Category: Education

** Australia to showcase Indian alumni among global leaders to woo students

A Study Australia Masterclass Series of live events has also been launched under the flagship Australia India Business Exchange (AIBX) programme.

“After China, India is the second-most important region from where we get most of our international students. In October 2020, 1,15,000 Indian students were studying in Australia, which was 17% of the total foreign students studying here. We are happy that our current endeavour — the masterclass series — has so far had 10.3 million views,” said Ashish Sharma, director, South Asia, at Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade).

“We know the Indian students are key stakeholders and we have numerous success stories. We will now highlight some of the top Indian students who studied in Australia and have now become global leaders,” Sharma said.

** Gujarat engg students develop motorbike that runs on petrol and electricity, netizens say ‘good job’

VVP Engineering College students came up with the idea of a hybrid motorbike that can run about 40 kilometres with fully charged batteries.

Speaking to news agency ANI, Dr Maniar, dean of the Mechanical Department of the college, said that the reason behind coming up with the hybrid model was the skyrocketing fuel prices.

** History’s muse – The Empress of Ancient Indian Studies

Some anniversaries wait uneasily to be reached in the calendar. November 30, more than three months away, is one such. As the date when Romila Thapar turns ninety, it asks to be celebrated ahead of its click.

Described as the ‘pre-eminent historian of ancient India’, she is exactly that. Just as Amartya Sen is the pre-eminent exponent of development and welfare economics. ‘Left-leaning’ would be another description of her — and, of course, of him — in a journalistically apt sense. But as a summary of their intellectual resources and energies, it amounts to a flat cliché. Both those descriptions show how the accurate can be incomplete and the correct, inadequate.

Described as the ‘pre-eminent historian of ancient India’, she is exactly that. Just as Amartya Sen is the pre-eminent exponent of development and welfare economics. ‘Left-leaning’ would be another description of her — and, of course, of him — in a journalistically apt sense. But as a summary of their intellectual resources and energies, it amounts to a flat cliché. Both those descriptions show how the accurate can be incomplete and the correct, inadequate.

** Self-taught vector artist turns passion into profession

Ananth Talam spotted vector art on Pinterest and instantly fell in love with it.

A pencil and paper might sound like a good start for anyone who wants to create visual art.  But not for 27-year-old Ananth Talam. He makes life-like vector art that has been lauded by thousands of people, including celebrities, with just a mouse and a computer. To top it all, Ananth did it without any formal training and taught himself to do vector art through YouTube videos. What began as a hobby is now a full-fledged profession for Ananth.

However, the skill and recognition did not come easy. Hailing from a middle-class family in Hyderabad, Ananth did a Bachelor of Science and worked in the digital marketing field since 2012. 

Hyderabad, Telangana

** Gira Sarabhai, co-founder of NID, passes away at 98

Along with her brother Gautam Sarabhai, she laid the foundation for design education in the country.

Gira Sarabhai, co-founder of the renowned National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad and a pioneer of design education in India, passed away in Ahmedabad on Thursday. She played a crucial role in setting up several other institutions and contributed immensely in the field of art and architecture.

With her brother Gautam Sarabhai, she founded the NID and also prepared its academic curricula, which laid the foundation for design education in the country.

Besides NID, another notable institution both Gira and Gautam were involved in setting up is the Calico Museum, one of India’s most famous private museums. The Calico was one of the textiles mills run by their father Ambalal Sarabhai, along with a range of other businesses in Gujarat.

** MANUU’s 9 films selected for UNESCO-supported festival

Nine short films and documentaries made by the Instructional Media Centre (IMC) of Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) have been selected for Cultural Cinema Fest 2021, supported by UNESCO, Delhi office.

The online festival scheduled to begin on July 17 and films from more than 100 countries are participating in the festival.

The selected films are – Aristotle, Stephen Hawkins, Dr C V Raman, Bharat Ratna Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, Nawa-e-Sarosh Mirza Ghalib, Al Zahrawi, A Tribute to Prof Yashpal, Sir Isaac Newton and Prof U R Rao. They were selected from among 44 films under the category.

IMC director Rizwan Ahmad said it is a huge recognition of the films at global level.

** The 2020 Millennium Technology Prize goes to…

Balasubramanian and Klenerman for DNA sequencing techniques

The 2020 Millennium Technology Prize, announced in May, has been awarded to Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman, “for their development of revolutionary DNA sequencing techniques.” Their work is a perfect blend of science and innovation, and very apt as we have all heard a great deal about genome sequencing in the context of the ongoing pandemic.