The amber after the Green Revolution: Agri Agenda for Amrit Kaal ~ My column in The Hindu BusinessLine #India@75

“On the Spot with Shiv” in the 2025 Livelihoods India Summit was about water. I hosted a fireside chat with @shraman_jha and @rathish_bala on “Securing the Future – The New Water Paradigm” A recording of the video is available now at

ఈరోజు #బాపు గారి జయంతి 🙏

NEW MINING POD w/ @coinbase: "Your hashrate is producing Bitcoin. All your ASICS & containers are producing Bitcoin. If you're assets are denominated in a currency, your liabilities might what to be in a similar currency." Presented by @cleanspark_inc

ITC’s Agribusiness Division wins dual accolades for leadership in digital transformation and inclusive capability building at the CII SCALE Awards 2025! 🏆 Excellence Award in Food Perishables and FMCG: This award recognizes the use of digital technology to improve the agri

The “third state of life” doesn’t overthrow biology—it expands it. Life may be less a switch, more a spectrum of organization. A reminder that nature is always richer than our definitions. That’s all in this week’s #SundayScience 😊

There’s a striking parallel with AI: intelligence and goal-directed behavior emerging without consciousness or explicit programming. Nature pioneered emergence long before computers. #SundayScience

Practical implications are huge: regenerative medicine, targeted drug delivery, self-healing tissues, and biological machines built by cooperating cells, not rigid design. #SundayScience

Ethical questions follow: What is the moral status of such entities? Who is responsible for them? How far should bioengineering go? #SundayScience

The third state reframes death itself. Death may not be a moment, but a biological process—with cells persisting, reorganizing, and exploring new possibilities. #SundayScience

Skeptics argue this is just rebranded cell culture. Supporters counter: standard cultures don’t move, heal, self-organize, or replicate structures. The debate is active—and important. #SundayScience

This raises evolutionary questions. Could selection act on cellular collectives formed after organismal death? Are we seeing a new substrate for evolution? #SundayScience

A key lesson: DNA is not a complete instruction manual. Genes interact with physics, cell signaling, and environment. Context shapes biological behavior as much as code. #SundayScience

They show agency without consciousness: responding to environments, solving physical problems, coordinating behavior—without brains, thoughts, or awareness. #SundayScience

These entities break our categories: Alive? Yes—at the cellular level. Dead? Yes—the organism is gone. Machine? No. Organism? Not quite. Hence: a third biological regime. #SundayScience

Anthrobots have even helped repair damaged neural tissue in experimental models. Human cells, new architecture, entirely new purpose. #SundayScience

Next came Anthrobots, made from human lung cells. Their cilia—normally used to clear mucus—enabled movement and collective behavior in lab environments. #SundayScience

Some xenobots even showed kinematic self-replication—gathering loose cells and assembling new versions of themselves. Replication without copying DNA. #SundayScience

Xenobots were shape-guided by AI, but their behavior wasn’t programmed. The same genome, placed in a new context, produced entirely new functions. #SundayScience

First example: Xenobots. Built from frog skin and heart cells, they can move, heal after damage, and act collectively—without organs, nerves, or a brain. #SundayScience

This has led to the idea of a “third state of life”—a post-organismal condition where living cells reorganize into novel, functional systems. Neither alive in the usual sense, nor fully dead. #SundayScience

Cell survival alone isn’t new. What is new: some post-mortem cells begin to self-organize, cooperate, and perform functions unrelated to their original role. #SundayScience