Café Oikos, a volunteer-driven, not-for-profit initiative, is the brainchild of engineer-turned-ecologists Anisha Jayadevan and Shishir Rao. It is a free and open public event regularly held at Bengaluru bookstores or cafés wherein people from all walks of life can come to learn about ecology and conservation research directly from active scientists. In this article, Anisha writes about how Café Oikos came to be, and what it aims to achieve.

The Indian National Science Academy recently published a book with detailed analysis and recommendations on ethical practices for doing science in India. With contributions from eighteen different authors, the book delves into multiple areas of concern and enumerates ethical guidelines for researchers and policymakers at several different levels. The book is freely available to download on INSA's website.

Next in our series on networking in science, Siddharth Kankaria discusses how building and maintaining a strong professional network can aid the career development of scientists and science professionals both in and out of academia. In particular, he writes about how effective networking can make the process of transitioning to a new career path smoother and more efficient.

The advent of social media has greatly increased the ease and speed of sharing information, and the Indian scientific community has not lagged behind. In this first article in our new series on scientific networking, Karishma Kaushik and Snehal Kadam discuss the various ways in which researchers and science professionals can leverage the use of social media for influencing scientific discourse and policy.

Located halfway across the world from each other, four dedicated researchers felt the acute lack of well-researched science stories in their mother tongue, Bengali, and decided to come together to fill this gap. The outcome of their efforts - Bigyan.org.in - was launched on National Science Day, 2014. Here is the story of their journey.