The term for any automatically operated machine replacing human effort, though it may not resemble human beings in appearance or perform functions in a human-like manner, namely robot is traced to a 1921 Science-fiction play Rossum’s Universal Robots by Czech writer and playwright Karel Capek (1890-1938). Borrowed from Czech robota (drudgery, servitude), the term, taken…

The times when many time-honoured areas among the multitude of human pursuits first witnessed emergence of terms such as bio-technology, bio-engineering, bio-this and bio-that and subsequently suffered veiled ridicule from the orthodoxy before either fading on count of novelty in public domain or accepted without perceptible fanfare. Currently, the world in general and almost all…

After God-knows-for-how-long, counted in centuries, including the periods mentioned in the land’s epics, sympathising with the home-maker tied to her dawn-to-dusk daily chores of keeping the family hearty and healthy, particularly cooking by burning smoke-spewing firewood and drawing water from the well, her lot has lately witnessed a mountain of relief, thanks to supply of…

Who are bestowed respect and recognition in society? Are they who possess uncommon virtues and extraordinary scholarship or they who possess wealth in astronomical proportions? Given the contemporary societal scenario, the answer to the above question is both kinds of people for the simple reason that giants of either kind account for a minuscule fraction…

We are in an era witnessing the literati of the land, particularly the urban elite and their young cohorts giving up time-honoured customs and looking askance at the traditions that have endured for centuries, some of them featured in the narratives of epics as well as scriptures. The impact of rule by aliens for nearly…

Primary driving force for most inventions is a need. The time-honoured expression Necessity is the mother of invention, in the nature of a proverb, seems to hog attention more to the factor of need than the sweat and toil that marks the birth of any invention. The question of birth of a need in real…

Governments in general and the incumbent Government of the country at the Centre in particular are marked with the noble intention of working for the country’s progress and welfare of its citizens. The related plans and programmes, consistent with the set of policies appropriate to specific sectors of the economy such as agriculture, industry, education,…

Reports about instances of different kinds of structures crashing even before they were completed in many regions of the country, including Karnataka, don’t seem to have triggered either attention from the administration or debates in public domain among both professional fraternity in civil engineering sector and lay public, who are the ultimate beneficiaries of sound…

Public speakers marked by their rhetoric derived from their knowledge on various subjects specific to their captive audiences as well as perception often take fascination to extol the land’s culture in glorious terms, not forgetting to lament on the current scenario of money power, muscle power and mass power holding sway, even as the various…

Patriotism, an unalloyed virtue of love for one’s country and nationalism, driven by the ideology of a sense of belonging to one’s country seems to be witnessing suffocation in the current dispensation of providing good governance to 135-plus crore people across the nation, identifying themselves with diverse badges of their multitude of lingo, faiths, ethnicity,…