June 01, 2026

-

Premium

OUR DATA, OURSELVES?

YEARS AGO, I read the book Bridget Jones's Diary, by Helen Fielding, about a single woman in London looking for love. And I was struck by the fact that, while there was a lot of text devoted to her quest for romance, Bridget often started her diary entries by detailing personal metrics. She listed things like how much she weighed, how many cigarettes she'd smoked that day, how much alcohol she'd had to drink and the number of calories she'd consumed. At the time, that seemed to me like such a stressful and somewhat obsessive way to keep a record of your life.Fast-forward to today. I wake up and check my wearable tracker to see how many hours I've slept. Then I input what I ate for breakfast so I can monitor my calorie intake. My tracker also counts my steps, and I aim for at least 10,000 each day. And every once in a while, just because the information is available, I monitor my heart rate (during exercise and at rest) and my blood oxygen level. If I wanted, I could also keep an eye on a lot more, such as how much water I'm drinking each day and my stress level at any point in time.And I'm not alone. It's estimated that more than one in five adults now use a wearable biotracker of some kind, including watches, rings, patches, earbuds, clip-on devices and smart clothing. Whether someone's trying to lose weight, get more fit, sleep better or monitor a chronic medical condition like high blood pressure or diabetes, there's a wearable device that can offer

CLEANING THE TIDE

MONSOONS IN Mumbai evoke mixed emotions. There is relief as cool south-westerly winds sweep through the city, washing away the weariness of a long, humid summer. But there is also dread. Along with rains come floods, clogged drains, and mountains of trash hurled back onto the shore by the Arabian Sea--an enduring reminder of a problem the city has struggled with for decades.For Boyan Slat and his team at The Ocean Cleanup, however, that challenge represents an opportunity. This year, the Netherlands-based environmental organization takes its 30 Cities Programme to Mumbai. The goal is simple: gradually remove plastic waste from the creeks and nullahs that thread through the city before it reaches the sea. Yet the team is under no illusion about the scale of the task. Mumbai could prove to be one of their most demanding projects yet."About two to five per cent of global plastic pollution comes just from Mumbai, so it's a significant amount. Once we have our systems in place across the 30 cities, we would have reduced about a third of the pollution flowing into the oceans. So, this is high impact through relatively low effort," says the 32-year-old founder.The success of the project will be a significant milestone in achieving their goal of cleaning up 90 per cent of ocean plastic pollution by 2040. According to World Population Review, Mumbai has the fourth highest population in the world at 21.7 million. Its plastic consumption is staggering--the Ocean Cleanups's Smart Survey, conducted