RECORDS, INDIA (National) – Page 21

India, Tanzania to set up task force to prepare five-year ‘future road map’ on defence cooperation

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met Tanzanian Minister of Defence and National Service Dr. Stergomena Lawrence Tax to discuss a range of issues in New Delhi

India and Tanzania agreed on the formation of a task force to prepare a five-year ‘future road map’ for enhancing defence cooperation between both the countries and to hold the next Joint Defence Cooperation meeting in Tanzania at an early date. This was agreed at the bilateral meeting between Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and the Tanzanian Minister of Defence and National Service Dr. Stergomena Lawrence Tax on Friday.

“A wide range of issues concerning bilateral, regional and defence industrial cooperation were discussed during the meeting. The two Ministers reviewed the existing military-to-military activities and discussed ways to enhance cooperation in all domains with a focus on defence industry cooperation,” a Ministry statement said.

Mr. Singh also invited his Tanzanian counterpart to the ‘India-Africa Defence Dialogue’ and DefExpo which is scheduled to be held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat between October 18 to 22.

Earlier in the day, Ms. Tax visited the National War Memorial and paid homage to the fallen soldiers and later, she was accorded a ceremonial guard of honour.

Dr. Tax would be visiting the Wargaming Development Centre and Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region before departing for Hyderabad for interaction with Indian defence industries, the statement added.

Badminton | Satwik-Chirag sign off with a maiden bronze medal at World Championships

The Indian duo flattered to deceive as it squandered an opening game advantage to go down 22-20 18-21 16-21

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty signed off with a maiden bronze medal in the men’s doubles competition of the World Championships after going down narrowly to Malaysia’s Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik in the semifinals in Tokyo on Saturday.

The world number 7 Indian pair flattered to deceive as it squandered an opening game advantage to go down 22-20 18-21 16-21 in a pulsating 77-minute clash to bring an end to the Indian challenge at the prestigious tournament.

It was the sixth successive defeat against the Malaysian pair for Satwik and Chirag, who had lost to the same combination at the mixed team final of the Commonwealth Games early this month.

Despite the loss, it was a creditable show by the young Indian pair as it ensured India continued to return with a medal from the World Championships since 2011, the year the country won its first doubles medal with Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa returning with a bronze.

Indian-origin Twitter VP of engineering departs to join Meta

Sandeep Pandey worked as research scientist at Yahoo, before joining Twitter as staff engineer.

Senior Indian-origin Twitter executive Sandeep Pandey, vice president of engineering, is leaving the Parag Agrawal-led platform after more than a decade to join Meta (formerly Facebook).

According to an Insider report, Pandey, who joined Twitter in 2012, will work on Meta’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning teams.

Pandey led the central machine learning, data science and data platform at Twitter.

Studied at Carnegie Mellon University, he started his career at IBM India Research Lab and Google.

Later, Pandey worked as research scientist at Yahoo, before joining Twitter as staff engineer.

At Twitter, he worked in various capacities, like senior director of engineering, head of revenue science and led the brand and video team, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Twitter has been seeing several high-profile exits after Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced a $44 billion takeover, and then terminated it over the actual number of bots on the platform.

These are Katrina Lane, former VP of Twitter service; Ilya Brown, VP of Health; and Max Schmeiser, head of data science.

Agrawal in May fired consumer product leader Kayvon Beykpour and head of revenue product Bruce Falck, saying there is a hiring freeze now and Twitter will also pause spending in most areas.

Twitter recently laid off 30 per cent of employees from its talent acquisition team.

Twitter paused most hiring and backfills, except for business-critical roles as determined by ‘Staff’ members.

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Youth-led start-up to send 40 satellites to compile space debris data

The race to space has the downside of polluting it. A Bengaluru-based start-up plans to send out a constellation of 40 satellites that will gather data on space junk in the low-earth orbit (LEO).
The satellites that will be launched in early next year will gather information on millions of pieces of debris that litter LEO, which NASA describes as an “orbital space junk yard”.

Digantara, the start-up launched by three young engineers, has taken upon itself the mission to help clean up LEO.

Space junk can reach speeds of up to 18,000 miles per hour, according to NASA. Many of them range from 1 cm to 10 cm in diameter. Most of this orbital debris comprises “human-generated” objects such as parts of spacecraft that have long disintegrated, rocket and satellite components, and very small flecks of paint from spacecraft and whole satellites.

“The ones which are 1 cm in diameter are estimated to be a million. Besides, international space agencies have determined that they are aware of only 4 per cent of objects in space. The data for 96 per cent is still missing,” said Digantara chief operating officer Rahul Rawat, who is only 23 years old.

Digantara, which is incubated at Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science, sent out a small satellite, a payload about the “size of a shoe box”, according to the start-up’s CEO Anirudh Sharma, on June 30 this year to gather information on space weather, including radiation, violent storms and other phenomena that can be potentially harsh for spacecraft and burn or fry them.

While this lone satellite has been sending out data to ground sensors, Rawat pointed to Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink constellation of 40 of 49 satellites that were “lost in a single blow” when they encountered a gigantic “solar paroxysm” that burned the spacecraft and cost the company $100 million in February 2022.

It is precisely to avoid satellites getting caught up in such “solar outbursts” or other violent geomagnetic incidents that Digantara expects its own satellites – and the information it will send back to its ground sensors – to come to the rescue of space companies with ambitions of sending out satellites.

“We are the only start-up of its kind in India though there are competitors in the US and Canada,” Rawat said, adding the gathered data can help firms that are into remote sensing and insurance where risk analysis reports will be important.

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Record 130-plus Indian-Americans at key positions in Biden administration

U.S. President Biden shattered the record of his predecessor Donald Trump, who had appointed more than 80 Indian-Americans

U.S. President Joe Biden has appointed more than 130 Indian-Americans to key positions in his administration so far, the best representation from the community that makes up around one per cent of the American population.

In doing so he has not only fulfilled his promise to the community that he had made as a presidential candidate in 2020, but also shattered the record of his predecessor Donald Trump, who had appointed more than 80 Indian-Americans and his previous boss Barack Obama, who had appointed over 60 Indian-Americans to key positions during his eight years of presidency.

More than 40 Indian-Americans has been elected at various state and federal levels including four in the U.S. House of Representatives. Not to miss the more than 20 Indian-Americans leading top U.S. companies.

While the first-ever presidential appointment was done during the time of Ronald Regan, this time Mr. Biden has appointed Indian-Americans to almost all departments and agencies of his administration.

“Indian-Americans have been imbued with the sense of seva (service) and this is reflected in their enthusiasm to pursue positions in public service instead of the private sector,” Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur, philanthropist and venture capitalist M. R. Rangaswami told PTI.

“The Biden administration has now appointed or nominated the largest group to date and needless to say we are proud of our people and their accomplishments for the United States,” Mr. Rangaswami said. Mr. Rangaswami is founder and head of Indiaspora, a U.S.-based global organization for Indian-origin leaders. Indiaspora keeps a track of Indian-origin leaders.

Mr. Biden, who has maintained a close relationship with the community since his Senator days, often jokes around about his Indian relationship. He made history in 2020 by selecting Indian-origin Kamala Harris as his running mate.

The list of Indian-Americans in the White House as compiled by Indiaspora reflects that there would be only a few meetings inside the White House or in Mr. Biden’s Oval Office that would not have an Indian-American presence.

His speech writer is Vinay Reddy, while his main advisor on COVID-19 is Dr. Ashish Jha, his advisor on climate policy is Sonia Aggarwal, special assistant on criminal justice is Chiraag Bains, Kiran Ahuja heads the Office of Personnel Management, Neera Tanden is his senior advisor, and Rahul Gupta is his drug czar.

Last week when India’s Ambassador to the U.S., Taranjit Singh Sandhu, hosted a reception at India House on the occasion of Independence Day, Indian-Americans from his administration were representing almost all major branches of the U.S. government.

Young Vedant Patel is now the Deputy Spokesperson at the Department of State, while Garima Verma is the Digital Director in the Office of the First Lady. Mr. Biden has also nominated several Indian-Americans to key ambassadorial positions.

According to the list prepared by Indiaspora, more than 40 Indian-Americans have been elected to various offices across the country. Four are in the House of Representatives — Dr. Ami Bera, Ro Khanna, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Pramila Jayapal. This includes four Mayors.

Led by Indian-Americans Sunder Pichai of Google and Satya Nadella of Microsoft, there are over two dozen Indian-Americans heading U.S. companies. Among others include Shantanu Narayen of Adobe, Vivek Lall of General Atomics, Punit Renjen of Deloitte, Raj Subramaniam of FedEx.

Crowded at the top: On strong domestic base propelling Indian chess\

A strong domestic base is propelling Indian chess to great heights.

When a 17-year-old beats the five-time World champion and strongest chess player of all time in three games in a row, it is bound to attract attention. R. Praggnanandhaa did that at Miami on Sunday, the final day of the FTX Crypto Cup. His stunning victory over Magnus Carlsen, however, was not enough to win the tournament; he had to settle for the runner-up spot behind the Norwegian. But this is more than creditable, as all his seven rivals in the round-robin event had higher Fide ratings. And it was not the first time that he was beating Carlsen, having scored wins in online tournaments earlier this year. The great show at Miami should no doubt be a huge morale-booster for the Chennai lad. He had flown to Miami soon after helping India 2 win the bronze medal at the Chennai Chess Olympiad. He was not the biggest star at Mamallapuram, though. His teammate, D. Gukesh, also from Chennai and also a teenager, had created a sensation at the Olympiad, posting eight wins on the trot. A few months earlier, it was yet another Indian teenager, Arjun Erigaisi, who was hitting the headlines.

Apart from Praggnanandhaa, Gukesh and Erigaisi, two other young Indians — Nihal Sarin and Raunak Sadhwani — had also come up with excellent performances at the Olympiad. Sadhwani then won the blitz title at the Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival, a few hours before Praggnanandhaa’s victory against Carlsen. At the Masters section of the tournament, Sadhwani shared the second spot after five rounds with Erigaisi and Sarin, among others. As for Gukesh, he is busy improving his rating at the Turkish Chess Super League in Ankara. That all these hugely talented youngsters are making their Grand-masterly moves at the same time augurs well for Indian chess. And there are a few more youngsters waiting in the wings, such as V. Pranav and Bharath Subramaniyam. Rarely has India threatened to take the world on, in any sport, with a group of promising teenagers. Viswanathan Anand, the man who began it all, may have been the lone Indian at the top, but his successors are likely to have company. He is now mentoring the young Indians, who have acknowledged how much they have gained from working with him. These days, quality coaches, some of them Grandmasters, are available across the country. A strong domestic base, made possible by, among other things, parental support and the rise in the popularity of the game, promises even brighter days ahead for Indian chess.

India to become world’s number one producer of steel: Scindia

He was of the view that India has moved from becoming the net importer of steel to the net exporter of steel.

Union Minister Jyotiraditya M Scindia on Tuesday exuded confidence that India will become the number one producer of steel in the world in the days to come. India is the world’s second-largest producer of crude steel after China.

The minister was speaking during a conference on the Indian minerals and metals industry organised by NMDC and Ficci.

He was of the view that India has moved from becoming the net importer of steel to the net exporter of steel.

He said India’s per capita consumption of steel has increased from 57.8 kg in 2013-14 to 78 kg. The government intends to achieve 300 million tonnes (MT) of steel production target by 2030, Scindia said.

Steel across the world is the primary sector which results in economic, capital and infrastructure growth.

“Our target policy and focus also have been to turn India from just another player in the steel sector to becoming a force to reckon with,” he added.

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Google Doodle pays tribute to Indian physicist and meteorologist Anna Mani

Anna Mani was an Indian physicist and meteorologist, who retired as the Deputy Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department

Google is paying tribute to Indian physicist and meteorologist Anna Mani, who made significant contributions to meteorological instrumentation, conducted research and published papers on solar radiation, atmospheric ozone and wind energy measurements.

Google has depicted a Doodle dedicated to Mani, to celebrating her 104th birth anniversary.

Anna Modayil Mani was born in 1918 in Peermade, Kerala, and obtained her B.Sc. (Hon.) in 1939 from the Madras Presidency College. A voracious reader since childhood, Mani initially wanted to pursue dancing, but eventually decided in favour of physics since she liked the subject.

She began her scientific career with C.V. Raman at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, where she studied the fluorescence and absorption patterns and spectra of diamonds. In 1945, she went to the Imperial College, London, and later to the British Meteorological Office, studying the evolution of weather instruments. She visited several field observatories and manufacturers of meteorological instruments in England and Scotland. and later joined the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

She made significant contributions to meteorological instrumentation, conducted research, and published papers on solar radiation, atmospheric ozone and wind energy measurements. She was a member of a number of organizations including the International Ozone Association, Indian National Science Academy, American Meteorological Society, International Solar Energy Society, World Meteorological Organisation, among others.

She retired as the Deputy Director-General of the IMD in 1976. She passed away in 2001.

Jaishankar unveils bust of Mahatma Gandhi in Paraguay

The visit of the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is aimed at exploring new areas of cooperation in the post-pandemic era

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has unveiled a bust of Mahatma Gandhi in Paraguay and visited the historic Casa de la Independencia from where the South American country’s Independence movement started more than two centuries ago.

Mr. Jaishankar arrived in Brazil on the first leg of his six-day visit to South America aimed at boosting overall bilateral ties with the region. Mr. Jaishankar, who is on his first-ever official visit to South America, is also visiting Paraguay and Argentina.

“Honoured to unveil a bust of Mahatma Gandhi ji in Asuncion, Paraguay. Appreciate the Asuncion Municipality’s decision to locate it at the prominent waterfront of the city. This is a statement of solidarity that was so strongly expressed during the Covid pandemic,” S. Jaishankar said in a tweet on Sunday.

Paralympic champ Sumit Antil breaks world record again; sometimes pain is like a stab to the stump, he says

Competing in the Indian Open National Para Athletics Championships, Antil rewrote the world record with a throw of 68.62 metres, breaking his own mark of 68.55 metres.

TOKYO PARALYMPIC champion javelin thrower Sumit Antil, like Olympic gold medallist Neeraj Chopra, has a target on his mind — in metres. While Chopra’s goal is 90 metres, Antil’s is 80. Chopra, the World Championship silver medallist, is six centimetres short of his goal. At the Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru late on Friday, Antil moved a little closer to achieving his target.

Competing in the Indian Open National Para Athletics Championships, Antil rewrote the world record for the fourth time in a year with a throw of 68.62 metres, breaking his own mark of 68.55 metres. Three of these marks were astonishingly set during the final of the Tokyo paralympics en route to winning gold.