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A.K.R.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am huge fan of A.K.Ramanujan's writing -- be it his translations from Tamil, his academic writing, his poems, essays .... just anything. So I was delighted to learn that he had written his own memoir in Kannada --...

Red Earth, Pouring Rain

Blessed are those who have a friend to discuss beautiful verses with. Movie-makers, lyricists make it easy for poetry-lovers when they chose to incorporate words from ancient poems into nicely picturized modern hits. In a double dose of luck, a novelist (Vikram Chandra) chose imagery...

Can Digital Learning Include the Developing World?

Al Fanar Media Vijee Venkatraman / 29 May 2016 As educational technology evolves, digital learning is poised to expand its reach in the developing world. Last week, over two hundred practitioners from the Learning International Networks Consortium convened at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to explore...

The Naming of Things

Recently, Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, was in the news because scientists named a tiny Australian leech after her. “I am thrilled to be immortalized as Chtonobdella tanae,” Tan said. “This humble leech has looped across a new scientific threshold—the first microscopic...

A Library in Jaffna

Shareeq is too young to remember much of the civil war years in Sri Lanka (1983-2009). But for another patron, 75-year-old Rajenthiran Selvanayagam, spending time at the library is a peaceful contrast to that era. He lost his wife to the war. His son went...

Millipede as Catalyst

An arthropod notorious for train delays and household intrusions ends up delivering a gift to green chemistry. Chamberlinius hualienensis, once just a pest, is now at the center of a biotech pivot—thanks to that stealthy enzyme tucked in its cyanide-secreting physiology. Swarms of this cyanide-secreting...