top of page

Pucadyil's Page
Search


Stories for Botswana
Precious Ramotswe, private detective, is one of the most colourful fictional characters to have come out of Africa, Botswana to be...

John Pucadyil
Nov 12, 20215 min read


The Dune Saga
The desert planet Arrakis, also called Dune, is created by the fervid imagination of Frank Herbert. Set more than twenty-thousand years...

John Pucadyil
Nov 6, 20215 min read


Plasma Assited Farming
There was a time when Plasma Physics was all about the behaviour of plasmas at millions of degrees of temperature trapped in magnetic...

John Pucadyil
Oct 30, 20214 min read


Innovation in India
I have spent a good part of my professional life developing commercially and strategically useful applications based on Plasma Physics....

John Pucadyil
Oct 23, 20215 min read
Facebook and India
I saw the movie “Social Network” in the PVR multiplex in Ahmedabad in 2010. The movie was about the founding of one of the defining...

John Pucadyil
Oct 10, 20214 min read


The YouTube University
My wife is sold on YouTube videos posted by soft-voiced young girls gushing with enthusiasm, giving gratuitous advice on solving...

John Pucadyil
Oct 6, 20214 min read


How Technology Drives Inequality
“The amazing thing about technology is that it is a great leveller; it recognizes no caste, creed or religion”: so said Mukesh Ambani...

John Pucadyil
Oct 2, 20216 min read
Where Music Has Gone
Recently, my Samsung music system broke down and I was left with a modest collection of music VCDs and DVDs accumulated in the 80s....

John Pucadyil
Sep 24, 20215 min read


Smiley's World
I became aware of the shadowy presence of George Smiley in the Regal Theatre in Connaught Place in the late seventies in one of my...

John Pucadyil
Sep 23, 20215 min read


A Burst of Starfire
“Scientists have come tantalizingly close to reproducing the power of the sun — albeit only in a speck of hydrogen for a fraction of a...

John Pucadyil
Sep 4, 20215 min read
Hailey Road Chronicles
Indian authors writing in English may be divided into two categories: Those who write for the world and those who write for India....

John Pucadyil
Aug 27, 20215 min read


Kerala of my Dreams
Prof. Babu Joseph of the Rajaji Forum, a think tank, asked me to write on “Kerala of my dreams”. I accepted with enthusiasm, but on...

John Pucadyil
Jul 31, 20214 min read


Ideas and Innovation
Ideas are the wheels that make the world move. Adam Smith’s ideas on the division of labour and free markets led to the industrial...

John Pucadyil
Jun 25, 20215 min read


Remembering Mani Iyer
Mani Iyer walked into our life when we moved to Bopal, a suburb of Ahmedabad, where I had built my house. He was the CEO of a ...

John Pucadyil
May 28, 20214 min read


Thoughts on Resource Management
The American philosopher and educationist Nicholas Butler has said: “An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until...

John Pucadyil
May 13, 20215 min read


The Industrial Plasma
The Plasma Physics Programme had been set up at the Physical Research Laboratory in 1982 by the Department of Science and Technology, ...

John Pucadyil
Apr 17, 20215 min read


Years at Aligarh
I spent close to eight years at Aligarh. First as a Ph.D. student and later as a lecturer in the Physics Department. When I came here...

John Pucadyil
Apr 17, 20215 min read


The Doctoral Dreams
I was 23, and my job as a lecturer with the Athanasius College, Kothamangalam, was beginning to be a drag. I could see myself growing ...

John Pucadyil
Apr 2, 20214 min read


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
Apr 1, 20214 min read
bottom of page