google and Twitter and Uber and Amazon — are not merely companies that connect people. They are centres of an advertising marketplace, in which you, the user, is the product being sold to the advertisers

Updated on Feb 07, 2019 12:03 PM IST
The fate of Hindi at JLF 2018: Can it be made the language of the elites?
A session on Hindi, titled Hindi medium: Language and elitism at the Jaipur Literature Festival, featured some hand-wringing about its status.

Updated on Jan 29, 2018 06:01 PM IST
Hindustan Times, Jaipur | Vidya Subramanian
Why are Indians fascinated by PG Wodehouse? JLF tries to seek answers in its own way
Shashi Tharoor, Swapan Dasgupta bickered over PG Wodehouse much to the amusement of Philip Norman during a session titled The Wodehouse Effect on the third day of the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Updated on Jan 28, 2018 02:16 PM IST
Hindustan Times, Jaipur | Vidya Subramanian
The new ethics of frugality at JLF 2018: Small, less and slow is the way forward
‘Elite buyout’ and the need to change the paradigm of development featured in a session on the environment, titled In Denial: Betrayals of the Earth, at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Updated on Jan 27, 2018 03:13 PM IST
Hindustan Times, Jaipur | Vidya Subramanian
Vishal Bhardwaj: When they strangle us, we will scream. This is the time for screaming
On the second day of the Jaipur Literature Festival 2018, director Vishal Bharadwaj speaks of freedom, films, his father and much more. The session was titled Revolutionary Poets: On Hamlet, Haider and Shakespeare’s Ability to Speak Truth to Power.

Updated on Jan 26, 2018 03:06 PM IST
Hindustan Times, Jaipur | Vidya Subramanian
Muhammad Yunus at JLF 2018: Poverty in the world is a solvable problem
Nobel laureate Dr Mohammad Yunus believes the prevalent system of capitalism is wrong and needs to be fixed. He was speaking about his new book, A World of Three Zones at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Updated on Jan 26, 2018 02:06 PM IST
Hindustan Times, Jaipur | Vidya Subramanian
Is all power an exercise of violence? Jaipur Literature Festival asks tough questions
While the Padmaavat controversy rages, a conversation with Upinder Singh, Maya Jasanoff, Tridip Suhrud, and Patrick French brought up important questions on the state of violence and the violence of the State.

Updated on Jan 25, 2018 06:48 PM IST
Hindustan Times, Jaipur | Vidya Subramanian
JLF 2018: Harvard astrophysicist says only 5% of universe is made of atoms that we understand
Speaking at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2018, Harvard astrophysicist Lisa Randall explains how dark matter and dinosaurs made human beings possible.

Updated on Jan 25, 2018 02:42 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
There is no call to justify or glorify the outlawed practice of sati
That a commercial film with no pretensions to accuracy is being held to ransom for not sticking to the “facts” of Rajput mythology is itself a thing that beggars belief; but what is worse is the glorification of the act of jauhar, and by extension of the outlawed practice of sati by politicians

Updated on Nov 21, 2017 04:09 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Padmavati controversy: Thugs and vandals cannot decide what we should or should not watch
By capitulating to these violent groups time and again, filmmakers such as Bhansali legitimise this illegal manner of expressing discontent, and encourage these violent thugs to do this again and again. Even if they’re only doing this to get a free pre-release screening; letting them get away with this will only ensure that it happens again.

Updated on Nov 16, 2017 04:24 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Women deserve better than prison treatment in universities like BHU
This restrictive atmosphere in universities won’t help build an enlightened and forward thinking next generation. It will only lead to a society of unthinking rule-followers who will not question authority and challenge the status quo

Updated on Oct 03, 2017 12:03 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Chandigarh boy’s Google story is an indictment of India’s education system
How did a teenager convince his school, and a state government that he had got a job at one of the foremost technology companies in the world?

Updated on Aug 03, 2017 10:45 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Indian cinema does not need Pahlaj Nihalani or the CBFC
Given the spate of cinema that wilfully accepts the “leave your brains at home” tag, the ‘masala’ filmmakers of India appear to have a really low opinion of the Indian moviegoer. It would seem that Pahlaj Nihalani agrees with this assessment, where audiences must have content filtered for them, so that they don’t leave a movie hall with the ‘wrong’ ideas.

Published on Jul 27, 2017 04:49 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Just in case anyone’s forgotten, all tennis greats are not men
Not to take anything away from the greatness of Roger Federer; but we do seem to celebrate the achievements of men so much more than those of women.

Updated on Jul 18, 2017 12:54 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Opinion: Ramachandra Guha’s resignation letter proves our cricketing heroes have betrayed us
Ramachandra Guha’s resignation as a member of the Committee of Administrators appointed by the Supreme Court for BCCI has exposed several chinks in the way cricket runs in India. The superhero syndrome has allowed many Indian cricket icons to enjoy conflict of interest and make money

Updated on Jun 04, 2017 04:51 PM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | Vidya Subramanian
Art of Living should not be allowed to get away with damaging the Yamuna
A strong precedent requires to be set in order to send out a message that safeguarding the environment is not a matter of convenience.

Updated on May 31, 2017 05:32 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Amarinder Singh had no business justifying the use of human shield in Kashmir
While trying to support he Indian Army, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh ended up endorsing the use of a man tied to a jeep as a human shield in Kashmir. This statement was not only entirely unnecessary, it was also extremely irresponsible, especially by an elected head of a state government.

Updated on May 16, 2017 10:27 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
The utter uselessness of banning social media in Kashmir
Banning social media websites such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter will not help stem discontent in the valley. By restricting access to these websites, the government is encouraging people to find alternative ways of resistance, while inconveniencing millions of people who aren’t trying to brew discontent.

Updated on Apr 27, 2017 07:31 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Give the VIPs their golf carts and get them out of the way, please
Instead of fighting with VIPs at airports to not use special privileges, would it be easier to simply move them along quickly in their golf carts, so that they don’t keep getting in our way?

Updated on Apr 27, 2017 10:10 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Mumbai’s Humboldt Penguins are victims of Indians’ penchant for being litter bugs
Visitors left behind a trail of litter in the Byculla Zoo’s new Humboldt Penguin enclosure, putting the birds at an increased risk of infection. Is littering a peculiarly Indian problem?

Updated on Apr 20, 2017 02:11 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Prasar Bharti doesn’t need an international propaganda channel
The Prasar Bharti’s proposal to set up a digital channel to tell the ‘India Story’ to counter the narratives of what is perceived to be a biased international media is problematic. The largest public broadcasting agency in India would do better to focus on dissemination of information and awareness campaigns on important issues within the country

Updated on Apr 10, 2017 05:05 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
#StopHindiChauvinism: Uniformity is not a prerequisite for unity
The hastag #StopHindiChauvinism has been trending on Twitter ever since the milestones on highways in Tamil Nadu were rewritten in Hindi. But this is not just a South India problem.

Updated on Apr 04, 2017 05:34 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Racist attack on Nigerians in Greater Noida is hardly surprising
The attack on Nigerians in the wake of the tragic death of a teenager in Greater Noida shows how racist Indians can be

Updated on Mar 28, 2017 03:51 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
Here’s why Elon Musk’s iconic Tesla might just work in India
As the Indian automobile market continues to grow, Elon Musk and Tesla may be simply making a sound business decision to bring their cutting edge cars to India, without necessarily hoping to achieve the ideals of it. There has also been talk of Tesla setting up a manufacturing plant in India, which might be able to bring down costs a bit more.

Updated on Feb 16, 2017 02:13 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian
When Bernie Sanders brought a giant printout of a Trump tweet to the US Senate
We’ve known for a while now that Twitter and Facebook are the new ‘on the record’. Confirming news is now about knowing a reliable person has tweeted about it. It is proof in the public domain. So much so that many news stories are simply about Tweets and Facebook posts in response to some event or other.

Published on Jan 06, 2017 01:34 PM IST
New Delhi | Vidya Subramanian
The surprising friendship between cricket and military technology
Cricket with all its trappings and suits, as it happens, owes much to those who make missiles and radars. Many technologies that help make cricket ‘better’, such as Hawk-eye and Hot Spot, to name just two, owe their origin to research in military technologies.

Updated on Feb 16, 2014 01:12 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Vidya Subramanian