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Books and Magazines
As the eldest child, I had the run of the house. One great pleasure was rummaging through the collection of old books and magazines. Some...

John Pucadyil
Oct 15, 20224 min read
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Mahabali’s Fight to Reclaim Kerala
The Onam festival in Kerala, which came on September 12 this year, is the harvest festival of Kerala. It commemorates the mythical King...

John Pucadyil
Oct 14, 20225 min read
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Climate Change Fiction of the 21st Century
If there is one genre of fiction that has celebrated global disasters, it is science fiction. The villains are Artificial Intelligence...

John Pucadyil
Oct 13, 20224 min read
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The Dystopian Futures of Philip K Dick
The first movie I saw based on Philip Dick’s fiction is the “Minority Report”. This story happens in a future where crime is prevented...

John Pucadyil
Oct 10, 20224 min read
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Reflections on an Onam Feast
Covid’s unique contribution to our way of living is the proliferation of entities supplying cooked food at home. Thanks to one such...

John Pucadyil
Sep 25, 20225 min read
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A Lifetime of Reading
As the eldest child, I had the run of the house. One great pleasure was rummaging through the collection of old books and magazines....

John Pucadyil
Sep 17, 20226 min read
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Experiments with Plasmas
There are two ways of learning new things. In one, you read up everything (prior art in the patent patois) on the field before doing...

John Pucadyil
Sep 8, 20225 min read
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The IBIS Trilogy
Amitav Ghosh’s books are read extensively and are admired by both readers and critics. Though born in India, he is now a citizen of the...

John Pucadyil
Sep 3, 20226 min read
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Return on Investment
Mercy auntie was on the phone. Could I go over to her place in Cochin next Saturday? There was a function celebrating her 60th...

John Pucadyil
Sep 3, 20225 min read
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Innovation Cycles and Industrial Revolutions
Industrial growth is characterised by surges with an extended period, typically 40–60 years, driven by clusters of innovations. New...

John Pucadyil
Aug 20, 20224 min read
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Colours of Hydrogen
Hydrogen burns with a blue colour. This attribute has nothing to do with the appellation ‘Blue Hydrogen,’ which is the name for...

John Pucadyil
Aug 12, 20225 min read
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Remembering Predhiman Kaw
I met Predhiman Kaw for the first time in 1972 when I visited the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) to give a talk on my work on plasma...

John Pucadyil
Aug 5, 20226 min read
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A Miracle at Muvattupuzha
John Kuriakose is the Managing Director of DentCare Dental Lab, a company focusing on fabricating dental prostheses. DentCare has...

John Pucadyil
Jul 29, 20225 min read
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A Viennese Interlude
A train carrying Hindu karsevaks returning from Ayodhya was set on fire in Godhra in Gujarat on the 27th of February 2002, leading to...

John Pucadyil
Jul 14, 20226 min read
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Backwater Memories
My father’s elder brother lived in Cochin. We called him Achan. He worked with Volkart Brothers, a Swiss Company and used to live in...

John Pucadyil
Jul 6, 20225 min read
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From Roja to Rahmania
It was a rainy afternoon. But my friend Sanjay Zaveri insisted that I and my wife, should accompany him to see a film called Roja. He...

John Pucadyil
Jul 1, 20225 min read
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An Affinity for Science
Courtesy Pexels Experiments with strips of films projected onto the wall using sunlight and a lens were the earliest memory of dabbling...

John Pucadyil
Jun 26, 20226 min read
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An Edupreneur’s Story
Baby John is in his forties. Above-average height, slightly dark-complexioned, regular features, he has a determined look. He founded...

John Pucadyil
Jun 20, 20225 min read
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Ambient Pressure Cold Plasma Jets
The great American scientist Irving Langmuir was the first to use the term plasma in 1927 to describe the glowing, ionised state of...

John Pucadyil
Jun 15, 20225 min read
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Cheques and Balances
Stephen Leacock, a Canadian humorist, has satirized his traumatic encounter with banks in the short story ‘My Financial Career’. He says...

John Pucadyil
Jun 11, 20225 min read
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Voices From Behind the Glass Wall
The child sits in a corner, aloof and not looking at anything. It is as if he perceives the world from behind a glass wall. It becomes...

John Pucadyil
Jun 6, 20225 min read
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India Stack: a Transformative Technology
Economist, in its 2022 May 13th issue, wrote: “As India emerges from the pandemic, however, a new pattern of growth is visible. It is...

John Pucadyil
Jun 4, 20226 min read
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The Fusion Mavericks
Figure courtesy IPP Garching In early 1951, Argentine President Juan Perón made a startling claim that a group of scientists under his...

John Pucadyil
May 28, 20227 min read
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A 'Stray Dog' Story
We were driving back from the shop. The car had passed through the campus and entered the road leading to my house. Then I saw the dog...

John Pucadyil
May 21, 20224 min read
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