Vauhini Vara’s book is a personal history refracted through the history of technological capitalism. She shows us how generative technology, a mere imitation of human articulation, reaches a dead end when it comes to communication. She traces the then and now of digital innovation, and what is being mediated for us emotionally through the companies that design our personal chatbots.
In Part Two we discuss the limitations of anger, the potential for empathy instead if accompanied by rigour, and the underrated merits of using joy pedagogically.
In Part One of this two-part conversation with The Third Eye, Bhan discusses the making of the ‘urban’ in policy versus reality, the lack of identity for the urban poor, what urban practitioners should have learnt from the Covid pandemic, and the great disruptor entering urban studies—the Anthropocene.
The Third Eye explores the role of science education in our expectations of public health, and how, as we turn into con-sumers of science rather than producers, we forget that sci-ence has stopped serving those that need it most.
Ashish Kothari, an activist who has been studying ecological and development alternatives his whole life, talks about the communities that stayed safe during the pandemic. He has been a powerful force in ecological and social equity decades before they were buzzwords in India.
Three decades ago, Ankur began an experiment in pedagogy with children, young people and communities in several marginalised neighbourhoods of Delhi.
