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h-index (also called the Hirsch index or Hirsch number) is a tool that measures the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. Based on the set of the scientists most cited papers and the number of citations that the individual has received in other publications. Physicist Jorge Hirsch was the first one to coin it in 2005. George Whitesides of Harvard University has an h-index of 169, which makes him the highest ranked living chemist.
Legendary actress Waheeda Rehman will be conferred with the first Centanary Award for the Indian Film th Personality at the 44 International Film Festival of India (IFFI) to be held in Goa. The award has been instituted this year (2013) which consists of a trophy, a cash of Rs. 10 lakh and a citation. This award to Waheeda Rehman acknowledges the creative contribution of an artist who opted for roles which were much more than just the appealing shadow of the male actors of the times. About Waheeda Rehman: Born in Chengalpattu near Chennai in 1936 Started acting career with Tamil and Telugu movies. Her first film was Kaalam Maari Pochu along with Gemini Ganesan. Guru Dutt, her mentor, introduced her in Hindi movies as he offered her a role in film C.I.D. Waheeda Rehman & Guru Dutt served the audience with such marvels as Pyasa. Kaghaz Ke Phool, Saheb Bibi aur Ghulam and Chudhvin ka Chaand. Preformed impressively with the other megastars like Dilip Kumar (Ram aur Shayam, Dil Diya Dard Liya), Raj Kapoor (Teesri Kasam) and Dev Anand (Guide).
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Eminent NRI industrialist and educationist, Lord Swraj Paul was conferred with the International Indian of the Decade award on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the publication of India Link International, a monthly magazine published from London. He was presented this award for his outstanding achievements in the fields of industry, education and philanthropy. Who is Lord Swaraj Paul? Swraj Paul (82) is an India-born, UK-based business baron, philanthropist, and Labour politician. Founded UK-based steel and engineering multinational companyCaparo which employs around 10,000 people worldwide principally in the UK, USA and India. In 1996, became a life peer, a member of the House of Lords, as a Labour memberwith the title Baron Paul, of Marylebone in the City of Westminster. 1983: Awarded Padma Bhushan by the Government of India 1999: Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton 2000-2008: Member of the London Development Agency 2005-2008: Chaired the LDA Olympics Delivery Committee responsible for delivering the land and infrastructure for the London 2012 Olympic Games. 2006: Chancellor of the University of Westminster 2008: Became first Indian-born Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords 2009: Appointed to the Privy Council. Awarded with 15 honorary degrees by universities in the UK, India, USA and Switzerland including the Corporate Leadership Award from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sachin Tendulkar chosen for the prestigious Bharat Ratna (Indias highest civilian award). Thus Tendulkar will be the first sportsperson ever to be honoured with Bharat Ratna. Tendulkar retired from all forms of cricket as the most successful batsman with 15,921 runs in 200 Tests and 18,426 runs in 463 matches in ODIs. He was the first batsman to get a double hundred in ODIs. His career of 24 years made him an inspiration for an entire nation. The eligibility criteria of the Bharat Ratna award was revised in 2012 to accommodate sportspersons as well. This was done especially on continuous demands for Tendulkar to be conferred the honour for a long time. Tendulkar became a Rajya Sabha member in 2012. This year, Bharat Ratna is being given to Tendulkar along with Professor C.N.R.Rao, the man behind Indias maiden Mars mission.
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Sushmita Sen conferred with Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice 2013
October 30, 2013
NGO the Harmony Foundation honored former Miss Universe Sushmita Sen with the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award 2013 for her efforts towards achieving social justice in Mumbai. Along with Sushmita Sen, seven individuals and an association, India Rescue Mission, were also awarded the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice 2013 for their contributions in the field of human rights and community development.
List of Awardees of Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice 2013 :
Sushmita Sen: Social Activist and Bollywood actress Dr Sudarshan Hanumappa: Tribal rights activist Diep Saeeda: Lahore-based human rights activist Cedric Prakash: Social Activist Sindhutai Sapkal: Mother of Orphans Arunachalam Muruganantham: Social Activist India Rescue Mission: An association for human rights Maulana Mehmood Madani: Social activist Sam Childers: Rescuer of young boys and girls from Sudan
France conferred its highest civilian award Chevalier de la Legion dHonneuron social worker and founder of NGO Naz Foundation Anjali Gopalan for her work on transgenders and HIV positive patients.
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First Genesis Prize Jewish Nobel Prize to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
October 24, 2013
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been selected for the inaugural Genesis Prize an award popularly dubbed the Jewish Nobel Prize given by the Government of Israel. Bloomberg has been chosen for the award in recognition to his long record of public service and philanthropy. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will present the prize to Bloomberg in May 2014 in Israel.
Prabodh Chandra Dey ( a.k.a. Manna Dey) (94) passed away. Manna Dey was a versatile Indian playback singer. Manna Dey sang mainly in Hindi and Bengali. He also recorded songs in several other Indian languages like Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Assameese, Oriya, Gujarathi, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam. Debut as a playback singer in the film Tamanna (1942) Career Recorded more than 4000 songs Some key Awards: Dadasaheb Phalke Award (2007) Padma Bhushan (2005) Padma Shri (1971) (years active) : 1942-2013
Legendary vocalist Lata Mangeshkar was presented the first national Yash Chopra Memorial Award by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting as a mark of tribute to the legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra on the eve of his first death anniversary.
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New Zealand author Ms Eleanor Catton became the youngest winner of the Man Booker Prize for fiction. She claimed the award for her novel The Luminaries. The Luminaries is the longest book ever to win the Booker Prize . Ms Eleanor Catton is the youngest author ever to win the Booker Prize.
Eugene Fama wins Nobel in Economics for his Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH)
October 17, 2013
American Economist Eugene Fama won the Nobel prize for economics for developing new methods to study trends in asset markets. He is one of the three American Economists who won Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences. He shared Nobel for Economic Sciences jointly with Robert Shiller and Lars Peter Hansen. Eugene Francis Gene Fama is known for his work on portfolio theory and asset pricing. Fama is regarded as the father of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. In 1970 issue of the Journal of Finance, entitled Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work, Fama gave the concept of EMH (Efficient Market Hypothesis).
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3 forms of Efficiencies as per EMH (Efficient Market Hypothesis):1) Weak Form Efficiency 2) Semi-Strong Form Efficiency 3) Strong Form Efficiency In weak-form efficiency, it is said that one cant predict future prices b y analyzing prices from past i.e. historical data. Thus, one cannot earn excess return for long time by his/her strategy based on historical share prices. In semi-strong-form efficiency, it is said that a shares price adjust itself to all publicly available new information, thus one cannot earn one cannot earn excess return for long time by his/her strategy based on publicly available information. In strong-form efficiency, it is said that a shares price reflects all information, public and private , and no one can earn excess returns for long time by his/her strategy based on all publicly available information and historical data.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) won the Nobel Peace Prize 2013 for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons. The award was announced by Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is an independent, international body established in 1997 to implement the Chemical Weapons Convention. It has a working relationship with the UN. The organization is currently working in destroying Syrias chemical weapons stockpiles wh ich marks as the first time the OPCW is working in a war zone. It conducts inspections of destruction procedures, as well as evaluating members own declarations, in order to examine that the convention is being followed. Its headquarters are in The Hague, Netherland and it consists of 189 member nations, covering around 98% of the global population. These member states have agreed to work together to create a world free from chemical weapons. Current Director-General of the OPCW: Ahmet Uzumcu
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Famous agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan has been selected for theIndira Gandhi Award for National Integration for the year 2012.
About MS Swaminathan
Indian geneticist and former member of Rajya Sabha. Contributed in revitalizing agricultural in the country and led the nation to achieve green revolution. Previously served as Director of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. Also served as Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Agricultural Research and Education.
Pakistani teen activist Malala Yousafzai, who survived bullet-injury inflicted by the Taliban for championing girls education has won the European Unions (EU) Sakharov Human Rights Prize 2013. Past winners of the Sakharov Prize include South African anti apartheid hero Nelson Mandela and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, named after Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, was established in December 1988 by the European Parliament as a means to honour individuals or organisations who have dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedom of thought. The first prize was awarded jointly to South African Nelson Mandelaand Russian Anatoly Marchenko. The Sakharov Prize is usually awarded annually on or around December 10, the day on which the United Nations General Assembly ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948,also celebrated as Human Rights Day.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2013 will be shared by Michael Levitt, a British and US citizen, USAustrian Martin Karplus and US-Israeli Arieh Warshel. As per Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences who announces the names for the awards, the Nobel Laureates in Chemistry 2013 have made it possible to map the mysterious ways of chemistry by using computers. What are the Nobel winning contributions of Levitt, Karplus and Warshel? The trio has been credited for the development of multi scale models for complex chemical systems. They devised computer simulations to understand chemical processes. Their works laid the foundations for new kinds of pharmaceuticals and contributed to exploring multiple options in cyber space.
Rothman, Schekman and Sudhof to share Nobel Prize 2013 for Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel committee has announced the winners of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. The Prize has been awarded to three scientists, James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Sudhof, all based in the USA for working out how biological cells organize and transport the many molecules they need to function.
What were the discoveries of these scientists which won them medicine Nobel Prize?
James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Sudhof have been awarded the Prize for the discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic.
Vesicles are tiny, membrane-enclosed sacs that bud off from one membrane and fuse with another within the cell. The vesicles gather their cargo- membrane components and soluble molecules- from the donor compartment during the budding process. They deliver the cargo to the target compartment by fusing.
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Criticality:
Vesicle transport is vital for a variety of physiological process brain signaling to release hormones.
Implications:
Defective vesicle transport occurs in a various diseases including a number of neurological and immunological disorders, as well as diabities
The Nobel Prize in physics has been announced to be given to physicists Francois Englert of Belgium andPeter Higgs of Britain for their theoretical discoveries on how subatomic particles acquire mass.
What is the special contribution of Englert and Higgs to physics?
Both the scientists have been credited for their theoretical works on Higgs boson which they theorized in 1960s. They proposed a mechanism to explain why the most basic building blocks of the Universe have mass. Their theories were confirmed last year by the discovery of the so-called Higgs particle or God-particle, also known as the Higgs boson, at the famousCERN(European Organization for Nuclear Research) laboratory in Geneva.But it would still take decades for the scientists at CERN to confirm its existence.
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