Veteran agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan has been presented with the Canadian governor general’s medallion in recognition of his contribution to “improved agricultural practices and rural development in India and abroad.”
Consulate general of Canada in Bengaluru Jennifer Daubeny handed over the medallion on behalf of H E David Johnston, governor general of Canada, at a meeting held at the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in Chennai on Monday.
Daubeny presented the medallion and citation that placed on record the “profound impact” of research being conducted at the MSSRF.
Daubeny said she was glad of the partnership between and various agencies of the government of Canada and the impact it had on rural development.
Speaking at the event, M S Swaminathan said, “Only collaboration can solve many problems.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Chennai News / TNN / February 08th, 2017
S. Nandagopal (left), son of K.C.S. Paniker, describes a painting to German Consul General Achim Fabig and N. Ram, Chairman, Kasturi and Sons Ltd. | Photo Credit: K_Pichumani
“Artist K.C.S. Paniker created a landscape that combined elements of language and symbolism with colour and shape to construct a painting of a larger nature,” Consul General of the Consulate General of Germany Achim Fabig said.
He launched a book ‘Paniker’ that was compiled by Mr. Paniker’s son S. Nandagopal comprising his paintings, at Artworld Sarala’s Art Centre. Mr. Fabig said the legendary artist who founded the Cholamandel Artists Village had managed to transcend the presumed limitations of Indian artists. “His work is of larger importance, not just to India, but to the world of art as such,” he added. N. Ram, chairman, Kasturi and Sons Limited, said Mr. Paniker was a fine artist who had contributed a great deal to the Madras Art Movement. “The book has been beautifully produced and has very carefully selected text. Mr. Paniker had astonishing energy and integrity that made him do things without expecting success. He did what he believed in and did it exceedingly well,” he added.
He noted Mr. Paniker’s assessment of his work ‘Why do I paint?’ gave an interesting psychological insight about himself. “This shows how open he was,” he added.
The exhibition of prints on canvas will be on till February 10 at the art centre. For details, contact: 24338691
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / Staff Reporter / Chennai – February 02nd, 2017
Members of the Min family bursting crackers to signal the arrival of New Year. | Photo Credit: R. Vimal Kumar
For the Min family, the only Chinese- Indians based in Tirupur who now lives very much as Indians, the dawn of Chinese New year is still been seen as the moment that provides an opportunity to reminiscence their roots.
The Chinese New year celebrations each time bring fond memories to the family members, spread over three generations, about the traditional rituals followed in China since otherwise the Min family did not celebrate any other Chinese festival.
The Chinese New Year falls on the ‘New Moon’ between January 21and February 20 of the English calendar year and the festivities usually last for a fortnight with each day marked for different types of rituals.
Thus, the Chinese New Year this year began on January 28.
The Min family this time welcomed the dawn of New Year with the bursting of crackers wearing new dresses.Special prayers were performed as per the Chinese tradition with Wenchaswi Min (69), the senior most member in the family, leading the ceremony. Then they distributed sweets to the neighbours and friends.
“Speciality of the feast is that there would only be even numbers of dish. This time, there has been 10 dishes with six being Chinese specialities like Chinese dragon chicken, dried mushroom soup and egg sandwiches as prepared in China”, said Sebastian Leo Shaou Kang Min, another member.
The Min family fled China to India in 1930s following the effect of China-Japan war on that country’s economy.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Coimbatore / by R. Vimal Kumar / Tirupur – January 30th, 2017
Avula Anik Kumar and others from IIT Madras showed that adsrobed arsenic leached from the saturated filter was one-tenth that of the background level. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Exhaustive research carried out by a team of researchers led by Prof. T. Pradeep from the Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, spread over four years, has put to rest the scepticism about the merits of the arsenic water filter developed by them. The water filter has been in operation for three and half years in about 900 sites in India, serving close to 400,000 people.
Arsenic in drinking water is the largest natural mass poisoning in the history of humanity, affecting 13 crore people globally. The problem of arsenic in the environment, known for over 1,002 years, has not been solved satisfactorily, due to the non-availability of appropriate and affordable materials. Arsenic is a slow poison, causing numerous adverse health effects, including cancer and genetic anomalies.
The technology developed at IIT makes use of confined metastable 2-line iron oxyhydroxides and its large adsorption capacity to remove arsenic in two different dissolved forms (arsenate and arsenite). The filter was able to reduce the arsenic concentration in the water from 200 ppb (parts per billion) to well below the WHO limit of 10 ppb. The results were published recently in the journal Advanced Materials.
“The arsenic removal capacity of the material filter was found to be 1.4 to 7.6 times better than all the other available materials,” says Prof. Pradeep. “The superior arsenic uptake capacity is due to its inherent structure. Nanostructured iron oxyhydroxide makes many sites available for arsenic uptake. The ions of arsenic adsorb on the nanoparticles at specific atomic positions. No nanoparticles are released into the purified water due to the biopolymer cages in which they are contained.”
The team mimicked the average arsenic concentration seen in West Bengal — 200 ppb of arsenic — for carrying out several laboratory studies. Though studies were carried out at a pH of 7.8, the team found the adsorption capacity of the filter was not compromised in the pH range 4 to 10. “The pH of drinking water is in the range of 6.5 to 8.5. But we tested the filter in a wide range of pH so it can be used for other purposes as well,” says Prof. Pradeep.
“A filter composed of 60 grams of the material can be used safely for removing arsenic from 1150 litres of water and till such time the concentration of arsenic in the filtered water does not cross the WHO limit of 10 ppb,” he says. Once the filter has reached its saturation limit it has to be reactivated or recharged with new material.
Reactivation is done by soaking the material in sodium sulphate solution for an hour at room temperature. It is further incubated for about four hours after reducing the pH to 4. “Using this reactivation protocol we reused the same filter seven times,” he says.
Studies were carried out to test if the adsorbed arsenic leached from the filter. The team found that the amount of arsenic that got leached was 1 ppb in the case of arsenite and 2 ppb for arsenate. “Soil in the affected regions also contains arsenic, typically around 12 ppb of arsenic, which is the background concentration. The amount of arsenic leached from the saturated filter was far less than the background concentration,” Prof. Pradeep says. Leaching of arsenic from disposed filters was one of the biggest criticisms by a few researchers who had worked on arsenic filters. Arsenic, being an element, cannot be degraded further to simpler species.
Since the arsenic filter developed by the team has so far been in use at a community level, studies were carried out to test its performance as a domestic water filter. A domestic three-stage filter was developed to remove particulate matter, iron and arsenic. Input water containing 200 ppb of arsenic and 4 ppm (parts per million) of Fe(III) was passed through the filter for a total volume of 6,000 litres (translating to 15 litres of water per day for one year). “The output was below the WHO limit for both arsenic and iron throughout the experiment,” he says.
“For a family of five, arsenic-free drinking water can be produced at $2 per year,” he adds.
In the course of the development of this technology, he and his former students incubated a company, InnoNano Research Pvt. Ltd. at IIT Madras. In July this year, the company received venture funding to the tune of $18 million. “With this research, a home grown technology appears to be all set for global deployment. Knowledge is no more a limiting factor for solving the arsenic menace,” he said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sci-Tech> Science / R. Prasad / December 19th, 2016
Carnatic vocalist, playback singer and composer Mangalamapalli Balamuralikrishna, who burst into the music world as a child prodigy, died on Tuesday. He was 86 and is survived by his wife, three sons and three daughters.
His music appealed to both the connoisseurs and the laymen alike. In classical music, he was able to give “play acting” to the essence of the lyrics in his song. In the film world, “Oru Naal Pothuma”, a ragamalika in Thiruvilayadal, “Chinna Kannan Azhaikiran”, a Reetigowla-based song in the film Kavikuil, “Mounathil Vilayadum Manasatichye” from the film Noolveli and the Abhogi song “Thanga Ratham Vanthathu” from the film Kalai Koil continue to enchant a generation of music lovers.
A native of East Godavari district of the erstwhile Madras Presidency, his father Pattabiramaiah was a musician and his mother Sooryakanthamma was a veena player. He gave his first concert when he was nine and the quality of his music is explained by the fact that All India Radio (AIR), Chennai, included him, a child artist, in the list of A-grade artists.
He was also an accomplished violinist and once accompanied Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, the pioneer of the modern-day Carnatic concert format.
Balamuralikrishna learnt violin by listening to his father playing the instrument.
“Since my father was against me playing violin, I created my own instrument. Once I summoned courage and played his instrument in his absence. When questioned by my father I admitted and played Bhairavi ata thala varnam. My father was impressed and allowed me to play the instrument,” he had recalled in his biography Sangita Perunkadal, penned by Ranimynthan.
Violin playing came in handy when his voice underwent changes in his teens and could not sing.
“He had a magic voice. He is to Telugu keerthanas what M.M. Dhandapani Desikar was to Tamil music. Since Telugu was his mother tongue, he knew the meaning of Thiyagaraja’s keerthanas and would not maul them,” said clarinet maestro A.K.C. Natarajan, who also learnt many keerthana’s from him.
Actually Balamuralikrishna’s career in film industry began as an actor. He played the role of Narada in the film Bhakta Prahalada on the request of A.V. Meyappa Chettiar. It was a Telugu film and was dubbed in Tamil, Hindi and Kannada and he played the role in other languages also. His first song is also for a Telugu film Sati Savitri.
“S. Varalakshmi was the heroine of the film and she learnt music from Balamuralikrishna. She requested him to render at least one sloka in the movie. But he ended up singing all the songs for the hero A. Nageswara Rao,” recalled Ranimynthan, the biographer of Balamuralikrishna.
When K. Balachander directed Apoorva Ragangal, he told M.S. Viswanthan to compose a song in a rare raga to justify the title of the film. It was Balmuralikrishna who helped him compose the song Athisaya Ragam in raga Mahathi. His other creations are raga Sarvashri, Lavangi, and Sumukham.
He also scored music for the first Sanskrit film Adi Sankarar . He won the national award for best playback singer, music director and classical singer. He was awarded the Sangita Kalanidhi award of the Music Academy. He is also a recipient of France’s Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by B. Kolappan / November 23rd, 2016
Eighteen students from the city are taking part in the Tournament of Champions at Yale University
On November 18, over 3,500 students from 50 different schools around the world will gather at Yale University, U.S., to take part in the Tournament of Champions. And, while that might sound like a jousting challenge, this is part of the World Scholar’s Cup, where the kids will parry their knowledge and intelligence, hone their talents and discover new ones.
It is on this international stage that 18 students from Chennai will be competing. They’ve made it through some rigorous regional and global rounds, and are making their way to Yale this week. Trained by Shaan Katari Libby of A to Zee Creativity, this is the first time that such a large contingent has made it to the tournament in the last 10 years.
Says Shaan, “We’re very proud of these kids for working so hard. At the World Scholar’s Cup, they will have the chance to interact with and learn directly from Yale students and faculty. Last year, we had three students who went to Yale, although six had qualified. This year has been very special so far; hopefully, they will do their country and their schools proud.”
To begin with, the students did the Regionals in Chennai in April 2016, and qualified for the Global Round by placing in the top 15 per cent. “This led to the Globals in Bangkok / Prague, where they competed against 3,000-plus students in each division (Seniors/Juniors) from around the world. They placed in the top 10 per cent, which meant qualification for the Tournament of Champions at Yale,” explains Shaan. They will compete in teams of three.
The schools in the A to Zee Creativity delegation are Sishya, KC High, DAV Boys, DAV Girls, P.S. Senior Secondary and Chennai Public School.
The participating students are Adam Libby, Anirudh Satish, Srinika Rajanikanth, Vichar Lochan, Nila Srinivas, Hrsh Venket, Sanjith Krishna, Vivaaan Nanavati, Tejas Narayan, Ridhi Agarwal, Vanshika Bhaiya, Rohan Manoj, Vipasha Gupta, Tarasha Dugar, Udhav Goenka, Guhan Kallapiran, Vedant Mimani and Naveen Varma.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Opinion> Features> Metroplus / Susanna Myrtle Lazarus / Chennai – November 15th, 2016
It was while researching the history of the Nataraja temple in Chidambaram that Liesbeth Pankaja Bennink came across Jacob Haafner, a Dutch accountant who lived and worked in India from 1772 to 1786.
Bennink, a historian and Bharatanatyam dancer, found Haafner’s accounts of his travels in India were translated into many languages. She has now finished his biography in English and is looking for a publisher.
Haafner, reveals Bennink, began on a ship trading around the Bay of Bengal, worked as a clerk for a company in Nagapattinam and became an accountant in Madras. During the 1881 madras famine, he was a British prisoner of war, fled to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), lived in Calcutta, and travelled down the coast to today’s Puducherry. Haafner finally left for Amsterdam after the tragic death of his beloved, the dancer Mamia. “After falling on hard times financially , he started writing about his experiences in India to make a living. His work was translated into many European languages, but only one, about his travels in Ceylon, was ever translated into English. He was a much read author in the 19th century .But he was forgotten later,” says Bennink.
What attracted Bennink to Haafner’s works was his deep respect and love for India and its people. “He is a great storyteller, at the same time sharing all kinds of information about the way people live, their festivals, about nature and agriculture, the landscape,” she said.He spoke fluent Tamil and some Hindi and Urdu. “He had enough knowledge of Sanskrit to translate and recount the Mahabharatha and Ramayana into Dutch.”
Haafner, says Bennink, also wrote a lot about Indian dance and dancers. “He inspired many Romantic artists in Europe. For instance the ballet La Bayadere, choreographed in 1877 by Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus, was inspired by Haafner’s writing.”
Haafner’s life was extensively researched by Dutch historian Paul van der Velde who also wrote Haafner’s biography , Wie Onder Palmen Leeft (Those living under palm eft (Those living under palm trees), both in Dutch. “As I feel his work is relevant today I started translating some parts, beginning with his chapter about the Devadasis. In 2015, Velde asked me to translate his biography of Haafner. It was challenging. The difficult part was to translate 18th century Dutch to 21st century English, without losing the intent and emotions of the writer,” says Bennink. ” As a historian his work is invaluable to me. He was a staunch anti-colonialist.It would be great if all his work would become available for English speaking readers. He has so much to tell us about this crucial period of India’s history,” she said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News > City News> Chennai News / M.T. Sajul / TNN / November 11th, 2016
CLOSER LOOK: Kamala Harris, Pramila Jayapal, Raja Krishnamoorthi. Photo: Special Arrangement
Jayapal was born in Chennai, Krishnamoorthi in Delhi, while Harris was born in US
Three of the five Indian-Americans elected to the United States Congress on Wednesday have south Indian connections.
They include Kamala Harris (52), the first Indian-American Senator; Pramila Jayapal (51) the first Indian-American woman in the House of Representatives; and Raja Krishnamoorthi (43), who became a Congressman in his second attempt. All three are Democrats.
Jayapal is the only one born in Chennai; Krishnamoorthi was born in Delhi while Harris was born in the United States.
Understands Tamil
Krishnamoorthi’s parents, of Tamil origin, migrated to the United States when he was only three. He was elected from Illinois’ 8th Congressional district. Krishnamoorthi is the son-in-law of the sister of T.R. Balakrishnan, who retired as the principal of Presidency College in Chennai.
“His father, a physics professor, went from Delhi to teach at a University in the U.S. His family speaks Tamil at home, and while he does not speak the language, he understands it,” said Mr. Balakrishnan, adding that Mr. Krishnamoorthi visited his relatives in T. Nagar regularly.
“He is very devout, calm and organised,” Mr. Balakrishnan said.
Ms. Jayapal, who traces her roots to a Nair family in Palakkad, left the country aged five and lived in Indonesia and Singapore before relocating to the United States as a 16-year-old.
She was elected from Washington’s 7th Congressional district. In March 2000, she published Pilgrimage: One Woman’s Return to a Changing India , saying that she had cultivated an emotional attachment with the country and revealing that she held on to her Indian passport during her formative years.
Harris won from California
Kamala Harris, who won from California, is the daughter of the late Dr. Shyamala G. Harris, world-renowned breast cancer researcher.
Ms. Harris left India as a 25-year-old to study at the University of California, Berkeley.
Her father and Stanford University’s Professor Emeritus Donald J. Harris is of Jamaican descent, which makes Kamala Harris only the second African-American woman senator.
Harris’ niece Meena Harris has been quoted as saying that her aunt likes shopping at Chennai’s Nalli for sarees and GRT for jewellery.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Deepu Sebastian Edmond / Chennai – November 12th, 2016
The 2016 SASTRA Ramanujan prize, for outstanding contributions by young mathematicians to areas influenced by the genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, will be jointly awarded to Kaisa Matomaki of University of Turku, Finland and Maksym Radziwill of McGill University, Canada, SASTRA University announced on Thursday.
The University release said the duo’s works have opened the door to a series of breakthroughs on some difficult questions such as the Erdös discrepancy problem and Chowla’s conjecture, previously believed to be well beyond reach. The SASTRA Ramanujan Prize was established in 2005 and is awarded annually for outstanding contributions by young mathematicians to areas influenced by Srinivasa Ramanujan.
The age limit for the prize has been set at 32 because Ramanujan achieved so much in his brief life of 32 years. The prize will be awarded during December 21-22, 2016, at the International Conference on Number Theory at SASTRA University in Kumbakonam (Ramanujan’s hometown) where the prize has been given annually.
Matomäki and Radziwill will share the $10,000 prize this year. They are especially recognised for their spectacular collaboration, and also for their significant individual contributions.
Kaisa Matomäki is one of the strongest young analytic number theorists in the world today.
MaksymRadziwill is one of the very best of the new generation of analytic number theorists, highly original, and technically one of the strongest and broadest.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / October 13th, 2016
A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel from Kanyakumari district has entered the Guinness Book of World Records along with a group of other Indian magicians for continuous performance of magic tricks by a group.
The Indian Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM) broke the record set by 130 magicians in Italy, by peforming magic continuously for six hours in New Delhi on April 24 this year. The group performed various tricks, including the ribbon trick, rope trick, dove and rabbit vanishing tricks among others, to enter the book of records. The group of 162 magicians broke the record by performing the same task. They received their Guinness certification, recently.
B Ajithkumar, 41, of Arumananai Vilavankode, in Kanyakumari district said that he had always been interested in magic and pursued his passion even after he joined the CRPF at the of 22. He learned tricks from great magicians in Thiruvananthapuram and also Wilson Sambakulam in New Delhi, whom he considers his master.
Ajithkumar who is now serving in Assam, came down to his home town recently and showed the certificate to the Kanyakumari district collector, Sajjansingh R Chavan, who lauded him for his efforts. Ajithkumar’s daughter Sangeetha is also learning some tricks from her father.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Madurai / TNN / October 15th, 2016
