What do we know about Dr. Abhijit Mukherjee?

Dr. Abhijit Mukherjee, a professor of Geology from IIT- Kharagpur features among the top 100 influential people of 2020 by Time magazine. He is famous worldwide for his research in the field of groundwater exploration.

His team introduced a prediction model based on Artificial Intelligence for detecting arsenic in groundwater in the Gangetic delta. This feat was noted by the Jal Jeevan Mission.

A groundwater-surface water interaction is yet another one of his specializations. This work supplied important data regarding drinking water and food security to the Indian government. Dr. Abhijit Mukherjee has done ample researches on groundwater quantity and scarcity by understanding groundwater storage changes over the Indian subcontinent. This was achieved with advanced computation and Artificial Intelligence techniques.

Another significant role of Dr. Mukherjee is as head of one of South Asia's first Urban Geo-science projects in Varanasi. He has won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for 2020 in the field of Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences.

Picture Credit : Google

What do we know about Dr. Sachchida Nand Tripathi?

You might have read in the papers some time back that the Taj Mahal was losing its white marble sheen and turning yellowish due to pollution. Dr. Sachchida Nand Tripathi, who holds the Arjun Dev Joneja Faculty Chair of Civil Engineering at IIT-Kanpur, was in the news for this study. His study helped bring about policy changes in Agra city.

This study specified that black carbon and brown carbon from the burning of trash and fuels was the main cause for discolouration. Using a novel method, the team discovered how the specks of dust on the surface reflect light and affect the colour. This study is crucial to develop strategies that address yellowing of the Taj Mahal and improves air quality.

His work in the field of Atmospheric Sciences has addressed the issues of air pollution and climate change. He has also novel approaches for low-cost sensor-based network technology which can monitor air quality in cities and Real Time Source Apportionment (RTSA). RTSA involves finding out the sources of pollution and how much they affect the environment.

Dr. Tripathi is the Coordinator of the National Knowledge Network devised under the National Clean Air Program, and is a member of its Steering Committee and Monitoring Committee. Further, he is a member of the Executive Council, Climate Change Program, Department of Science and Technology.

The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award and the J C Bose National Fellowship are both feathers in his cap. He is an elected Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) and National Academy of Sciences of India (NASI). He also worked at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre as a senior fellow.

Picture Credit : Google

Who is Prof. Shiraz Naval Minwalla?

Meet the $100,000 prize winner of the New Horizon Prize in Physics, Prof. Shiraz Naval Minwalla. He is a theoretical physicist who works with string theory and quantum field theory. He is noted for connecting the equations of fluid dynamics and Einstein's equations of relativity.

He hails from Mumbai. After completing his Masters in Physics from IIT-Kanpur, he went to Princeton University, U.S.A. for his PhD. He was a junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and then served as assistant professor for five years. After that he joined the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai.

He won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in 2011 and Infosys Prize in Physical sciences in 2013. He also got the TWAS prize in 2016.

Picture Credit : Google

Why is Soumen Basak famous?

Soumen Basak is an immunologist and virologist at the National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi. He heads the Systems Immunology laboratory there.

He is known for his studies on NF- kappaB, a molecule that controls the activity of a gene.

Dr. Basak did his M.Sc. and PhD in Biochemistry from Calcutta University. He went on to the University of California, San Diego for post-doctoral studies.

He was awarded the National Bioscience Award for Career Development in 2018 and won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in biological sciences the next year.

Dr. Basak is a fellow of all three Indian Science Academies, namely the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

Picture Credit : Google

What do we know about Kanishka Biswas?

Have you ever noticed that all electric appliances generate heat energy? Do we need to waste electrical energy as heat? Kanishka Biswas, who is an associate professor in the New Chemistry Unit at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore, and his team have come up with a novel compound called silver copper telluride(Ag Cu te) which converts waste heat into electricity. Usually, 65 per cent of electrical energy is wasted as heat energy. Silver copper telluride can be used in automobile industry and power plants where much of the energy is wasted as heat.

Kanishka Biswas is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), U.K. He has bagged many prestigious awards and prominent among them is the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, which he won for Chemical Sciences in 2021.

Picture Credit : Google

What are the contributions of Prof. Ashoke Sen?

We meet another theoretical physicist who works on string theory. Prof. Ashoke Sen is a distinguished professor at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad. He is also interested in black hole entropy. We have already seen black holes. Now, entropy is the measure of disorder in a system. Dr. Sen applied string theory to black hole entropy. He studied at IIT-Kanpur and got a doctorate from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, U.S.A.

He has authored and co-authored many important papers on string field theory. Prof. Sen holds the position of Honorary Fellow in the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar. He is also a Morning- star visiting professor at MIT and a distinguished professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.

Prof. Sen was one of the nine winners of the first Fundamental Physics prize started by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner - each of the winners getting $ 3 million. This is twice the amount of the Nobel prize. He was nominated as a Fellow of the Royal Society, won the Padma Shri and was a recipient of the Bhatnagar Award in 1994.

Picture Credit : Google

Why is Gautam Radhakrishna Desiraju well known in his field?

Gautam Radhakrishna Desiraju is a professor of Chemistry at the University of Hyderabad. He is regarded as one of the founders of Crystal Engineering.

Have you heard of Crystal Engineering? It is designing molecular solids with specific properties. This is done by making use of the interactions between molecules.

Crystal Engineering has developed greatly and Desiraju played a crucial role in this. Now 200 independent research groups in Crystal Engineering exist worldwide.

He has also researched into the non-conventional hydrogen bond, also known as the weak hydrogen bond. These bonds have distinct roles and guide molecular associations. Earlier they were dismissed to be of no significance. Now these bonds are used to understand biomolecules and to create drugs.

Picture Credit : Google 

Who is Dr. Anil Bhardwaj?

Dr. Anil Bhardwaj has made significant contributions as an astrophysicist. He serves as the Director of the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, which is a unit of the Department of Space, of the Government of India.

Dr. Anil Bhardwaj received his M.Sc from Lucknow University and PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi. He joined ISRO as a scientist at the Space Physics Laboratory (SPL) of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Trivandrum. He rose to become the Director of SPL.

SPL's research in planetary science was initiated by Dr. Bhardwaj, and he contributed greatly in developing planetary science programs in ISRO. He acted as the Principal Investigator (PI) of the SARA (Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer) experiment on Chandrayaan-1, India's first Lunar mission. The new findings changed our understanding on the interaction of solar wind with the Moon.

He has played a key role in many space missions of ISRO. He got the ISRO Team Achievement Award for Chandrayaan-1. He has also won the most coveted Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (2007) and the Infosys Prize in Physical Sciences (2016).

Dr. Bhardwaj was the editor- in-chief of Advances in Geosciences for seven years, and was among the editors of the European journal Planetary and Space Science, the Bulletin of Astronomical Society of India and Current Science, a journal published by Current Science Association and Indian Academy of Sciences.

Picture Credit : Google 

Did Saket Saurabh win the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize?

Yes. Saket Saurabh did win the said prize in Mathematical Sciences in 2021. He is the Professor of Theoretical Computer Science at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai and an adjunct faculty at University of Bergen, Norway. He specializes in parameterized complexity, exponential algorithm, graph theory and algorithmic game theory which are different fields of computation.

We've seen what algorithms are. Hard algorithmic problems are dealt with in parameterized complexity. Exponential algorithm is used to sort infinite range. Graph theory deals with the study of graphs. Algorithmic game theory combines algorithmic thinking with theoretical ideas.

Saurabh got BSc (Honours) in Mathematics and MSc in Computer Science from Chennai Mathematical Institute. He did his PhD in Theoretical Computer Science from Indian Institute of Mathematical Science (IMSc) and became a faculty member later.

He had worked as a research assistant at the University of Bergen and also did post-doctoral studies there. He received a European Research Council Grant twice, and is a recipient of the 2020 ACM India Early Career Researcher Award. He was elected as a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 2020. He has also co-authored two books- Parameterized Algorithms and Kernelization: Theory of Parameterized Preprocessing.

Picture Credit : Google 

Why is Vijay P. Bhatkar considered a pioneer in India's IT industry?

Have you heard of India's first super computer, Param 8000? It was developed under the leadership of Vijay P. Bhatkar. This happened in the 80s when the U.S denied us a supercomputer. Param 8000 was the second fastest computer at that time.

Bhatkar has been awarded the Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri and Maharashtra Bhushan. He is the initiator of the electronics revolution in our country, and has authored several books and research papers.

He is the founder executive director of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and is now developing exascale supercomputing for India. These computers can analyze massive amount of data at unimaginable speed.

Bhatkar has played a key role in forming the Electronics Research and Development Centre (ER&DC) in Thiruvananthapuram, Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala (IIITM-K), the ETH Research Laboratory and International Institute of Information Technology in Pune, Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation, and the India International Multiversity.

Picture Credit : Google 

What do we know about M.R.S. Rao?

Here is a scientist concerned about our body at the molecular level. Prof. M.R.S. Rao is the first scientist in India to initiate research on Chromatin Biology. Chromatin, if you don't already know, is a genetic molecule made up of DNA, RNA and associated proteins. He has also made valuable contributions in studies on cancer, and in research on RNA.

He has over 100 publications and has guided 30 PhD students and many post-doctoral Fellows.

 

He completed BSc and MSC from Bangalore University and PhD from IISc, Bangalore. He did post-doctoral studies at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, U.S., where he also served as an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology. Later he joined IISc, Bangalore and worked as its Chairman.

He was the President of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (UNCASR) for ten years. He is on the editorial board of many learned journals and has recently joined as senior member on the editorial board of The American Journal of Cancer Research.

Professor Rao has been a member/chairman of several national and international committees. The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (1988) and the Padma Shri (2010) are among the many prestigious awards won by him.

Picture Credit : Google 

What are the achievements of T Govindaraju?

T Govindaraju has made significant contributions in the medical field. He is a professor in the Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCAR), Bengaluru. Bioorganic Chemistry uses chemical methods in the study of biological processes.

Prof. Govindaraju is from a remote village in Karnataka. As a school boy, he saw that mentally ill patients were treated cruelly. This image guided him to choose his area of research. He completed his PhD from CSIR-NCL. He then did post-doctoral research in the U.S and Germany. His research was on neuro degenerative diseases and cancer. Neuro degenerative diseases occur when cells in the central nervous system stop working.

You must have also heard about Alzheimer's disease. This occurs when the brain becomes small and the brain cells die. Prof. Govindaraju and his team discovered a new molecule -TGR63 which could be the future drug to treat Alzheimer's. A Delhi based pharma company has obtained the rights to do its trial runs.

Prof. Govindaraju found the similarities between Alzheimer's disease and cancer and this led to the discovery of TGP 18, another molecule-based drug. This could be used to treat lung cancer.

He was a Humboldt research fellow in Germany and a visiting faculty at the University of Paris, France. He is also keen on raising the standards of rural schools and has been a part of outreach initiatives. He is also into bringing awareness about mental illness among school children in Karnataka and other states.

Picture Credit : Google 

Why is Dr. Jagadish Shukla famous?

Dr. Jagadish Shukla was born in a small village, Mirdha, in Uttar Pradesh. The village had no electricity, not even proper roads. The primary school did not have a building, and Jagadish Shukla had his early classes under a large banyan tree! He could not study science in high school because the schools did not include it.

He went to Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and graduated in Physics, Mathematics and Geology. He did MS in Geophysics and then finished his PhD too. Later he got a ScD (Doctor of Science) in Meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

He chose a career in the atmospheric sciences and became a professor at George Mason University in the U.S.

Dr. Shukla’s study areas include the Asian monsoon dynamics, deforestation and desertification. Do you know what is desertification? It is when the soil loses its quality due to weather or human activity.

Dr. Shukla helped establish weather and climate research centres in India. He also established research institutions in Brazil and the U.S. He has been with the World Climate Research Programme since its start and founded the Centre for Ocean- Land-Atmosphere Studies, Virginia, U.S.

He has also established the Gandhi College in his village for educating rural students, especially women, and was awarded Padma Shri in 2012.

Picture Credit : Google 

 

What are the contributions of Binoy Kumar Saikia?

In all our minds, coal is dark black and useful only for burning. Would you like to see fluorescent blue coloured coal? Well, meet this chemist from Assam who developed the technology to make blue fluorescent carbon quantum dots (CQDs) from Indian coal. Binoy Kumar Saikia is a Senior Scientist at the North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat (NEIST).

The blue CQDs are nano particles, meaning very small in size, though they have high stability, good conductivity, low toxicity and are environmental friendly. They are used for various applications especially for medicine and environmental science. The CQD technology patented by Dr. Saikia helps to reduce imports from other nations.

Saikia got the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 2021. It is given for seven categories by CSIR and he alone received it in the category of Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences. Dr. Binoy Kumar Saikia was the first one from Assam who won this award after a gap of twenty years.

Picture Credit : Google 

What made Atish Dabholkar a famous theoretical physicist?

Atish Dabholkar is a theoretical physicist who researches on string theory and quantum black holes.

String theory says that reality is made up of vibrating strings that are smaller than atoms and electrons, whereas, black holes are regions in space with very heavy mass. One can say they eat up everything that enter it. Due to their high gravitational pull even light cannot escape from them. Now, quantum black holes are hypothetical tiny black holes, a concept that was introduced by Stephen Hawking.

Atish Dhabolkar is presently the Director of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy. He is a graduate of IIT-Kanpur. He did PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University, U.S. Then he did postdoctoral studies and further research at Rutgers University, Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology.

He worked as a professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai. He also served as a visiting professor at Stanford University, US, and was a visiting scientist at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. He joined ICTP in 2014.

He has received many honours, including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (2006). He was awarded the Chaire d'Excellence of the Agence Nationale de la Recherche in France the next year. He is also a recipient of the National Leadership award from the President of India in 2008. The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), Italy, elected him as a Fellow last year.

Picture Credit : Google