Category: Amazing Feats

** Deepak Dhar and John J. Hopfield chosen for the Boltzmann medal

Prof. Dhar is the first Indian to receive this top honour in the field of statistical physics

Deepak Dhar, physicist, from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, has been selected for the Boltzmann medal, awarded by the Commission on Statistical Physics (C3) of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. He becomes the first Indian to win this award, which was initiated in 1975, with Nobel laureate (1982) K.G. Wilson being the first recipient. He shares the platform with American scientist John J. Hopfield who is known for his invention of an associative neural network, now named after him. The award consists of the gilded Boltzmann medal with the inscription of Ludwig Boltzmann, and the chosen two scientists will be presented the medals at the StatPhys28 conference to be held in Tokyo, 7-11 August, 2023.

** With three of our men in Portugal’s government, there’s much to be said about Goa’s relationship with its former coloniser

Portugal’s prime minister, finance minister and planning minister are all of Goan origin in a delightful little twist of history

Election results aren’t due for India’s smallest State until March 10, but the biggest victory for any Goan politician was announced on January 30. That’s when results came out from Portugal’s snap elections, validating the go-for-broke political instincts of Prime Minister António Costa. The charismatic 60-year-old leader of the centre-left Partido Socialista had preferred to appeal to voters rather than submit to the increasingly strident demands from far-left parties in his coalition government. The electorate rewarded him handsomely, with an unexpected majority of 119 out of 230 seats.

But here’s the twist. This famously personable former Mayor of Lisbon, who looks visibly desi, is Goan; his father was the anti-colonial Goan novelist Orlando da Costa. One wing of the family remains rooted in Margao. It is an intimate, flourishing connection, which both India and Portugal have been eager to celebrate. In 2017, during the first-ever standalone bilateral visit by any Indian prime minister to Lisbon, the Portuguese leader was embraced by Narendra Modi, who personally handed him his Overseas Citizen of India card.

The story doesn’t end here: Costa isn’t the only Goan at the pinnacle of government in Portugal. His finance minister is another — João Leão earned his Ph.D in economics from MIT, where his thesis advisor was economist Abhijit Banerjee. His planning minister is Nelson de Souza (who was actually born in India in 1954, just a few years before Nehru’s troops decapitated the 451-year-old Estado da India colonial state in 1961).

** Ashwin goes past Kapil Dev’s 434 wickets; becomes India’s second-highest wicket-taker in Tests

Ashwin got to the mark with the wicket of Charith Asalanka in the first Test against Sri Lanka at Mohali

Indian off-spinner R. Ashwin on Sunday went past the legendary Kapil Dev’s 434 Test scalps to become the second highest wicket-taker for India in the longest format of the game, reaching the mark in his 85th match.

The 35-year-old Ashwin achieved the feat in the ongoing first Test against Sri Lanka. He began the match with 430 scalps and claimed two wickets in the first innings before adding three more in the second essay to cross Kapil’s mark.

Kapil had managed the feat in 131 matches. The legendary Anil Kumble tops the chart with 619 scalps which he claimed in 132 matches.

** Home-grown train collision prevention system ‘Kavach’ to be exported: Vaishnaw

Terming the indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system–‘Kavach’ as a phenomenal improvement in safety and a great contribution to accident prevention, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday said the technology will be implemented over entire rail network in the country and will also be exported to the world in the next coming years, even as he had a first hand experience of the collision aversion mechanism by being part of a live demo here.

** DRDO-developed monolithic microwave integrated circuits on board EOS04 satellite

Monolithic microwave integrated circuits developed by the DRDO are on board the EOS04 satellite launched on February 14 by the Indian Space Research Organisation, the Defence Ministry stated on Friday.

The circuits have been used in radar imaging modules of the satellite, the ministry said in a statement.

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** SCARF Media for Mental Health Awards presented

The winners are Riddhi Dastidar for her article on the impact of COVID-19 on service-users in India Spend; Sudipta Das for his article on queer affirmative therapy in Feminism in India; and Vinod Kumar Menon of Mid Day for his articles that followed up on the rights of a woman with mental illness who struggled to gain custody of her child.

Among the regional language articles, Sindhuvasini’s article in BBC Hindi on the rights of people with mental illness to insurance benefits and Sijo Pynadath’s article on mental health of children and their care-givers in Deepika Daily, a Malayalam magazine, won the award.

Tamil Nadu

** AI-based cath lab inaugurated in Chennai

Kumaran Hospitals and Rela Institute on Friday launched the facility jointly

Kumaran Hospitals and Rela Institute on Friday launched an Artificial Intelligence-based cath lab in the city on Friday.

The facility will help healthcare providers in a variety of procedures such as cardiovascular, electrophysiology, oncology and neuro interventional procedures.

Tamil Nadu

** Documentary on hockey Olympian Grahnandan Singh explores a Partition-era friendship

Bani Singh’s documentary ‘Taangh/Longing’ explores the life of her hockey champion father and the camaraderie he shared with his teammates on both sides of the Radcliffe Line

A frail old man leans heavily on his cane as he makes his way to a garden chair under a spreading tamarind tree. Those gnarled hands once held a hockey stick, those stooped shoulders once wore the rank of Commander in the Indian Navy. Grahnandan Singh or Nandy Singh was an old boy of Government College, Lahore, champion hockey player from the Punjab province of undivided India, Partition survivor, two-time Olympian, and keeper of a friendship that survived in the deep recesses of his heart for nearly 60 years.

“My father was a member of the Indian hockey team that won the gold in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics. But I missed out on knowing him when he was a champion. It was only when he was fighting to stay afloat after a stroke that I met the champion,” says Bani Singh, Nandy’s daughter and the director of Taangh that was recently screened at Periyar Thidal as part of the 10th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival.

Punjab

** UP doctor sets record with 107 eye surgeries in 16 hrs

 Dr S.P. Singh, Director of the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology and principal of the MLN Medical College (MLNMC) in Prayagraj, has set a new record by conducting 107 phacoemulsification surgeries with intraocular lens (IOL) implant free of cost within a span of 16-and-a-half-hours.

“The surgeries were performed between 6 a.m and 10.30 p.m. continuously for 16-and-a-half hours on February 25. All the patients are doing fine now after a week of observation,” he told reporters.

Uttar Pradesh