June, 2015

Indian Model in Space Science Benefiting

Common Man
Former ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan has said India is
the "role model" in the world in harnessing space research
and explorations for the benefit of the common man. "The
vision of Vikram Sarabhai, our founder, was that this high technology (space science) should be beneficial
for the people of this country, for the governance of this country and that is what we have been doing in this
area. I am happy to say India is a role model in the whole world in how space can be used for benefits of
the people in this country," Mr. Radhakrishnan said at an event in Kolkata yesterday evening. He was conferred the annual national award, the PC Chandra Puraskaar, by the PC Chandra Group. In his address he
stressed on how space science (satellite systems and communication) has helped fishermen, farmers and
disaster managers in India in early warnings and other services. During Radhakrishnan's tenure as the chief
of the space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation, India created history by becoming the first
country to enter Mars orbit in maiden attempt on September 24, 2014 after a nine-month voyage through
the inter-planetary space from Earth. India also became the first Asian country to have entered the Mars
sphere of influence (gravity) in its maiden attempt as a similar mission by China failed in 2011. Describing
India as a "major player" in space technology and explorations, the Padma Bhushan recipient said the Mars'
mission's success sparked interest in science and space exploration among children in India.
"It was not only the prestigious position that we did it at one go but it kindled the young generation of the
country. The children were there in the school together looking at this event and to me that is a great contribution that we have done to the country and we made all Indians proud that India can do it on its own," said
Radhakrishnan, the current chairman, Indian Institutes of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, in
West Bengal.

Restoring Indias Calculus Crown Dr.George Gheverghese Joseph, Professor at

Manchester university, UK
George Gheverghese Joseph is on a mission to reclaim Indias pride of place in the world of mathematics. An emeritus professor at Manchester University in the UK, his book,
The Crest of the Peacock; Non-European roots of Mathematics, has challenged the status quo and persuaded the West to
acknowledge that a 15th century Kerala mathematicianastronomer named Madhava (Madhavan, in local dialect)
had worked on the fundamentals of calculus a vital tool
for measuring time, making almanacs and finding directions
at sea almost two centuries before Sir Isaac Newton and
his German counterpart Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz were credited as its founders.
Kerala-born Joseph has some reasons to conclude that the southern Indian state may have served as a conduit
for the transmission of Indian mathematics to Europe through Jesuit priests, though the evidence available is
more circumstantial.
Joseph played an important role in purging the South African mathematics curriculum of its racial overtones
post-apartheid but rues that the colonial mindset that denigrated native contributions and politics had
clouded Indias efforts to honour its heritage.
Q: How did the West react to the conclusions in your first book, The Crest of the Peacock; Non-European
roots of Mathematics?
Joseph: The perception of the West was a very pleasant surprise. I did not expect so many people to be so receptive to ideas. I think the reason they had not touched upon it earlier is because they did not have the information. The book received over hundred reviews by all sorts of groups. Not just maths educators, even activists reviewed it. What particularly moved me was the extent to which African Americans and Blacks took up
some of the things in it after they realised they had a very rich history. For instance, the earliest mathematical
artefact is available right in the middle of Africa, but nobody knows. Its called the Ishango bone which is a
type of lunar calendar and dates back to 22,000 BC, much earlier than anything of that sort found anywhere in
the world. There were a few critics, but nobody took me on the math in it. It was mostly the interpretation.
There was criticism that I was devaluing Newton, Leibniz and the Greeks. But all I was saying was that there
is that part of history which has been ignored and we need to reflect on. And also, how some of the ideas travelled to the West to, in fact, create the scientific revolution.

People who disappointed me were the Indians. Part of colonization involves a form of brainwashing where
you end up defending something because you think you have invested time and emotion in it. I was awarded a
Royal Society Visiting Fellowship to deliver a series of lectures in Indian universities. But a number of those I
met didnt either want to know or were very critical. Subsequently, I also noticed that academics has been
highly politicised in the country. So I suddenly find my views and conclusions either being approved by the
Right who say, look here is a book that shows India is great, or being criticized by the Left, who claim that the
book panders to the other side and contains not much of material analysis.
Q: What spurred your interest in Madhava?
Joseph: I always felt that from the little I knew, the mathematical tradition outside the European tradition was
neglected. Even in Africa where I taught for a long time, children would ask me if there was any African link
to the evolution of the subject and all I could point out to them were some Egyptian connections. But then the
children would say Egypt is not Africa. Later, when I became interested in the work of the legendary Srinivas
Ramanujan and had gone to Cambridge in this connection, I met an eminent Newton scholar, Tom Whiteside.
He asked me if I had come across the Kerala school of mathematics. I said no. He then referred me to a footnote by him of an earlier Indian researcher who had with his collaborators written extensively on the work
done in Kerala on the infinite series. Whiteside suggested that I explore it further and thats how I discovered
the work of Madhava and his disciples.
Q: What exactly was Madhavas contribution to mathematics?
Joseph: His works laid the foundations of the Kerala school of mathematics which flourished between AD
1,300 and 1,700. But he was only part of the wider Indian school founded by Aryabhata who wrote the masterpiece Aryabhateeyam in AD 499. There are still differences over Aryabhatas birthplace, whether it was in
the north or the south of the country. Madhavas contribution was his work on the infinite series. Though
Newton and Leibniz are credited with the discovery of calculus, the fact is one of its critical strands had been
developed in Kerala more than two centuries before that. The West has now recognised this and accordingly
renamed certain results relating to the trigonometric series, previously known as the Newton, Gregory and
Leibniz series, as the Madhava-Newton, Madhava-Gregory and the Madhava-Leibniz series, respectively.
The irony is that we still dont know much about Madhava, the man himself. An eminent mathematician from
Oxford, Marcus Du Sautoy, recently made a series of television programmes on the history of mathematics. I
was consulted on those programmes relating to the history of Indian mathematics, including the remarkable
work in Kerala. He was particularly interested in finding the physical location of Madhava and his main disciples to add some footage of film. When he asked me I was clueless and somewhat embarrassed. But now Im
told that he hailed from Sangamagrama, a medieval town in present-day Irinjalakuda in Thrissur district. It is a
shame that there is no memorial plaque at the place which would certainly attract maths tourists.
.

Q: How do you suggest the knowledge from Indian shores reached Europe?
Joseph: That was the subject of my third book, A passage to infinity Medieval Indian Mathematics from Kerala and its Impact. I had undertaken a
project on the topic and what I concluded was that a lot of the knowledge may
have reached Europe through the Jesuit priests. We looked at a lot of archives
in Rome and Lisbon, mostly Europe. There was no direct documentary evidence to prove this, but this may be because the documents may have been
destroyed. A lot of Jesuit papers were destroyed by the Catholic Church at
one stage and also there was an earthquake in Lisbon. However, there is
strong circumstantial evidence as these priests were sent out with the brief that they should find new ideas on
stellar astronomy, how to use the stars for calculations, how they would be of use for navigation. And India, as
we know, was at that time much advanced in these areas through works of people like Aryabhata and Bhaskara. These priests used to move around in the court circles in Kochi whose royal family too boasted of astronomers like Sankararaman.
Q: Has India been fair to its mathematicians?
Joseph: The question to ask is if India would have recognised the work of Ramanujan, a failed college student
from a relatively poor background, if he had remained in India.
Q: How did you get involved with the curriculum revision committee in Africa?
Joseph: Our family had moved to Kenya from Kerala when I was nine years old and I had my schooling there
before we shifted to the UK. In Africa, I realised that the curriculum was much affected by racial bias. For instance, Black students were not expected to learn calculus because the apartheid government felt it was too
abstract for them. Just before Nelson Mandela became President, a group of us were invited, including me, to
help in the reform of the school and university curriculum.
Q: What ails math education in India?
Joseph: Firstly, there is too much stress on examinations, that the exam becomes the end in itself and knowing the subject is not so important. Secondly, there is limited opportunity for people to do a PhD in maths
(and, even worse, history of mathematics) which is why even the best minds opt for an MBA or move to the
IT field. Thirdly, there is not much of an inspiration coming from the teachers because they are dealing with
large classes and, in a number of cases, engaged in tutorial work after work. Also, the the system of teaching
is too didactic that there is only one right answer and only one right way of doing a problem. system of
teaching is too didactic that there is only one right answer and only one right way of doing a problem. right
way of doing a problem.
Source: Telegraph India
.

India closer to developing its own space shuttle

India is on the cusp of developing its own reusable space launch vehicle, popularly known as a space shuttle. Isro's 1.5 tonne vehicle resembling an aircraft is provisionally slated to make its maiden flight
towards the end of July or August from the Satish Dhawan Space
Centre, Sriharikota. Officially known as the reusable launch vehicle
(RLV-TD), it is undergoing final preparations at the Vikram Sarabhai
Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram.

Four Indian Americans Named to American

Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences
announced the election of 197 new members,
four of whom are Indian Americans. Members
contribute to academy publications and studies
of science and technology policy, global security
and international affairs, social policy and American institutions, and the humanities, arts, and
education. The new Indian American members
are Sanjeev Arora of Princeton University, Sangeeta N. Bhatia of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Renu Malhotra of the University of
Arizona, and Ravindran Kannan of Microsoft
Research Labs in Bangalore, India.
Arora has done research in theoretical computer
science. Specific topics that he has worked on
includes computational complexity, computing
approximate solutions to NP-hard problems,
geometric embedding of metric spaces, unique
games conjecture, complexity of financial derivatives, and provable bounds for machine learning.
Bhatia's research investigates applications of
micro- and nano-technology for tissue repair and
regeneration. In 2003, she was named to the MIT
Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100
innovators in the world under the age of 35. She
was also named a "Scientist to Watch" by The
Scientist in 2006, and Howard Hughes Medical
Institute investigator in 2008.

Its primary role will be to reduce the cost of access to space. The cost
of placing 1kg of object in space is about $5,000, which scientists are
hoping will come down to about $500 with the RLV. As of now,
there are no plans to use it for a manned mission. Speaking to TOI,
those connected with the nearly Rs 100-crore project said that the
spacecraft will initially be carried by a single solid rocket booster
with nine tones of propellants.
After lift off, it will zoom to an altitude of 70km and then execute a
soft landing in the Bay of Bengal. The duration of this sub-orbital
mission is expected to be around 900 seconds. The most anticipated
moment will be when the vehicle re-enters the Earth's atmosphere at
five times the speed of sound.

Malhotra is known for her work on the orbital

resonance between Pluto and Neptune. The asteroid 6698 Malhotra is named for her. She attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
She graduated with a master's degree in physics
in 1983. She attended Cornell University where
she was introduced to non-linear dynamics. She
later worked for nine years at the Lunar and
Planetary Institute where she completed work on
Pluto's orbital resonance and predicted the resonance of the Kuiper Belt.
Kannan is a principal researcher at Microsoft
Research India, where he leads the algorithms
research group. He is also the first adjunct faculty
of Computer Science and Automation Department of Indian Institute of Science and previously was on the faculty at Yale University. He did
his B.Tech at IIT, Bombay and Ph.D. at Cornell
University. His research interests include algorithms, theoretical computer science and discrete
mathematics as well as optimization. His work
has mainly focused on efficient algorithms for
problems of a mathematical (often geometric)
flavor that arise in computer science.

An ISRO Engineer told TOI: "To prevent the vehicle from getting damaged (due to heat), its nose has been
protected by carbon-carbon and there are about 600 heat-resistant tiles placed around the vehicle. These tiles
will be able to withstand a temperature to about 1,200 degrees Celsius."
The space-qualified tiles have been procured from Tamil Nadu. Interestingly, after it splashes down, the vehicle will sink to the bottom of the sea and for now there are no plans to recover it.
"We have simulated different scenarios and we know what can happen. But, we have kept other options open.
If there is a change of thinking at the last moment, we may seek the help of the Indian Navy and the Coast
Guard to recover it," the engineer said.
ISRO ultimately plans to develop technology to land the shuttle on a runway. The mission, which will attract
global interest, will evaluate technologies such as hypersonic flight, autonomous landing, powered cruise
flight and hypersonic flight using air-breathing propulsion.
These technologies will be developed in phases through a series of experimental flights. The first in the series
is the hypersonic flight experiment followed by the landing experiment, return flight experiment and scramjet
propulsion experiment.

Nanomeds can cure jaundice faster: Indian Scientists

The age-old home remedy for jaundice - nimbu
paani or lemon juice - has now got a 21st century
spin, thanks to Indian scientists. They have literally
squeezed lemons to nano-dimensions to create a
nanodrug for speedy and accurate therapy of the disease. Widening the scope of nanomedicines in India,
scientists in West Bengal have designed special nanoparticles that break down bilirubin - the yellow
pigment found in bile, a fluid made by the liver.

"It brought down high bilirubin levels within two

hours (in mice) while the commercially available
drug silymarin took more than a day to control the
levels for the equivalent dose," said Polley, adding
the group has been working on this specific nanoparticle for the last five years. The latest findings,
which are currently in press for publication in the
Nanomedicine journal, open a new door for "costeffective and efficient therapeutic treatment of hyperbilirubinemia, jaundice and associated diseases,"
Essential to liver health, higher than normal levels of according to group leader Samir Kumar Pal.
bilirubin in blood (hyperbilirubinemia), may indicate
certain diseases, including jaundice, in adults as well "We have been working on detection as well as the
treatment aspect of elevated bilirubin. In the near
as newborns.
future, we could help avoid preventable deaths of
"High levels may lead to brain damage or even newborns," said Pal, professor at the Centre's departdeath in newborns and adults, if not treated. To ment of chemical, biological and macro-molecular
combat this, we designed manganese oxide nano- sciences.
particles capped with citrate, a derivative of citric
acid found in citrus fruits such as lemons," Nabarun Union Minister of Science and Technology Harsh
Polley, of S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sci- Vardhan, post his visit to Pal's lab recently, had
ences, Kolkata, told IANS. Polley, a senior re- highlighted on Facebook that neonatal jaundice
searcher at the Centre's department of chemical, bi- deaths, comprise 18 percent of newborn mortality in
ological and macro-molecular sciences, explained India. He was particularly impressed with a nonthat this nano-hybrid helps to degrade bilirubin and invasive, computer-based fibre-optic detector fabricated by the group that detects bilirubin levels within
bring it down to a normal level swiftly.
three seconds by shining light on the white part of
"It is actually like nimbu paani administered through one's eye.
nanoparticles," said Polley, adding lemon juice is
usually suggested due to its cleansing nature. "Nanomedicine has huge potential for India as it has
Through experiments performed on lab mice, Polley elsewhere in the world. Specially, diagnostics promand his co-investigators at Jadavpur University and ises to offer cheap and faster way for detecting disDey's Medical, showed the nanoparticles to be safe, eases for India. This has a huge potential for India
compatible with the body, and proved that they had because our healthcare is not as widespread," said
the ability to act directly and specifically on the tar- Praveer Asthana, Mission Director, Nano Mission,
get-bilirubin.
Department of Science amp; Technology, India.
This ensures the nanodrug doesn't affect any organ.
There were no toxic effects after the particles were
injected into the mice and parameters like blood cell
count didn't change," said collaborator Soumendra
Darbar, research and development division, Dey's
Medical Stores (Mfg.) Ltd. In fact, this precision
which is the product's USP, also takes care of the
time factor.

Hello Kiddies, Here is your Answers!!!

1.

Jupiter

2.

April 22

3.

Wind Speed

4.

Honey

5.

Five

Mumbai Schoolgirls Bag Bronze at Global

Engineering Contest
Sakshi Pandey and Kajol Shelke, both Standard IX
students of North Mumbai Welfare Society High
School, Ghatkopar, have won the bronze medal in
the Engineering category for their 'agro-dehydrator'
project, at the International Sustainable World Project Olympiad (Energy, Engineering & Environment), or I-SWEEEP, held on May 9 at Houston,
Texas.
for an aluminium container and nickel-plated brass
pipes," said Pandey.
How it all began!!!
The idea of preparing an agro-dehydrator struck Pandey and Shelke when the two were at a chikoo farm
in Dahanu to understand how dehydration processes
take place. They noticed that the fumes released
were high in nutritive value and they were simply
being wasted.
"I once had read in the newspaper that fruits and
vegetables worth R13 crore are wasted every year in
India as they grow stale easily. At the farm, we saw
a machine called a dehydrator and noticed fumes
being released. We wrapped a plastic bag around the
nozzle as it was the only thing available and gradually droplets started to collect in the bag. That's how
the whole idea started," said Shelke. Subsequently,
the hypothesis of their project was accepted and the
duo won the Second Grand Gold award from around
75 participations at the Indian National Science and
Engineering fair (INSEF) at the Agni College of
Technology in Chennai on January 10.

The two girls were trained under experts from Science Society of India, Bengaluru, along with experts
from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,
Chembur. "The cost of the trip was R75,000 each,
which was looked after by the Science Society of
India, whereas the cost of my trip was taken care of
by the school," said Nair.
Global Stage
The competition was held at the George R Brown
Convention Center in Houston. "For the five days
that we were there, we learnt things that we never
imagined. We got a chance of meeting people from
NASA and many well-known personalities," said
Pandey. In all there were 427 project participations
from around the world. Each project was to be
judged by a minimum of seven judges.

Hard Work

"We enjoyed so much with our competitors from

Italy, New York, Ireland and Brazil. It was a new
chapter in our life altogether," said a beaming Pandey. "We want to apply our project to the practical
world. We are ready to share our idea with any dehydration company as well as farming people and are
ready to help in any way. With our techniques I am
sure their output will increase as well as their income," added a confident Shelke.

Shelke and Pandey, along with the support of their

science teacher Rajeswari Nair, worked on their project and kept improvising on it for efficiency.
"Initially the plastic containers and metallic tubes
that we were using were not giving the desirable efficiency. Hence after many trial and errors we settled

About the project : The agro-dehydrator is a modified microwave oven that is used to extract the water
content in fruits and vegetables so as to increase
their shelf life. A tube helps in capturing the moisture and the vapour released from these fruits and
veggies, re-condensing it to form a nutritive drink.

On January 21, mid-day had reported on the achievements of the duo ('Juicy innovation helps Mumbai
teens bag top award at science fair'). The first three
grand gold award winners qualified for the ISWEEEP competition.

NTPC flags off mobile science labs for rural India

Country's

largest

power

producer

NTPC on Monday flagged off a mobile science lab as part of its efforts to
promote scientific learning and revolutionizing rural education in India. It
is a very innovative concept by which,
we can ignite scientific learning and I
am sure this new initiative will further
encourage young bright minds in remote parts of India to learn better and
faster," Minister of State for Power
and Coal Piyush Goyal said.
NTPC is introducing Mobile Science Lab (MSL), a vehicle fitted with LCD TV carrying working science
models emphasising curiosity-based learning for children in rural India.
It is an initiative to revolutionise rural education and make hands-on learning accessible amongst underprivileged children, an official statement said.
The three mobile service labs were flagged off by the Power Minister in the presence of P K Sinha, Secretary
(Power), NTPC CMD Arup Roy Choudhury, U P Pani, Director (HR) and senior officials of Ministry of Power and NTPC.

10

Nine Indian-American Students Win Awards at Prestigious International Science Fair

An Indian-American student won the prestigious Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award Friday, while nine
students from across India won awards in various categories and five US students were awarded science trips
to India at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (IISEF) in Pittsburgh. The IISEF honors the
world's most promising high school student scientists, inventors and engineers selected through rigorous
competitions held around the world. Many past winners have gone on to win Nobel Prizes and other prestigious awards.
For his work on refining a system to help protect the seas from oil-drilling disasters, Karan Jerath, 18, of
Friendswood, Texas, received the $50,000 Young Scientist Award, the second highest prize at the IISEF.
Jerath was also one of the five students selected for the Intel and Indo-US Science and Technology Forum
Visit to India Award. They will receive a week long visit to India to showcase their research projects, visit
research leading institutions and interact with top scientists.
Onkar Singh Gujral, 18, of La Martiniere for Boys in Kolkata, won the Association of Computing Machinery
first award and the second award in the System software category for his entry on image processing algorithms for detecting nanomaterials. The other Indian winners came from Delhi, Kozhikode, Mangalore and
Panipat. An Indian-American foundation, gave ten awards at the Fair. Sanjana J Rane, 17, of Louisville, Kentucky, received the first award for work relating to renal fibrosis from the Ashtavadhani Vidwan Ambati Subbaraya Chetty Foundation based in Georgia.
Five American students of Indian descent were among those who
received the foundations second awards.
About 1,700 students who participated at the IISEF in Pittsburgh
were the top performers at 422 affiliated fairs held in 75 countries.
At the IISEF their projects went through rigorous evaluations by
about 1,000 judges with PhDs or equivalent qualifications from
across scientific disciplines.
Seventeen students from India were selected for the IISEF from
the National Science Fair held by Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science.
Maya Ajmera, who is Indian descent and heads the Society for
Science and the Public that conducts the IISEF, congratulated the
winners and said, "These talented young students are the problem
solvers and innovators of their generation."

Hey, You Know Me?

I am the scientific
term Bioremediation !!!
Bioremediation is the use of
microbes to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater. Microbes are very small organisms,
such as bacteria, that live naturally in the environment. Bioremediation
stimulates
the
growth of certain microbes that
use contaminants as a source of
food and energy.
Learn More in Coming Editions!

11

The top prize, the $75,000 Gordon E

Moore Award, went to Raymond
Wang, 17, of Canada.
Scores of Indian American students
won awards in various categories,
five of them getting the first award in
their specializations, biochemistry,
behavioral sciences, environmental
engineering, and mathematics and
energy physics. Scores of Indian
American students won awards in
various categories, five of them getting the first award in their specializations, biochemistry, behavioral sciences, environmental engineering,
and mathematics and energy physics.
More than 200 Indian American students were among the finalists at the IISEF, having won regional competitions across the US. In addition, students of Indian descent came from South Africa, Malaysia and Singapore.
These are the other winners from schools in India:
Mansi Aggarwal, 17, and Harshit Jindal, 14, of Maharaja Agarsain Public School, Delhi: Fourth Award in
Plant Sciences category for research on "An Effective Herbal Ointment against Enterobiasis"
Ravi Pradip, 17, of Dayapuram Residential School, Kozhikode, Kerala: Third Place in Material Sciences for
work on "Plumeria Blooms for Organic Electronics"
Arsh Shah Dilbagi, 17, of DAV Public School, Panipat, Haryana, Third Award in Embedded Systems category for developing "TALK-An AAC Device: Converting Breath into Speech for the Disabled"
Mansi Aggarwal, 17, and Harshit Jindal, 14, of Maharaja Agarsain Public School, Delhi: Fourth Award in
Plant Sciences category for research on "An Effective Herbal Ointment against Enterobiasis"
Aditya Bhargava, 16, and Komal S, 16, of Sharada Vidyanikethana Public School, Mangalore, Karnataka:
Fourth Award in Material Sciences for work on "Highly Sensitive Nano-Ferrite for Detection of Carbon
Monoxide in Air"

12

A scientist in his laboratory is not

a mere technician: he is also a

Do You Know!!!

child confronting natural phenom-

1. A concave shape bends ..

2. In which country was Nelson Mandela born?

ena that impress him as though

they were fairy tales

3. What is a dogs most powerful sense?

4. What is the sweet substance made by bees?

Marie Curie

5. The scientific study of plant life is known as what?

You have time till next edition

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ISSUE 01 JUNE, 2015

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