WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, & WHY
1. Mona Patel, one of 10 CNN Heroes in 2017, became known for her San Antonio Amputee
Foundation, which has helped many amputees. She was just 17 in 1990 when a drunk driver hit
her and she lost part of her leg. In 2015, Patel climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, which is located where?
(A) Ethiopia (B) Kenya (C) Tanzania (D) Uganda
2. Radhika Jones is an editor based in New York. Her father, a notable folk musician from New
England, is American, and her mother is from India. Which American monthly has Jones taken
over as its sixth editor-in-chief? It’s one of the nation’s oldest and best-known magazines.
(A) Vanity Fair (B) Esquire (C) The Atlantic (D) Harper’s
3. Kaushik Sengupta of Princeton received the top Bell Labs Prize in 2017 for inventing a new
trans receiver chip technology that has the potential of radically improving wireless communication.
Out of the $200,000 allotted for cash prizes, how much did Sengupta win?
(A) $50,000 (B) $100,000 (C) $10,000 (D) $25,000
4. Preet Didbal was elected as mayor of Yuba City, becoming the first Sikh woman to get that
job in an American city. Yuba City has a thriving Sikh population, with many of them working in
farming. Sikh migrants from India first settled there 110 years ago. Where’s Yuba City?
(A) Arizona (B) Washington (C) Oregon (D) California
5. Poet. Medical student. Painter. Kuchipudi dancer. These and other words describe Manushi
Chhillar, who is Miss World 2017. The 21-year-old Haryana native is the 6th Indian to win the title.
Which nation is tied with India for producing the most number of Miss World winners?
(A) U.S. (B) South Africa (C) Venezuela (D) U.K.
6. For its 2017 list of ‘50 Leading Global Thinkers,’ Foreign Policy magazine picked Nikki Haley,
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., and California senator Kamala Harris (right). Perhaps more surprisingly,
there’s also an Indian-American standup comedian on the list. Who is it?
(A) Aziz Ansari (B) Aparna Nancherla (C) Hasan Minhaj (D) Hari Kondabolu
7. Vanu Bose, only 52 when he died in November 2017, was a cellular entrepreneur who
provided wireless infrastructure in rural communities. Like Amar Bose, his late father, he had deep
links to MIT. Bose Corp., which focuses on audio equipment, was founded in which decade?
(A) 1960s (B) 1970s (C) 1980s (D) 1990s
8. Kushanava Choudhury, in The Epic City: The World on the Streets of Calcutta (Bloomsbury), attempts
to do for Kolkata what Suketu Mehta and Rana Dasgupta, in their respective books, did for
the cities of Mumbai and Delhi. What’s the most densely populated city in India?
(A) Delhi (B) Mumbai (C) Kolkata (D) Chennai
9. Pakistani-American Arooba Ahmed and two other high school girls in New York (Jillian
Parker and Jiachan Lee) shared the 2017 grand prize of $100,000 for identifying a protein that could
play a role in cell division and certain diseases. Who hosted this STEM competition?
(A) Microsoft (B) Siemens (C) Google (D) Dupont
10. About 15.6 million Indians live abroad, constituting 6 percent of the world’s migrant
population, according to a 2018 U.N. report. No other nation sends more migrants or gets more in
remittances ($68.9 million). Which country after the U.A.E. has the most number of Indians?
(A) U.K. (B) Saudi Arabia (C) U.S. (D) Canada
[Answers are at the bottom of this page.]
KEEPING IT CLEAN AND CLASSY
As a new year gets under
way, what are some
new gadgets that caught
our eye? Perhaps the more
pertinent question is:
Are we ever going to get
a break from gizmos and
gimmicks? Of course, to be
fair, manufacturers are in
the business of making and
hawking stuff. So it’s really
up to us to decide what’s
worth it. By that measure, in
this age of allergies and air pollution, Molekule is a nifty
product—if the $799 price tag doesn’t make your eyes
water. Over two decades ago, prompted by his son’s
respiratory ailments, Yogi Goswami looked for a new
way to purify air. Dr. Goswami, who heads the Clean
Energy Research Center at the University of South
Florida, drew on his solar energy research to come up
with PECO (photochemical oxidation), which works at
the molecular level to remove pollutants indoors. The
nanotechnology uses light-enabled chemical reactions
to destroy pollutants that are a thousand times smaller
than what HEPA filters can trap. Its coating prevents regrowth,
but the $99 filter has to be replaced every year.
CEO Dilip Goswami (son) and COO Jaya Rao (daughter)
oversee Molekule, which Time magazine recently
listed as one of “the best inventions solving everyday
problems.” Also on the list: Bempu, an Indian-made
electronic bracelet that detects hypothermia early.
Venus ET Fleur’s roses may not make you healthy,
but they’ll make you happy. It all began during a courtship.
Realizing that the bouquet Sunny Chadha had
sent to Seema Bansal for Valentine’s Day could’ve been
fresher and more artfully presented, the couple took
the plunge…as entrepreneurs. They picked Ecuador
as the source for their top-quality roses. The stylish
bouquets, before being shipped to customers, are
treated with a wax-based proprietary solution to keep
them fresh for longer periods.
Yes, the couple continue to be romantic partners
as well.
˄|V ˄|V ˄|V ˄|V
GRAPHIC BOOKS DRAW INTEREST
There’s been a 15 percent growth
in graphic book sales over the last three
years, according to NPD Bookscan. In
2016, for the first time, a graphic book
(the third volume of the March trilogy,
featuring Atlanta civil rights icon and
U.S. Congressman John Lewis) won the
National Book Award for young people’s
literature. Graphic books have made inroads
in India, too—unsurprising when
you think of its youth boom and the pool
of talented storytellers and illustrators.
Publishers like Campfire, Graphic India,
and Vimanika took the lead in bringing
out attractive books with mass appeal. Case in point:
Campfire’s recent Buddha: An Enlightened Life, written
by Kieron Moore and illustrated by Rajesh Nagulakonda.
Another title from them is Karna: Victory in Death,
with Rik Hoskin as the author and Sachin Nagar as
the illustrator.
Also recently, Nidhi Chanani’s Pashmina (First Second
Books), a crisply drawn tale cooked in a pot that’s
a mix of magic realism and multiculturalism,
got a good reception. It was picked for
several “top books of 2017” lists. Priyanka
Das, whose mother is from Kolkata, grows
up in the U.S. (just as the author did), but
her father is out of the picture and he remains—
like India—a mystery to Priyanka.
What comes to her rescue is a magic
scarf (or pashmina) that she finds in a
suitcase. For younger readers, we have
the inspiring Malala’s Magic Pencil (Little,
Brown & Co.), an autobiographical story
by the Pakistani-born Nobel laureate
who turned 20 last year. The illustrations are by Kerascoët.
And then there’s a documentary called Drawn
Together: Comics, Diversity and Stereotypes by Harleen
Singh, who has worked for the History Channel and
the National Geographic Channel. In this debut film,
Singh explores stereotypes through the eyes of Vish, a
Sikh American known for his Captain America avatar,
and two comic strip writers—one a woman of European
descent and the other an African American man.
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
THE FUTURE IS HERE!
Judging by the work
of some young researchers
and entrepreneurs—
all recognized by Forbes
recently—the future is
already here. Can we
convert diesel emissions
into paints and inks?
Yes, say Arpit Dhupar
and Kushagra Srivastava,
founders of India-based
Chakr Innovation. They
came up with a product that can be retrofitted on diesel
generators to capture over 90 percent of particulate
matter (carbon, mostly), which is then processed for
commercial use. Is it possible to create fertilizer from
air? Karthish Manthiram of MIT is showing how with
the help of solar energy and water, and he’s also making
progress in the conversion of atmospheric carbon
dioxide into fuel. What about using 3D bio-printers to
build robots? Ritu Raman, a postdoc fellow at MIT, has
found a way in her research on bio-synthetic systems.
We have solar cells that are a thousandth of a human
hair, thanks to the materials research of UPenn’s
Deep Jariwala. His work has advanced the development
of nanometer and atomic scale devices with applications
in computing and renewable energy. It was considered
impossible for a radio to transmit and receive
simultaneously at the same frequency—until Dinesh
Bharadia of UC-San Diego built a radio that made it
happen. And now we may see some benefits stemming
from this technological breakthrough. Samir Lakhani,
a 2017 CNN Hero, has shown how soap—actually,
leftover soap—can save lives. While working for an
NGO in Cambodia, he saw a woman bathing her child
with cheap laundry detergent powder, which can be
dangerous. The soap bars discarded by luxury hotels
gave him an idea. With the help of scientist friends, he
has produced recycled, hygienic eco-soap that’s used
by hundreds of thousands of Cambodians.
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TOURISM: INBOUND & OUTBOUND
In one sense, the Indian tourism
market is robust, ranking seventh
in the world in terms of its
contribution to the nation’s GDP.
Moreover, it increased by 8.5 percent
in 2016, making its tourism
sector a growth leader among
the G20 nations, according to the
World Travel and Travel Council.
But the driver is domestic tourism,
which accounted for 88 percent of
the sector’s GDP contribution in
2016. India drew 9 million foreign
tourists that year, according to the
World Tourism Organization, and
its rank (40th) is far behind nations
like China (4th) and Thailand (9th).
South Asia on the whole saw an 8
percent growth, driven largely by Nepal (+40 percent),
although India’s contribution (+10 percent) wasn’t
negligible. The country also had close to 6 million NRI
arrivals in 2016, bringing the total
international arrivals in India to 15
million.
How’s India doing in the outbound
tourism sector? Booming, in
a nutshell. To give an example, over
1.3 million Indian visitors came to
the U.S. in 2017, ranking 11th in
terms of numbers for this country.
But Indians tend to stay longer
and on average spend more, making
them 6th in the tourism export
market ranking. About 28 percent
of Indians come here because they
have relatives and friends. While
the main reason is business for
38 percent, it’s vacationing for 18
percent—and for 16 percent of
Indian visitors here, other reasons like medical care
take precedence. The average Indian traveler going
abroad spends $12,000 per visit.
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[Answers to the quiz: 1= (C). 2 = (A). 3= (B). 4 = (D). 5 = (C). 6 = (C). 7 = (A). 8 = (B). 9 = (B). 10 = (C).]