MS Sparsha In 1850, a schoolteacher in Delhi spent his own money to publish a mathematics book. A leading review in Calcutta dismissed it as “cumbersome,” “clumsy,” and almost “schoolboy-like.” Thousands of miles away, however, one of the greatest logicians of the age saw something very different—a work possessing “merit of a peculiar kind.” That…
MS Sparsha When one hears of the Kolar Gold Fields (KGF), the first thought that comes to mind is gold. But buried deep beneath those famous gold mines lies a remarkable chapter in India’s scientific history—a story in which Indian scientists went underground not in search of precious metal, but in pursuit of one of…
MS Sparsha Long before the word “bioenhancer” entered the vocabulary of modern pharmacology, Ayurvedic physicians had been using a simple combination of black pepper, long pepper and ginger to make medicines work more effectively. The combination was known as Trikatu. Its three ingredients—black pepper (Piper nigrum), long pepper (Piper longum) and ginger—were themselves regarded as…
MS Sparsha Some scientists make discoveries. Others build the scientific capability that makes discoveries possible. Professor Erode Subramanian Raja Gopal belonged to the second category—and, in doing so, became one of the important pioneers of experimental condensed-matter physics in Bharat. Known to colleagues simply as ESR, Raja Gopal spent much of his professional life at…
MS Sparsha When the world hears the name Mount Everest, it usually remembers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first confirmed climbers to reach its summit in 1953. Some may also remember Sir George Everest, the British Surveyor General after whom the mountain was eventually named. But long before human beings stood on its summit,…
MS Sparsha Before the dotcom bubble burst and erased billions of dollars in paper wealth, a Hubballi-born entrepreneur had already become a central figure in one of the most spectacular public-market debuts in telecommunications history. But the more remarkable part of Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande’s story is what he did after the bubble burst. An alumnus…
MS Sparsha When the history of modern physics is written, the names of Albert Einstein, Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking naturally dominate the discussion on gravity, black holes and the mysteries of the universe. Yet, behind some of the most profound developments in our understanding of spacetime stands an Indian physicist whose remarkable work was…
MS Sparsha There are pioneers whom history remembers. And then there are pioneers whose contributions quietly become part of somebody else’s larger legacy. In the story of Indian information technology, F.C. Kohli is rightly remembered as the “father of Indian IT”. He took charge of Tata Consultancy Services in 1969 and went on to lead…
MS Sparsha There are only about 514 people in the world who can claim to have co-authored a research paper directly with Paul Erdős, one of the most prolific and eccentric mathematicians of the 20th century. Among them were a remarkable group of Indian and Indian-origin mathematicians whose encounters with Erdős created an unusual bridge…
M.S. Sparsha There are technological revolutions that arrive with fanfare, billion-dollar valuations and armies of publicity professionals. And then some revolutions happen quietly, behind green computer screens, humming machines and exhausted engineers—changing the lives of millions without most of them ever knowing who made it possible. The computerisation of Indian Railways reservation belongs firmly to…
