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The long road to St Petersburgh
Meenakshi Sai Arvind and her team plan to cover 20, 000 km in two vehicles while spreading awareness about cervical cancer
In 2017, Meenakshi Sai undertook a road trip from Coimbatore to London. “That trip changed my life. I learnt so much from the different people I met on my way. My confidence increased manifold. I decided I wanted to do another road trip; so I researched for a year, set up route maps, marked the stop points, and so on. My brother Sanjay Subbian was the first to join me and four close friends, Sharath Madhav, Pradeep Yuvaraj, Sheila Verghis and Jomet Mani joined later. The only two people that I did not know from earlier are Madhuri Sapru and Anjana Kaul. They came forward seeing a post I had put up on Facebook inviting people to join.”
The eight of them are driving 20,000 km across four countries in two Tata Hexas upto St Petersburgh. It is not just a long drive, it has a purpose. XPD Trans-Siberian 2019: Beyond Asia, as the expedition is called, will spread awareness about cervical cancer.
“Cervical cancer is common among Indian women. It is also the only cancer that has preventive vaccines. We hope that the visibility that we receive will turn people’s attention towards this issue and bring in more sponsors to buy these vaccines for women from underprivileged background,” explains Meenakshi, who is also the managing trustee of RR Trust that organised the expedition.
The team was flagged off recently by social entrepreneur Arunachalam Muruganantham, athlete Gomathi Marimuthu, and and Indian Navy veteran Rajiv Choudhry. The journey will take them through Nepal, China and Russia. “We will drive through the day and rest at night. We plan to cover an average of 600 km a day. The highway between Vladivostok and Saint Petersburg, known as the Trans-Siberian highway, is the longest in the world. It is also dangerous as the place is sparingly populated and secluded. It stretches for a distance of 11,000 km.” The expedition is also taking along spare parts for the vehicle and fireproof jerry cans filled with fuel. They will come in handy especially in the long desolate stretches, especially in Siberia, that may not have fuel stations.
The only thing Meenakshi is worried about is Acute Mountain Sickness when they reach the Everest Base Camp. “The air will be thin there. We are carrying apparatus to keep a check on our oxygen levels, besides oxygen cylinders.
The team will also carry dehydrated vegetable biryani and tamarind rice. “We will eat it when we crave local food. I do not eat meat and finding vegetarian food in Russia can also be challenging. We are just being cautious.”
They plan to reach Saint Petersburg on September 27. “We will be flying back on October 1 and the cars will be shipped home.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Susan Joe Philip / August 23rd, 2019
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar: A shining star of astrophysics
This great astrophysicist strongly influenced our understanding of stellar objects, black holes, white dwarfs and conducted remarkable work on Newton’s seminal work titled Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
Chandra, as he was widely known, was born on October 19, 1910, in Lahore, to Tamil parents Sitalakshmi Balakrishnan and Chandrasekhara Subrahmanya Ayyar. His father was the deputy auditor general of the Northwestern Railway. The family moved to Allahabad in 1916 and settled in Madras in 1918.
Early life and education
Chandrasekhar was homeschooled till the age of 12. He then attended the Hindu High School at Triplicane, Madras and studied at Presidency College, Madras from 1925 to 1930. During this stint, he met Lalitha Doraiswamy and they got married in 1936.
A highlight of his college years was the publication of his paper, The Compton Scattering and the New Statistics. Successes such as this strengthened his determination to pursue a career in scientific research despite his father’s wish for him to join Indian Civil Service.
In 1930, Chandrasekhar was awarded a government scholarship to pursue graduation at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom and he joined Trinity College. During this time, Chandra became enamoured with the subject of white dwarf stars. He explained how when stars run out of hydrogen, they become unstable and collapse in on themselves. But the most massive stars explode into a supernova and then collapse down into neutron stars, or black holes. He earned a PhD in 1933 and was elected to Prize Fellowship.
Career
In 1937, Chandrasekhar was appointed assistant professor in the University of Chicago – a position he continued in for his entire career spanning six decades. In 1947, he was appointed the distinguished service professor of theoretical astrophysics and, in 1985, became the professor emeritus.
As the editor of The Astrophysical Journal (1952-1971), he transformed the private publication into the National Journal of the American Astronomical Society. Apart from his work at the University, he also conducted research at NASA’s Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research.
In 1990, he began working on the detailed geometric arguments in Sir Isaac Newton’s famous work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which is considered a significant work in the history of science. He died on August 21, 1995 of a heart attack.
Chandrasekhar Limit
He is best known for the discovery of the Chandrasekhar Limit, which he came up with as a student. Using this, he proved that there is a maximum mass which can be supported against gravity by the pressure made up of electrons and nuclei.
Awards, achievements
Chandra was honoured with the Padma Vibushan in 1968. In 1983, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with William A Fowler for work on the structure and evolution of stars. He was, however, upset that the citation mentioned only his earliest work and not his later ones. Chandrasekhar was awarded the Gold Medal of Royal Astronomical Society (1953), the Royal Medal (1962), and the Copley Medal (1984).
He has authored several books including – An Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure (1939), Principles of Stellar Dynamics (1942), and Newton’s Principia for the Common Reader (1995).
Interesting Facts
1. He was the nephew of Sir CV Raman, who was a Nobel Prize recipient. Chandrasekhar became a US citizen in 1953, retired from the University of Chicago in 1980, and continued to be a researcher.
2. In 1979, NASA named the third of its four Great Observatories after Chandrasekhar. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999.
3. The Chandrasekhar number, a vital dimensionless number of magneto hydrodynamics, was named after him as were the asteroid 1958 Chandra and the Himalayan Chandra Telescope.
4. The Chandra Astrophysics Institute runs an initiative for high school students interested in astrophysics. They are mentored by scientists from MIT and sponsored by the Chandra Observatory.
5. His brother, S Balakrishnan, revealed that as a boy, Chandra had a deep desire to be like Isaac Newton. He used to go to the beach alone, and pray: ‘Oh God, may I be like Newton!’
Source: famouspeople.com; notablebiographies.com;Wikipedia
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> India> Inspiring Lives / by HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times, New Delhi / August 21st, 2019
380th Madras Day: Anna Nagar through the ages
From a village settlement to the commercial and residential hub it is today, locals trace the history of their neighbourhood.
Chennai :
A scene from the 1971 film Rickshawkaran featuring the late actor-former chief minister of Tamil Nadu MG Ramachandran racing in a wagon on the roads of Anna Nagar is one that’s etched in the minds of Tamil film enthusiasts.
A closer look at the background, and one can spot the 51-year-old Anna Tower, one of the popular landmarks of Namma Chennai. While not much has changed about the magnificent edifice, the locality where it stands has seen exponential changes since its origin.
Since 2013, Nam Veedu, Nam Oor, Nam Kadhai, a social history group headed by architect-planner Thirupurasundari has been recording the evolution of Anna Nagar. As part of the Madras Week celebrations, the group curated a two-day exhibition featuring panels of the history and heritage of the neighbourhood, at Joy of Books.
Community initiative
“A few years ago, when preparations for Madras Day were in full swing, I noticed that no heritage events were being conducted in this part of the city. That’s when I decided to form this group to simply understand the locality. But, I didn’t want to constrain myself to just hosting walks or talks,” said Thirupurasundari, a resident of Shenoy Nagar.
The initiative spread like wildfire — thanks to community tabloids and the locality’s heritage crusaders. “When we began, we had a simple concept — to explore and document the history and heritage of the neighbourhood I was from. Six years later, it has grown and become a community initiative. There’s a sense of ownership among the residents about the area now,” she said.
A rural flavour
Before the 1950s, the village of Naduvakkarai had a truly rural flavour, with paddy fields and a serene river flowing nearby. Impressed by the true rural essence in the otherwise busy city as seen in Mount Road and Parrys, a few people settled down here to appreciate its silence and serenity, writes Thirupurasundari in a booklet released by the group in 2014.
People from other busy pockets of the city, including Mylapore and Triplicane, began migrating to Naduvakkarai in the 1940s and 50s. An illustrated depiction of this event by Akshayaa Selvaraj was on display. “When we interviewed the residents, some senior citizens even told us that they moved here because palm jaggery and first-class toddy were available here. Naduvakkarai had an abundance of palm trees,” said the architect.
Post-freedom rush
In the early 1960s, due to mushrooming of industrial pockets and rapid migration in the city, the housing board was formed to provide necessary housing facilities. In the wake, the West Madras Neighbourhood Scheme, which initiated subsidised development schemes and other structures was born. “The blueprint of contemporary Chennai was beginning to emerge. The idea of an integrated system of housing, meant for all classes possibly for the first time in the country, was initiated,” she said.
Guided through
Since the roads in Anna Nagar are designed based on matrix structure or similar to roads in developed countries in the western world, for many, hunting for the right lane and street is a task. Thirupurasundari said that between 1968 and the early 80s, Anna Nagar had guides who used to help people navigate. “These guides used to charge `1 or `2 and would guide you to whatever place you wanted to go to in the locality,” she said.
A historic fair
The 1968 Indian International Trade and Industries Fair, aimed to show India’s industrial development, changed the face of the neighbourhood. Brands like Voltas to Ovaltine had put up stalls as part of the fair. One of the main attractions was the Panchsheel tower (now called the Anna Tower) from which a panoramic view of the fair-site could be seen for a rupee or less.
After the fair’s success, more people were drawn towards the locality. “Interestingly, my amma and appa had attended the fair too. He was five and she was three years old. They both remember sitting in the Russian pavilion. This was the time when paper cups were emerging, and they both remember refusing to drink from a cup made of paper!” she said.
Interactive tour
We took a tour of the exhibition — from touch and feel exhibits depicting layouts of the State Housing Board’s West Madras Neighbourhood Scheme, panels of the 1968 Indian International Trade and Industries Fair, the evolution of Chandramoulishwarar temple, vintage images of the parabolic archway, screengrabs of film scenes that featured Anna Nagar, and other representational panels were on display. A drawing competition, quiz, storytelling session about Madras, display of household heritage items by Venkatraman Prabakaran and Sivagamasundari T, and early residents sharing anecdotes about the area were also part of the event.
“Talking to people who witnessed the stages of the neighbourhood’s development was essential. We have so far done 672 interviews of residents, senior citizens…they’ve all been kind and generous. Most of what you see here is a collation of all the information they gave us. From old photographs, maps and layouts of the area, they came forward to share whatever they know about Anna Nagar,” she shared.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Roshne Balasubramanian / Express News Service / August 22nd, 2019
App uses AI to detect banana pest, diseases
An App using this tool can diagnose the disease and give treatment options
Identifying diseases and pests on banana crops will now be just a click away. Researchers have developed a new artificial intelligence system (AI) which can look at photographs and tell what disease the plant has and also give recommendations and treatment options to the farmers. The results showed that the model was over 90% accuracy.
Training the network
The neural network was given about 20,000 images showing diseased and healthy plants. “Just like teaching a kid to tell an elephant from a horse, we taught the AI to identify leaf, root, fruit diseases and pests. Pictures from Uganda, Colombia, Congo and India were fed into the system for the training,” says Dr. Sivalingam Elayabalan from the Department of Biotechnology, Imayam Institute of Agriculture and Technology (IIAT), Trichy, Tamil Nadu. He is one of the authors of the study published in Plant Methods.
The tool is now incorporated into an App called Tumaini, meaning hope in Swahili, and being tested.
Expansion of scope
The team is planning to add more diseases based on regions and also make the App available in local languages. “When users take the photo, it gets uploaded to a global system for large-scale monitoring. Also, it is automatically GPS-tagged so we know what and where the problem is. We are also planning to incorporate high-resolution satellite monitoring to check the health of large fields,” explains Dr. Michael Gomez Selvaraj, from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Colombia in an email to The Hindu. Dr. Selvaraj is the senior author of the paper. The App can detect symptoms on any part of the crop, and is even trained to read images of lower quality.
Major Indian diseases
The app is now being tested across many countries and when the confidence of 100% is reached it will be available for free download. “Yellow leaf spot and Fusarium wilt are the major fungal diseases in India and farmers spend a lot of money on fungicides. Apart from the fungal disease, the viral disease such as Banana Bunchy top virus is a big problem in hilly areas of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Northeast region. The App can tell the farmers in advance bringing down the treatment costs,” says Dr. Elayabalan. “We are now testing the App in Tamil, and it will soon be available in Hindi and Malayalam. The National Research Centre for Banana (NRCB) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) have shown interested in the App.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sci-Tech> Science / by Aswati Pachi / August 17th, 2019