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India has long invested in training those who run its institutions. Bureaucrats undergo rigorous preparation before entering administration. Judges are shaped through legal education and judicial systems. Military officers are trained before they command troops. Corporate leaders attend management schools before leading organisations. Yet politics — the arena that ultimately shapes laws, policies, public institutions…

Hello and welcome to the 94th edition of the Weekly Vine. In this week’s edition, we look at the why hell hath no fury like a student scorned, explain why in 2026 for Silicon Valley AI stands for “actually Indians”, look at the boring Champions League final between PSG and Arsenal, and ponder the ontological reasons…

I’ve recently been collecting versions, in different languages, of the phrase, ‘the grass is greener on the other side.’ What surprised me was how different they are texturally, geographically and in the images they bring to mind. Kannada says, ‘doorada betta kannige nunnage’, or further mountains are smoother. Unlike the English, who looked out at…

I’ve recently been collecting versions, in different languages, of the phrase, ‘the grass is greener on the other side.’ What surprised me was how different they are texturally, geographically and in the images they bring to mind. Kannada says, ‘doorada betta kannige nunnage’, or further mountains are smoother. Unlike the English, who looked out at…

Zaynich is proof that Indian pharma wants to move up the value chain. Govt can help with laws and incentives Over 80 years, ever since mass production of penicillin began, antibiotics have saved more than 20cr lives. Thanks to them, we live 23 years longer now, on average. But overuse and abuse of these life-saving…

Think about how frustrating it would be to serve time in jail as an innocent person who has never been convicted of a crime, and understand that this is a reality for over two-thirds of all inmates incarcerated in prisons across India, primarily those being held as undertrial prisoners. Many of these individuals are being…

Invented in 18th century, bicerin is a specialty of Turin It’s a unique drink in that you eat it. It’s bicerin (bich to rhyme with rich, and reen) and was invented in 18th-century Turin, which was once the centre for the production of Fiat cars. Torino means Little Bull, and Turin has always been bullish…

For more than 80 years, antibiotics have helped save millions of lives. Ever since penicillin began being made on a large scale, these medicines have helped people recover from dangerous infections. Because of antibiotics, people today live about 23 years longer on average than they did before. But there is a problem. Many antibiotics have…

Just the other day, as fate still hung over whether India would watch this World Cup or not, a couple of us old colleagues – proud, foolish sports nuts, and football tragics – furiously engaged in debate over a useless piece of information from 40 years ago.Which was that World Cup match from Mexico’86 that…

In a small office in South Block, in the summer of 1948, a Cambridge-trained physicist told India’s prime minister that the new country needed an atomic energy programme, and that the Indian Civil Service, designed for revenue collection and famine relief, could not run one. Nehru had nothing to gain politically from agreeing. He agreed…