Philip Mathew

1 week ago | theweek.in | Philip Mathew

HOW CAN ONE NOT WEEP after reading Souri Raju’s statement? The fifth-generation gravedigger and state secretary of the graveyard workers’ association in Karnataka told Senior Special Correspondent Prathima Nandakumar, “We grew up eating rice sprinkled on cemeteries and have come to realise that we carry nothing with us when we leave this world.”In that statement, he unintentionally points a finger at policy makers, and you and me, dear reader.

2 weeks ago | theweek.in | Philip Mathew

THE IMAGE SERVICES of wire agencies like AP, AFP and Reuters give journalists a window into unseen worlds. Only a minuscule sampling of their daily offering reaches you, dear reader. While some images are stunning or unexpected, an equal number are predictable and pedestrian. For example, think of natural water bodies in metros, and I can right away predict two series that will come up in June and in October-November.

3 weeks ago | theweek.in | Philip Mathew

MORE THAN ABOUT THE ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha’s article spoke to me about the interconnectedness of the world. And how everyone gets hurt in some way or another when the world becomes unquiet. The ‘butterfly effect’ speaks of one small change in an area triggering drastic changes in another, despite the sectors being unconnected. An example cited by Sybiha is about how Ukraine played a crucial part in helping develop ISRO’s semi-cryogenic engine, the SCE-200.

1 month ago | theweek.in | Philip Mathew

LAST MARCH, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates met to talk technology, the prime minister quipped that AI and aai—the Marathi word for mother—had an almost homophonic similarity. I chuckled, as my early years were spent in Maximum City. While reading Deputy News Editor Navin J. Antony’s cover story on how Mumbai was becoming AI’s aai in India, I thought of that old reference.

1 month ago | theweek.in | Philip Mathew

FOR A GENERATION ACCUSED of shunning traditional values and having its nose buried in devices, our youth often surprise us and how. Only last week, we read about how a 26-year-old Odiya youth rushed to help two women—an Indian and an Israeli—who were being abused by three men in Koppal district, Karnataka. The attackers pushed Bibhas Nayak into a nearby canal, where he drowned to death. Police reports say that the women were then gangraped.