Indian-American economist Abhijit Banerjee and his French-American wife Esther Duflo along with their colleague Michael Kremer received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences on Tuesday for their work to alleviate global poverty that has helped millions of children in an experimental approach that favours practical steps over theory.
Devangshu Datta walks you into the mind of the winner of the Fields Medal, considered by pure mathematicians as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
The paper also includes musing that SARS -- which hit China in 2003 -- could have been a man-made bioweapon deliberately unleashed by "terrorists".
What engineering problems make it hard to use 17th century physics to move lots of people quickly across serious distances? Devangshu Datta has the answers.
The JNU administration's decision to ask historian Thapar to submit her CV for assessment for her continuation as professor emerita drew sharp criticism from various quarters.
'There are fossils to indicate that there has been a gradual evolution of various body parts leading to very complex organisms like vertebrates, apes and humans.'
Four Indian-American professors are among 13 mathematicians, theoretical physicists and theoretical computer scientists selected for the Simons Investigators awards for their cutting edge research.
'Everybody says 5G and communication is important.' 'Everybody says automation, robotics, human computing interfaces -- people and machines working together -- is the future.' 'Everybody agrees that cybersecurity is something that is here to stay.' 'Everybody agrees that synthetic biology is important.' 'Instead of outlining thinking about industries for tomorrow and the future, let the evolutionary pathway be built in a way that it promotes robust, creative, thinking.'
With his elevation as the CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, in whom co-founder of the microblogging giant Jack Dorsey has "bone-deep" trust, joins the growing power club of Indian-origin executives helming US-based global multinationals. Twitter's outgoing CEO Dorsey announced on Monday that 37-year old Agrawal, an Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and Stanford University alumnus, will be the company's new chief executive as he stepped down after 16 years at the company that he co-founded and helmed. A report in The New York Times said Agrawal will receive an annual salary of $1 million, in addition to bonuses, restricted stock units and performance-based stock units.
The eminent scientist reached the pinnacle of his glory in 1974 when he led the team that conducted the country's first nuclear test at Pokhran in Rajasthan.
Celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking may have solved the 40-year-old information paradox -- which continues to puzzle scientists -- saying one could simply pop up in another universe after being sucked into a black hole, in a new theory about where lost information ends up.
Senior Congress leader Manish Tewari and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan sparred on Twitter on Saturday with the Opposition leader raising questions over the emergency use approval given to the indigenously developed vaccine Covaxin and the Bharatiya Janata Party leader hitting back alleging that Tewari was only passionate about spreading rumours.
Physicist Stephen Hawking to trademark his name.
The statements come from a booklet published this month by the state-run People's Publishing House, in which senior officials, including President Xi, outlined the latest five-year plan for the country's development.
Is it possible to extend lifespans to, say, 120 years, or longer, asks Devangshu Datta.
It's simple really.
Among the key demands of agitating farmers has been a legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP). The protest reached a crescendo when thousands of farmers from Punjab and elsewhere marched towards Delhi late last year and decided to block the main entry points once they were denied entry. The Centre, on its part, held 11 rounds of discussions with the protesters and even offered to amend some of the provisions without much success. With now one of their chief demands met, farmers have now moved on to force the government to concede on MSP.
'I am sure Dr Patra will get the fullest cooperation from the finance minister who needs workhorses, not prima donnas constantly looking to improve their CVs,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Market experts say that FIIs have been caught off-guard on their exposures to companies with high-leverage and those facing cyclical headwinds.
'It came out of China and it could have been stopped and I wish they had stopped it and so does the whole world wish they had stopped it'
'What is forgotten but is actually as important for a society's long run success is morality.' 'Morals and trust are the nuts and bolts of an economy.' 'Without those you can get short run success, but not long-run development.'
Xi spoke of the importance of implementing the new development philosophy and advancing the new development paradigm of "dual circulation" in the country's new development phase to ensure a good start for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period.
Chian it was open to international efforts to identify the source of the deadly virus.
'Besides electoral opportunism, a sustained vilification of AMU on one or the other pretext helps them sustain their 'everyday communalism', the new strategy of the BJP of the Narendra Damodardas Modi-Amit Anilchandra Shah era,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
If everybody is 'working' from home, then how has TV consumption gone up? Who is making all that gourmet food being posted on social media?
'If you see the composition of items which are causing this spike in prices, most of them have little to do with the kharif harvest, except for pulses and vegetables to some extent.' 'I don't know on what basis the government is claiming that food prices will moderate in the weeks to come.'
'The ultimate satisfaction of helping in the country's space programme is the bigger achievement attracting women to space research -- and they are so good at it!'
Paul Romer, a New York University professor and economist
Much of the rural recovery story is based on the premise of agriculture doing well. Even if it clocks a growth of 2.5-3 per cent this year, it is still just around 15 per cent of the overall GDP. The non-farm sector, which constitutes a bigger portion of the overall rural economy, is now hampered by disruptions and lockdowns.
'The protests have forced the government to announce that the NRC is not an immediate priority.' 'Even if they are trying to pursue this policy in a different guise, through the NPR, the fact that they have been forced to pause and backtrack at least temporarily shows the positive impact of the protests.' 'Moreover, various state governments have opposed the NPR which cannot be carried out without their cooperation. That is also a success of the protests.' 'The state governments would not have taken this stance against the central government if their hand had not been forced by the popular mood.'
'An era of fiscal pessimism is setting in, which, if not countered intellectually, is going to have the same effect as export pessimism has had,' notes T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
'You can only see it when you look for it. Seek and you shall find.'
'Even after vaccines are given, precautions like using a mask and maintaining social distancing have to be taken.'
What would happen if the home minister chose to go to the movies, and watched the current science-fiction hit, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar
'... for two reasons: the poor quality of education, and the low rate of female participation in the labour force.' 'Unless something is done quickly to remedy these problems, India will just have a large population of low-skill, low-wage, males trying and failing to feed their families adequately.'
United States President Barack Obama has felicitated Indian-American scientist Thomas Kailath with the top presidential medal for transformative contributions to the fields of science and technology.
If the gas ball is the result of a supernova, then it's the most powerful supernova ever seen.
'If Indians are as smart as their counterparts in university, and have equal opportunity, then what is the reason that we cannot produce inventions of quality that are recognised by the world?'
Science in India has developed a great deal since C V Raman, particularly after the country gained Independence but we are yet to win a Nobel prize in physics, chemistry or medicine. Is it a reflection on the quality of Indian science? Or it has to do with the politics of Nobel prizes, as is often believed, asks Dinesh C Sharma.
'Mamata is campaigning hard and not giving the BJP a walkover.'
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