Category: Leaders

** Gira Sarabhai, co-founder of NID, passes away at 98

Along with her brother Gautam Sarabhai, she laid the foundation for design education in the country.

Gira Sarabhai, co-founder of the renowned National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad and a pioneer of design education in India, passed away in Ahmedabad on Thursday. She played a crucial role in setting up several other institutions and contributed immensely in the field of art and architecture.

With her brother Gautam Sarabhai, she founded the NID and also prepared its academic curricula, which laid the foundation for design education in the country.

Besides NID, another notable institution both Gira and Gautam were involved in setting up is the Calico Museum, one of India’s most famous private museums. The Calico was one of the textiles mills run by their father Ambalal Sarabhai, along with a range of other businesses in Gujarat.

** How India first went to the Olympics in 1920 & other stories: Harish Bhat, Brand Custodian of Tata Sons tells BrandSutra

With the Tokyo Olympics set to begin later this month, one story that becomes most pertinent is how Sir Dorabji Tata, the second Chairman of the Tata Group, personally pushed for and financed the first Indian Olympic team to the Antwerp Olympics in 1920, when India did not even have an official Olympics body, thus setting the course for India’s sports culture and future Olympians.

** A family repertory: The contribution of the Alkazi and Padamsee clans to Indian theatre

The Alkazi and Padamsee clans have played, and continue to play, an extraordinary role in the history of modern Indian theatre

“Oh god, it’s a page turner!” That was the cry from various family members on reading the first draft of Feisal Alkazi’s family memoirs published earlier this year. Titled Enter Stage Right — The Alkazi/Padamsee Family Memoir (Speaking Tiger, 2021), it is an irresistible, exciting read. The narrative details are gripping, the pace exciting, and viewing the times described in the book of the two families in pre- and post-Independence India through the lens of Feisal allows us to enter a world that we can relate to from stories that our parents and grandparents told us of the times they lived through.

** The 2020 Millennium Technology Prize goes to…

Balasubramanian and Klenerman for DNA sequencing techniques

The 2020 Millennium Technology Prize, announced in May, has been awarded to Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman, “for their development of revolutionary DNA sequencing techniques.” Their work is a perfect blend of science and innovation, and very apt as we have all heard a great deal about genome sequencing in the context of the ongoing pandemic.

** P. Sainath awarded 2021 Fukuoka Prize

Selected for the Grand Prize for promoting civil cooperation through his writing

Noted journalist P. Sainath has been selected as one of the three recipients of the Fukuoka Prize for 2021. Mr. Sainath will receive the ‘Grand Prize’ of the Fukuoka Prize while the Academic Prize and the Prize for Arts and Culture will go to Prof. Kishimoto Mio of Japan and filmmaker Prabda Yoon of Thailand respectively.

** Hyderabad physicist solves mathematical problem unsolved for 161 years

Hyderabad: 

A city-based mathematical physicist, Kumar Eswaran claims that he has found the solution for the Riemann Hypothesis (RH), the famous mathematical problem that has remained unsolved for about 161 years.

First posited by Bernhard Riemann in 1859, the Riemann hypothesis is one of the top ten unsolved mathematical problems by American mathematician Stephen Smale. In 2000, RH became one of the seven millennium mathematical problems from the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge and is worth up to $1 million to the person who solves it.

Eswaran is a known mathematical physicist at Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology, Hyderabad and had placed his research titled ‘The final and exhaustive proof of the Riemann Hypothesis from first principles on the internet almost five years ago. However, editors of international journals were reluctant to put the paper through a detailed peer review.

** Renowned ENT surgeon S. Kameswaran passes away

S. Kameswaran, renowned ENT surgeon, passed away on Saturday. He was 98 years old.

Chief Minister M.K. Stalin along with Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma. Subramanian paid homage to his mortal remains.

Professor Kameswaran was born in 1923 and had his early education in Loyola College and Madras Medical College. He trained in the UK where he got his FRCS from Edinburgh and Glasgow.

He was the former director of the Institute of Otorhinolaryngology at the Madras Medical College and mentored generations of ENT surgeons from various parts of the country. He also served as director of University of Madras’s Basic Medical Sciences at Taramani.

Professor Kameswaran was a surgeon to former President R. Venkataraman, and a short-term consultant to the World Health Organisation. He was also a member of the three-member committee that was responsible for laying the foundation for starting Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University.

He has received numerous awards and accolades including Padmashri and Dr. B.C. Roy award.

He is survived by his son Mohan Kameswaran, managing director and chief surgeon of Madras ENT Research Foundation and daughter Chitra Sankaran, professor of English at National University of Singapore.

Tamil Nadu