Ganesh Babu, Author at Ganesh Babu

Growth of European Cities in the Last 1000 Years | Short Histories and Drivers of Change

This article is a work in progress and I update it once in a while with relevant information as my thinking on this topic evolves. I am not sure if this will ever be complete, hopefully it does. Please be vary of accuracy. I'll add links to sources over time.…

Ganesh Babu In Deep Dive

Water, Not Under the Bridge | Tales of Drinking Water Provision

The biggest ‘quality of life' improvement when it comes to living in the Netherlands than in India is not the thousands of kilometres of cycle tracks, low noise levels or the parks in every corner, but it is the access to potable water. Open a tap, any tap, in your…

Ganesh Babu In Featured, Ideas

A speculative cartographic imagination of an India along ecoregions

Scientists estimate that there are 8.7 million species ( ~15% margin of error) on this planet. We have identified 1.3 million species so far. This includes everything from mammals and reptiles to plants and algae. However, from a human perspective, our immediate surroundings don't seem that diverse. Especially if you…

Ganesh Babu In Hacks, Knowledge

The 4 million words that define governmental power in 183 countries

There are 4,050,756 words in the constitutions of 183 countries. Aren't there more than 183 countries in the world? I'll explain down the line, read on. So, I was thinking recently about 'Governments' as an entity and as a construct. What gives them the 'power'? What legally establishes them? Without…

Ganesh Babu In Hacks

32 Trillion font views stacked

At the time of writing this line, Google fonts had 37,926,883,824,759 views. That is almost 38 trillion, with a T. Context: If you haven't tried building websites or apps, you might have not heard of Google Fonts. Your operating system, say Windows 10, comes preloaded with a few fonts. If…

Ganesh Babu In Books, Urbanism

The ones who walk away from Omelas | A tale of Indian cities

A few days back, I read a short story called "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". I've been thinking about it for the past few days and couldn't take my mind off it. I thought writing about it will give shape to my thoughts and get it out of…

Ganesh Babu In Knowledge

Crossings and peculiar naming conventions! The tale of Zebra, Pelican, Puffin, Toucan, Tiger, Panda and Cow crossings!

After writing the title for this blog post, I feel like I am writing Aesop's fable, however, this is a fable from the streets. I am someone, who is guilty of making numerous puns out of the term, "zebra crossing". When I stumbled upon something called a Pelican crossing, I…

Ganesh Babu In Contemplations

Nature Vs Man-Made | Part 1

This article is a stream of consciousness journal entry and might not have much narrative coherence and might have logical fallacies. I find this idea of dichotomy between nature and man-made quite amusing. What it means is that, here are two forces of creation, one being nature and the other…

Ganesh Babu