Author: Science India Bureau

Vinay Kumar lived in a remote village in western UP where the health facilities were not up to the mark. He was diagnosed with a chronic condition called juvenile diabetes at the age of 14 when his mother noticed that he was losing weight. He was required to take daily insulin injections to manage his illness. But there was no doctor or testing facility in his village. The only doctor available was two-and a-half hours away from his village. No one in his family had even heard about juvenile diabetes until that point. Similar to Vinay, millions of people suffer…

It is history that gives us the wisdom and reasoning to find out the truth, and great civilisations that fail to preserve or doubt on their history and culture, lose their glory. On the Platinum Jubilee year of our Independence, when the country is celebrating Swantarta Ka Amrut Mahatotosava with great gusto, it is the moment to revisit our past; unlearn and relearn from history to sketch a proposition for country’s bright future, by taking pride in the scientific achievements of our countrymen in the colonial period, despite repression and discrimination. India had a strong tradition of science and technology that had…

Adding Dignity to the Life of Sanitation Workers Sanitation workers across the nation are working on the frontlines during the pandemic. These workers, mainly the manual scavengers, are highly exposed to all kinds of domestic and hazardous waste. Manual scavenging, also called manhole cleaning is one of the biggest problems in India and one of the worst professions in the world. The working and living conditions of these scavengers are horrific, with dire consequences on their health and livelihood. There are about 1.8 lakh people in the country working as manual scavengers. Most of them die from inhaling poisonous gases accumulated…

Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the Father of the Indian space programme, started working towards rocketry in 1961. He recruited talented scientists like Dr A P J Kalam, Prof U R Rao and many others. He succeeded in getting international cooperation from advanced nations like the USA, the erstwhile Soviet Union and France for setting up basic facilities in the country. In August 1961, the Government of India formed the Indian National Committee on Space Research (INCOSPAR) under DAE (Department of Atomic Energy) with Dr Sarabhai as Chairman, which eventually transformed into the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1969. Now the…

India’s first indigenously built satellite, the Aryabhata, that was launched on April 19, 1975 was named after the famous 5th century Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata. The satellite’s name was so chosen because Aryabhata, whose timeline spanned 476-550 CE, was the first of the major mathematician-astronomers of the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy. Among many of his achievements — both real and attributed to him as his legend grew over the centuries — the most stunning is his exact calculation of the earth’s circumference (with less than 1% error) a thousand years before the Western world calculated…

The innovation aims to address delayed testing and to help mitigate the impact of the ongoing second wave by giving quick results at home. Since the rise of COVID-19 cases in April-May, India has been testing samples in the range of 18-19 lakhs a day. The numbers, however, indicate that testing in the country is not being done at full capacity because we have a capacity of conducting 33 lakh tests a day. This implies that around 45 per cent of the country’s testing capacity is not being utilised. Many complain that getting tested for COVID-19 by a lab is…

If there is one common synonym for ‘excellence’ and ‘success’ for the teeming millions of India’s middle class, then it is the acronym IIT— Indian Institute of Technology. As soon as the child is born, parents start nurturing an IIT dream, even before the child has become aware of an entity called ‘life’, and regardless of what that child may want to study upon growing up. In India, IIT is a dream, passport to a good life in the developed West—especially the US, the surest way to climb the social ladder, a million-dollar coaching industry, and of course, the best…