Get ready for smart rings! In 2013, 23-year-old Rohildev N established RHL Vision Technologies at the Startup Village in Kochi, Kerala, to work on touchless technologies. This was a project that he had started when he was a final year student of engineering. His development, ‘Fin’, can be worn as a ring on the thumb. …
First woman Anglican bishop of India Rev. E Pushpalalitha assumed charge as bishop of the Nandyal diocese at a consecration ceremony, on September 29, 2013. Rev. Pushpalalitha is the first woman bishop of India and South Asia, in the Anglican family of churches. She hails from a village in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh.
Cleaning up the lakes of India In 2012, 28-year-old Arun Krishnamurthy became the youngest recipient of the prestigious Rolex Young Laureate Award for Enterprise, for an ongoing project to restore Chennai’s Killattalai Lake to its pristine glory, Five lakes in Chennai and 17 others across the country have benefitted from Arun’s clean-up drive. Along with …
Building a secular India Isaac Poobalan grew up in Kerala’s Vellore district, watching people of different faiths pray together in the Chapel of the Christian Medical College Hospital, where he served as a male nurse. Forty years later, as Rector of St John’s Church in Aberdeen (Scotland), he opened up a section of the church …
“Suicidal” birds In the months of September and October, hundreds of migratory birds that have never left Jatinga, Assam, drop dead suddenly. This mysterious happening takes place on a moonless night between 6 p.m. and 9.30 p.m. While the search for a totally acceptable explanation goes on, it is at present presumed that the birds …
Red rain in Kerala Idukki and Kottayam in Kerala have received red-coloured rain intermittently for close to 30 years now (from 1986 to 2012), in the period between July 25 and September 23. Trees, rocks, and even lampposts get a thick layer of red-coloured algae when it rains. Scientists from the local Mahatma Gandhi University …
First woman chief in an oil company In March 2014, Nishi Vasudeva became the first woman in India to head an oil company, when she took over the reins of Hindustan Petroleum Company Limited. Globally, only three other women hold such a key position in an oil company.
Only Asian in ITWA In June 2013, the then newly constituted board of the International Tennis Writers’ Association (ITWA), which has representatives from Europe, the North, and South Americas, and Australia, nominated The Times of India’s tennis editor, Prajwal Hegde, to the board. Hegde is the only Asian member of the association.
Great women scientists Sunetra Gupta, a chemist, and physicist is a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the University of Oxford’s Department of Zoology. Professor Gupta’s main area of interest is the evolution of diversity in pathogens, with particular reference to the infectious agents responsible for malaria and influenza. The spotlight fell squarely on Sunetra, when …
Indian women, American state Nisha Desai Biswal, is a person of Indian origin in the United States, who was referred to by John Kerry in his speech at the swearing-in ceremony of assistant secretaries in the US in November 2013: ‘It’s a great story, it’s an American story. And it’s proof of the power of …