The Rearview

Mount Everest has been an enigma for centuries. While an object of worship historically, it presented itself as a tantalising puzzle to the measurement-obsessed surveyors of the East India Company. However this puzzle presented itself in the way it did, only because of an ambitious enterprise that sought to answer a much more fundamental question: What is the exact shape of the earth?  In the firs...

‘Our whole universe was in a hot dense state and then 14 billion years ago expansion started it .’ This episode is about a scientist and one of the giants of cosmology who would have disagreed with the BareNakedLadies theme song to the Big Bang Theory. Jayant Vishnu Narlikar, who passed earlier this month, was, as a scientist, best known for advancing alternate interpretations to the mainstream co...

This week, we explore the lives of three Indian scientists, Kamala Sohoni, Anna Mani, and Janaki Ammal, who were the first women to get doctorates in science in India, making them the first women scientists in India. Spanning meteorology, botany, and nutritional sciences, they had long careers in prominent scientific departments – even heading some of them – at a time when these were overwhelmingl...

Science isn’t always the noble pursuit of truth. Ambition and greed can sometimes corrupt even promising scientists. This episode delves into one of the all-time great hoaxes perpetrated by Indian palaeontologist and geologist, Vishwajit Gupta, of Panjab University. Over decades, he passed off fossils from different parts of the world as ‘Himalayan fossils’ and was widely commended by an unsuspect...

In this episode we dive into the life of Dr Subhash Mukherjee, an obstetrician and gynaecologist from erstwhile Calcutta, who should have been one of India’s most famous and decorated doctors but whose life too a very tragic turn. Dr Mukherjee pioneered techniques in what was then, the fledgling science of In Vitro Fertilisation but his work was ridiculed and denigrated by the establishment, so mu...

Homi Bhabha, back from England, and embroiled into the scientific institutions of colonial India begins work on his vision of setting up independent scientific institutions. How did he manage to carve out a virtually uninhibited line of communication with Jawaharlal Nehru? How did he get a free hand to shape the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research? Why In spite of resources and patronage,  has...

In this episode of The Rearview, we delve into the early years of Homi Jehangir Bhabha, considered the Father of India's atomic energy program. How he gave up a promising career as a theoretical physicist, was nominated for the Nobel Prize in physics, and was as accomplished a musician and artist as he was a scientist. The Rearview is a podcast where the hosts guide you on a scenic route through t...

In this episode of The Rearview, we chronicle the life of Salim Ali, India's foremost ornithologist and conversationalist. His childhood aim was to be a renowned hunter but the feathered beings charmed him off this ambition. During his lifetime, he carried out extensive bird surveys of the subcontinent - from the far reaches of Afghanistan to the icy plateau of Tibet, Bhutan, Pakistan, and India....

JBS Haldane was an avowed communist fired by a belief, shared by several intellectuals in the early 20th century, that scientific progress had the potential to shape society. However, Haldane's support for Communism was tested, particularly by the controversial Soviet biologist, Trofim Lysenko, the most influential scientist in the Joseph Stalin regime. Eventually, Haldane was disillusioned by bei...

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane a British-born scientist who moved to India at the age of 65-years. He was a pioneer in the field of population genetics, the man who bridged the gap between Darwinian and Mendelian theories, a scientist without science degree, and a Marxist, a public intellectual who made science accessible to his generation and a forever rebel.  The Rearview is a podcast where the h...

00:00 Introduction 02:59 Vikram’s early life 05:00 Gandhi and Tagore 07:11 ‘The Retreat’ 09:30 Vikram’s parents 13:00 Time in Cambridge 16:51 Mrinalini Sarabhai 20:33 Homi J Bhabha 24:15 Sarabhai group 29:50 Interesting anecdote 32:41 Atomic Energy  45:02 Vikram Sarabhai's stand on nuclear bombs 52:17 End. Vikram Sarabhai was the founding chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation. Though...

The 29th Conference of Parties (COP) just concluded in Baku, Azerbaijan. In the last 29 years of COP, there have been several dramatic moments, with Presidents crashing meetings, delegates slashing their hands, tears and several sleepless nights. The world though has come a long way from climate change cynics to making incremental changes to contain the catastrophe headed our way. But it hasn't ex...

India has nearly 30 calendars at the time of Independence and they seemed one too many. This prompted Jawaharlal Nehru to task a committee chaired by the physicist, Meghnad Saha, to reform India’s calendars and come up with a rational, scientific calendar that accurately charted the festivals while being scientific. How did various clocks in India reconcile and become Indian Standard Time and beca...

In September 2022 Government of India brought the first batch of Cheetahs from Namibia to the Kuno National Park, in an effort to reintroduce Cheetahs, which disappeared from Indian Forests for nearly 70-years now. But it was not the first time the African Cheetahs were coming in. Listen in to know more. The Rearview is a podcast where the hosts guide you on a scenic route through the history of s...

It is that time of the year when a select few individuals across the globe get calls at unearthly hours from Sweden to tell them that they won the world's most coveted award. In this episode of The Rearview, we dive into the story of Jagadis Chandra Bose inventor extraordinaire, scientist, teacher, philosopher, pioneering science fiction writer - and alongside Mahatma Gandhi, arguably pretty high...

The annual southwest monsoons are an inseparable part of India's economy and cultural ethos. Thanks to this, there's a long historical association with trying to forecast its arrival, distribution and impact across the country. The India Meteorological Department, the official forecaster of the monsoon, has its inception in India's colonial past and through the decades has evolved multiple methods...

Prominent among the controversies at the Olympics this year was a boxing match between Algerian Iman Khelif and Angela Carini, from Italy. The bout, which lasted all of 46 seconds, was won by Khelif and was memorable despite having little to do with pugilism. Accusations flew that she had won because she was a man and, by implication, had cheated. While Khelif was eventually vindicated, this incid...

The Hindu presents The Rearview, a podcast where Jacob Koshy and Sobhana K Nair guide you on a scenic route through the history of science. Filled with fascinating anecdotes, deep archival dives, and a closer look at the quirky minds behind groundbreaking ideas. As mirrors remind us, objects reflected in them are closer. So look back with us for the Longview.