What India learned, and what it still needs to do

Epidemiology is related to unanswered questions, but also to unquestioned answers. International Day of Epidemic Preparedness emphasizes the importance of prevention, early detection, and collaborative efforts to combat epidemics. In India, a nation of 1.4 billion people characterized by densely populated cities, the ability to collect weekly district-level reports and support early outbreak detection is…

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Who’ll buy what, and why

How is 2026 likely to pan out for the consumer? Any conversation about the future must begin with AI, cutting edge of tech. Almost in step is the growing popularity of mysticism and All Things God. Getting physical is back and growing – footfalls in malls are rising and people are cranking up on increasing…

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Autocrats’ BFFs: Elites with a grudge

More often than not, we tend to associate autocratic regimes with a cult of personalities. Think Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin. However, no autocrat rules alone. They are all supported by an elite that actually props up the regimes. Twilight Of Democracy: The Failure Of Politics And The Parting Of Friends by Anne Applebaum explores how this class of elite…

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Punish The Goons

Why BJP should respond strongly to Xmas attacks  Christmas was marred by the shocking and shameful conduct, from mobs declaring allegiance to Bajrang Dal, VHP and fringe outfits. They ransacked Christmas decorations, disrupted and harassed carol singers and Christmas gatherings, stormed schools and churches, heckled even poor vendors selling Santa caps – incidents captured on…

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Autocrats’ BFFs: Elites With A Grudge

Envy, cynicism, nostalgia drive the privileged to demagogues More often than not, we tend to associate autocratic regimes with a cult of personalities. Think Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin. However, no autocrat rules alone. They are all supported by an elite that actually props up the regimes. Twilight Of Democracy: The Failure Of Politics And The…

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Punish The Goons

Why BJP should respond strongly to Xmas attacks  Christmas was marred by the shocking and shameful conduct, from mobs declaring allegiance to Bajrang Dal, VHP and fringe outfits. They ransacked Christmas decorations, disrupted and harassed carol singers and Christmas gatherings, stormed schools and churches, heckled even poor vendors selling Santa caps – incidents captured on…

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On love, December, and waking up each morning

December always arrives, lingers, and finally leaves with a soft hush. Fairy lights appear on windowsills. The air cools slightly. People start smiling at strangers. And suddenly, the world feels kinder than it did in November. It is Christmas month. A month when everything feels possible. Even love. I recently read a girl’s post online….

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The Llama series of models from Meta

Meta’s most popular LLM series is Llama. Llama stands for Large Language Model Meta AI. They are open-source models. Llama 3 was trained with fifteen trillion tokens. It has a context window size of 8000 tokens. There are 8- and 70-billion-parameter models. Both are pre-trained and instruction-tuned. The 8-billion-parameter model has a knowledge cut-off of…

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Politics and purpose of electoral roll revision

The latest draft electoral rolls have produced numbers that have sharpened an ongoing political debate. Nearly 97.3 lakh names have been deleted in Tamil Nadu and 73.7 lakh in Gujarat during the ongoing revision exercise, according to Election Commission data cited in recent reports. For the Opposition, these figures have become the basis for allegations…

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