From hosting the Chess Olympiad to Praggnanandhaa beating world champion Magnus Carlsen, India enjoyed significant success at the sport this year

Two female chess players, one 35 and the other 15 did India proud in the Kazakhstan city of Almaty at the fag end of the year. At the World rapid and blitz chess championship, Koneru Humpy won a silver and B. Savitha Shri a bronze.

A great year for Indian chess just became greater. The year 2022 should actually go down in history as India’s greatest ever.

Over the last couple of decades or so, India has enjoyed some significant successes — Viswanathan Anand won five World championships, the first of which came in 2000 — and virtually every year, there have been several causes to cheer about, but 2022 has been unique.

Significant moment

India doesn’t boast as many great talents in the women’s section as it does in the men’s. So when a 15-year-old Savitha wins a medal at an event as prestigious as the World rapid and blitz championship, after beginning as the 36th seed, it is a significant moment. As is the silver of Humpy, a former World rapid champion.

Earlier in December, another Indian woman brought much joy to Indian chess. R. Vaishali did that in the City of Joy, as she stunned a very strong field to take the blitz title in the Tata Steel Chess India tournament at Kolkata.

At the very tournament, in the open section, Nihal Sarin claimed the rapid title and Arjun Erigaisi the blitz. R. Praggnanandhaa and D. Gukesh, who complete the magnificent quartet of Indian teenagers, may have disappointed at Kolkata, but they too have had some exceptional results right through the year.

In fact, Gukesh’s outstanding performance for India-2 at the Chess Olympiad in Chennai — he won his first eight games on the trot en route to the gold on the top board — was one of the highlights of the year in world chess. And India swept the medals at the Olympiad, winning nine out of the 36 medals on offer.

The Olympiad was an organisational success too, thanks in no small measure to the active participation of the Tamil Nadu Government, which had only got just four months to conduct an event featuring more than 1700 participants from 186 countries. The Olympiad also helped chess become more mainstream in India.

With players like Praggnanandhaa consistently making news, by scoring stunning wins against the likes of World champion Magnus Carlsen, the game hit the headlines regularly. The year’s last ranking list has eight Indians in the world’s top 70.

The year also saw India continuing to win medals at the World age-group championships and promising teenagers like V. Pranav and Pranav Anand turning Grandmasters.

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Dr Mahima Swamy, from Bangalore, one of the University of Dundee’s most revered experts within their School of Life Sciences, has been named as one of the rising stars of European science. Due to her research, she has been chosen to join the prestigious European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Young Investigator network.

Based within the University’s Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit (MRC-PPU), Dr Swamy heads a research group that investigates immune responses in the intestine and joins 23 other researchers to become a part of the network of 135 current and 390 former members of the programme.

She said, “I am really excited to be a part of this network and meet all the dynamic young scientists doing cutting-edge research across Europe. I believe that being a part of this esteemed group will help our research immensely, and I am very grateful to my lab and my mentors for the support that got me this award.”

A key part of Dr. Swamy’s work is the study of inflammatory bowel diseases and how these can be prompted by the body’s immune system attacking the gut lining in the absence of infection. Research in the Swamy group aims to address how we can better harness the gut immune system to protect against harmful invasion, but also prevent it from damaging the gut.

The EMBO Young Investigator programme supports the scientific endeavours of researchers who have become laboratory group leaders in the past four years. EMBO Young Investigators are selected by a team of EMBO members for the high standard of their research.

“It is marvellous news that Mahima has been awarded a prestigious EMBO award,” said Professor Dario Alessi, Director of the MRC-PPU.

“It is well-deserved recognition and a huge boost for the vital research that Mahima is undertaking on deciphering the biological roles of the enigmatic Intraepithelial lymphocytes that patrol the intestinal epithelium. Mahima’s work is contributing to improved understanding, treatment and diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer.”

The work of Dr Swamy is just part of the reason the University of Dundee remains on the cutting edge of new research and technology.

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The Indian-origin veteran of the insurance industry is the second-ranking officer at the prominent institution.

Sushmita Shukla, an Indian-origin veteran of the insurance industry, has been appointed as First Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, making her the second-ranking officer at the prominent institution.

The appointment was approved by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the New York Fed said in a statement Thursday.

Shukla, 54, has been appointed by the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as First Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, effective March 2023.

As First Vice President, Shukla, who has an MBA from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Mumbai, will be the New York Fed’s second-ranking officer.

Shukla said in the statement that she is honoured to have the opportunity to work for a mission-driven organisation like the New York Fed.

“I look forward to applying all that I’ve learned in my career – including my technology, operations, and risk-focused experiences – to furthering the key activities and supporting the dedicated leadership of this critical institution.” President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Fed John Williams described Shukla as a dynamic, inspiring and highly effective leader who brings extensive experience leading large-scale enterprises and transformation initiatives to the Bank.

He said Shukla has an “in-depth knowledge of technology and agile innovation methods and is passionate about creating a truly diverse and inclusive culture.” Together with the Bank’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Shukla will establish, communicate, and execute the strategic direction of the organisation and will also serve as an alternate voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the statement said.

Chair of the New York Fed’s Board of Directors and Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Comunilife Rosa Gil said that Shukla has “deep expertise and leadership acumen” that will support the Bank in achieving its mission and strategic priorities.

According to Shukla’s profile on the New York Fed website, she has served in leadership roles in the insurance industry for nearly 20 years and has extensive experience leading large-scale enterprise transformation initiatives, as well as in-depth knowledge of technology and Agile innovation methods.

Most recently, Shukla, who lives in Connecticut, was Senior Vice President and Chief Operations Officer for International Accident & Health at Chubb, the world’s largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company, where she led operations, claims technology, and strategic programmes for the international accident and health business in 51 countries.

In that role, she drove operational efficiencies and transformed customer service and the customer experience, the profile said.

Previously, Shukla led an enterprise‐wide transformation program at Healthfirst, where she started as Vice President of Enterprise Business Solutions in 2016 and then served as interim Senior Vice President of Enterprise Transformation in 2017.

Shukla has also held positions at Liberty Mutual, Merrill Lynch, and GiantBear Inc., a wireless technology and application service provider in New York.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks which, together with the Board of Governors in Washington, DC, make up the Federal Reserve System.

The New York Fed oversees the Second Federal Reserve District, which includes New York state, the 12 northern counties of New Jersey, Fairfield County in Connecticut, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

Though it serves a geographically small area compared with those of other Federal Reserve Banks, the New York Fed is the largest Reserve Bank in terms of assets and volume of activity, according to its website. 

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.

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Nirmala Sitharaman has made it to the list for the fourth time in a row.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Biocon Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar are among six Indians who have made it to the Forbes’ annual list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.

Ranked at number 36, Ms. Sitharaman has made it to the list for the fourth time in a row. In 2021, the 63-year-old minister was ranked at number 37 on the list, while she was in the 41st spot in 2020 and 34th in 2019.

The other Indians to feature on the list are HCLTech Chairperson Roshni Nadar Malhotra (rank: 53), Securities And Exchange Board Of India (SEBI) Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch (rank: 54), and Steel Authority Of India Chairperson Soma Mondal (rank: 67).

Ms. Malhotra, Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw and Ms. Nayar made it to the prestigious list last year also at 52nd, 72nd and 88th spots respectively.

This year Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw is ranked 72, while Ms. Nayar is at 89th spot, according to the list released by Forbes on Tuesday.

The list includes 39 CEOs; 10 heads of state; and 11 billionaires worth a combined $115 billion.

The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women

FORBES 2022

Highlighting Ms. Nayar’s profile, the Forbes list noted that the 59-year-old businessman “worked as an investment banker for two decades, leading IPOs and helping other entrepreneurs achieve their dreams. In 2012, she decided to work for herself, investing $2 million of her own savings to launch the beauty and retail company Nykaa. She took it public in 2021 and became India’s richest self-made woman”.

According to the Forbes website, 41-year-old Ms. Malhotra is responsible for all strategic decisions for the $12 billion technology company.

“Founded by her father, Shiv Nadar, in 1976, HCL became a central player in India’s rise as an IT hub,” it noted.

On March 1, 56-year-old Ms. Buch became the first female chair of the SEBI, which oversees India’s more-than $3 trillion stock market ecosystem.

Ms. Mondal, 59, who became the first woman to chair the state-run Steel Authority of India (SAIL) in January 2021, has led the company to record financial growth since taking over. The company’s profits surged threefold to 120 billion rupees in her first year at the helm, according to the Forbes website.

It described 69-year-old Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw as one of India’s richest self-made women. She founded India’s largest listed biopharmaceutical firm by revenue, in 1978. The firm has successfully forayed into the lucrative U.S. market. The company has Asia’s largest insulin factory in Malaysia’s Johor region, it noted.

“The list was determined by four main metrics: money, media, impact and spheres of influence. For political leaders, we weighed gross domestic products and populations; for corporate leaders, revenues and employee counts; and media mentions and reach of all. The result is a collection of women who are fighting the status quo,” according to the website.

For her leadership during the Ukraine war, as well as her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen sits atop the 19th annual Forbes list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.

“Her influence is unique — no one else on the list formulates policy on behalf of 450 million people — but her commitment to a free and democratic society is not. Von der Leyen is just one face of the biggest storyline of 2022: women acting as stalwarts for democracy,” the website underlined.

While European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde is placed in 2nd position, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris ranked 3rd in the list.

At rank 100, Iran’s Jina “Mahsa” Amini has posthumously made it to the influential list. Her death in September sparked an unprecedented women-led revolution for their rights in the Islamic nation.

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The Chipko Movement: A People’s History by historian Shekhar Pathak has bagged the prestigious award.

The Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2022 has been awarded to The Chipko Movement: A People’s Movement by historian and activist Shekhar Pathak, translated from Hindi by Manisha Chaudhry. 

The award, now in its fifth edition, is given for non-fiction on contemporary India by writers of any nationality, and carries a cash award of 15 lakhs, a trophy and a citation. 

The prize citation calls Mr. Pathak’s book “the definitive history of the Chipko movement by a scholar who has practically lived it.” 

“It is fitting that a book that tells the story of a movement through the eyes of the local communities, especially women, should be as readable as this one is. Translated from the Hindi by Manisha Chaudhry, Shekhar Pathak’s book is a salutary reminder of the transformative power of collective action, and not just an important work of history but one that speaks to the contemporary moment and its twin crises of ecology and democracy,” it reads. 

This year’s shortlist of five included Accidental Feminism: Gender Parity and Selective Mobility Among India’s Professional Elite by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen and Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India by Rukmini S. Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India by Suchitra Vijayan and Born a Muslim: Some Truths about Islam in India by Ghazala Wahab round off the list. 

The jury for the award consisted of political scientist and author Niraja Gopal Jayal, entrepreneur Manish Sabharwal, historian Srinath Raghavan, historian Nayanjot Lahiri, former diplomat Navtej Sarna, and attorney Rahul Matthan.

Historian and Padma Shri-awardee Shekhar Pathak has lived in the Himalayan region for years and conducted extensive research into the Chipko Movement, engaging with local communities and leaders. He established the People’s Association for Himalaya Area Research (PAHAR) in 1983 and also penned Asia ki Peeth Per (On Asia’s Back), a biography of the Himalayan explorer Pandit Nain Singh Rawat, along with Uma Bhatt. 

The 1973 Chipko movement is regarded as the harbinger of modern environmentalism in India. A non-violent protest, the movement curbed the felling of trees and spurred debate about Indian forest policy, sustainable development, and the need for ecological balance between forests and local communities.

While several works have focused on Chandi Prasad Bhatt and Sunderlal Bahugana, the movement’s major leaders, Mr. Pathak’s book covers the ordinary people of the movement, such as Gaura Devi, and shows that it was “diverse in leadership and ideology and was never a singular Gandhian movement,” according to a press release announcing the award.  

The Kamaladevi NIF Book Prize was named for Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, an eminent freedom fighter who also championed the cause of women’s rights, refugee rehabilitation and local handicrafts. 

Past awardees of the prize have included Milan Vaishnav for When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics, Ornit Shani for How India Became Democratic, and Jairam Ramesh for A Chequered Brilliance, a biography of VK Krishna Menon. Last year’s prize went to Dinyar Patel for the biography Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism. 

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Transformers from BMC Electroplast in Behala’s Thakurpukur in Qatar stadiums.

A 66-year-old man in Uttarpara in the Hooghly district was among millions in West Bengal who watched on television the dazzling opening ceremony of the Fifa World Cup at the Al Bayt Stadium on Sunday evening.

But Subodh Kumar Banerjee is not just a football fan. He has had a crucial role in what is arguably the biggest sporting spectacle on the planet. 

Transformers built by a firm founded by Banerjee are critical components of the power distribution system in the stadiums hosting the matches. 

BMC Electroplast, which has a production unit in southwest Kolkata’s Thakurpukur, has supplied around 3,000 transformers to Qatar.

The transformers are not like the usual ones seen on Kolkata roads — which receive power from plants and supply it to domestic and commercial units.

“Called current transformers (the ones sent to Qatar), the instruments reside in the switchgear boards. They have two main functions. They keep track of the volume of electricity consumed in each feeder line. In case of a short circuit in a supply line, a current transformer helps in switching off supply to that feeder line,” said Banerjee, who did his electrical engineering in 1977, from what was then known as the Regional Engineering College, Durgapur (now called the National Institute of Technology, Durgapur).

The switchgear boards are usually in the underground electrical rooms below the stadiums, he said.

“When I saw the opening ceremony, I felt a sense of ownership. I knew everything would go off smoothly. But until it was over, there was a sense of anxiety,” said Banerjee.

He would have travelled to Qatar for the inauguration but an accident — he slipped and fell in his house — in 2021 led to a fractured left knee. He is still having to use a walker.

Between 2014 and 2018, Banerjee had to visit Qatar three times. “The stadiums were a heap of dust and construction material back then. I don’t remember if they had their names finalised. To see the stadiums now, all decked out, is a surreal experience. I can’t even recall the stadiums I went to,” he said.

But even back then, the scale of the work had Banerjee in awe. The men and machines kept working in the searing heat and amid a sea of dust.

“During the first trip, I was driving to a stadium when the car had a flat tyre. As the driver started to replace it, I rolled the window down. A gust of wind, that felt like fire, hit me. I felt my cheeks burning,” he said. 

The transformers built in Thakurpukur were approved by Qatar Electricity & Water Corporation, commonly known as “Kahramaa”, in charge of the implementation of an integrated infrastructure for the tournament.

Banerjee’s firm supplied the transformers via Tamco Switchgear (Malaysia), an erstwhile L&T company but currently controlled by power equipment major Schneider.

“Our company is a vendor of Tamco. We have worked with them before,” said Banerjee.

Designing the prototype and getting the same approved was a tedious process because of the stringent norms of Kahramaa. Job done, now Banerjee wants to watch every bit of the Cup.

A regular at the Mohun Bagan ground in his school and college days, Banerjee played football and hockey in his youth. His money is on his favourite team this time.

“Brazil are the favourites. This World Cup might be the moment of glory for Neymar. He is Bohemian. But he has class,” said Banerjee, who lives with his wife and son. His daughter is settled in Pune.

Banerjee started the factory with his late friend, Santanu Mitra, in 1980. The two were roommates in the engineering college.

Now, the company has four directors, including Banerjee and Siddhartha Mitra, brother of Santanu Mitra. There are around 100 workers.

Banerjee said that Bengal used to be the hub of the electrical engineering industry when she started. It pains him to see the steady decline in the following decades.

“We are to blame. It is our collective fault,” he said. 

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