How ‘Pasoori’ dancer Sheema Kermani resisted Gen Zia-ul-Haq by wearing ‘un-Islamic’ saris
This piece from The Print highlights an iconoclast from across the border. The unlikely star of the piece is Sheema Kermani, a Bharatnatyam dancer from Pakistan. 26 million people across the world have watched her performance in ‘Pasoori” (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Eqb_-j3FDA), a Pakistani video which marries a Punjabi song with Sheema’s Bharatnatyam. Now, you would imagine that […]
If not for Kamalini Dutt, Doordarshan would have lost some of its most valuable treasures for good
In this era of digital overload, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that some of India’s greatest cultural treasures are stored in the vaults of the country’s state-owned broadcaster, Doordarshan. However, these vaults are so massive that someone needed to go in there, locate the treasures, restore them to their former glory […]
Sanctions and the spectre of deglobalisation
This piece by Shakkar Aiyar underscores the ineffectual nature of the sanctions that are being enforced by the West on Russia. The subtext of the piece is that other than the pulverised population of Ukraine, the other big loser in this conflict is the USA – its weakness as a superpower is now out there […]
This is the reason Demis Hassabis started DeepMind
This piece focuses on a specific application of AI – the use of AI by Dennis Hassabis (the man who in 2016 used AI to train DeepMind to beat the world champion in Go, Lee Sedol of Korea) to predict the structure of proteins. Reading the piece helps us understand how technology, and specifically AI, […]
Talking War and Market Volatility With a Giant of Economics
This is an exceptionally good interview conducted by Jeff Sommer with the Nobel Laureate, Eugene Fama, who demonstrated 60 years ago that that short-term stock price movements are unpredictable and approximate a random walk. In doing so, Fama revolutionised finance and set the ground both for the rise of tracker funds and for the use […]
An extract from Anirudh Kanisetti’s book, ‘Lords of the Deccan’
Many of us in Marcellus are fans of the young Indian historian, Manu Pillai, who has done much to make Indian history interesting and accessible through several bestselling books. Now, as the remaking of India produces more scholars who are researching the country’s history, we have found another equally articulate historian in Anirudh Kanisetti, an […]
How Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema Pulls Off a Shallow Depth of Field
Over the past two decades we have watched Christopher Nolan’s riveting movies (eg. Inception, Dunkirk, Interstallar, Batman Begins, The Dark Night Rises, Tenet, etc) as much for the stunning visuals as for the intriguing plotlines. Nowhere is more apparent than in last year’s movie ‘Tenet’, part of which is set in Mumbai. In ‘Tenet’ the […]
Why Buddha would be frowning at Ukraine today, and why India got it right with Pokhran 1 and 2
The West’s feeble response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted Shekhar Gupta to write this piece the sum of substance of which is that we should laud India’s political leadership – across parties – for pursuing India’s nuclear agenda over the past 40 years. In a world where the West’s assurances of protection and civility […]
‘Women Are The Best Borrowers And The Best Repayers’
As India’s economy and society has changed rapidly over the past decade, one straightforward source of competitive advantage – in business, in investing, in politics and generally in Indian life – has accrued to those who have made the effort to understand the new India. Govindraj Ethiraj is amongst those who has made strenuous efforts […]
How Bots and Fake Accounts Push China’s Vision of Winter Olympic Wonderland
We have highlighted before the sort of Orwellian propaganda the Chinese Communist party likes to use to keep its vast kingdom under control – see https://marcellus.in/story/chinas-troll-king-how-a-tabloid-editor-became-the-voice-of-chinese-nationalism/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=MIMPL&utm_campaign=3L3S-9th-Jan-2022&utm_content=LR1.This piece from ProPublica illustrates how even a sporting event like the Winter Olympics is airbrushed by the Communist Party. Whilst such articles will be viewed by some as a sign […]
How to work hard
Paul Graham, the English-American computer programmer, is the legendary founder of the Y Combinator, the seed capital firm which 20 years ago transformed start-up investing in the Silicon Valley. Now retired, he lives in England and writes thought provoking blogs about seemingly simple topics which, under Graham’s treatment, yield rich insights. In this blog he […]
Spotlighting Ultramarine & Pigments
This month we place the spotlight on Ultramarine & Pigments Limited (UMP), a top 3 global manufacturer of inorganic Ultramarine Blue pigment (and the leader in India and Asia-Pacific) and amongst the top manufacturer of anionic surfactants in India. Ultramarine’s pigment business enjoys significant manufacturing complexities around yield, purity and consistency particularly for industrial grade […]
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