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Guha wins it for narrative history
- Novelist Gopalakrishna Pai (Kannada) and eminent historian Ramachandra Guha (English) are among those who have won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award this year.
- The books were selected on the basis of recommendations made by a jury of three members in the concerned languages in accordance with the procedure laid down.
An award after four decades of hibernation
- Jamil Ahmad's book, The Wandering Falcon , is a narrative about the lives of tribal people along the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, but an equally compelling story is about the book itself.
- On Wednesday the book was presented the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize at the British Council Theatre here.
- The author, a Pakistani national unable to receive the award in person, kept the audience engrossed through a web chat, insisting that he is “spiritually in Delhi” and regaled them with his recollections about the book, his days as a Delhi boy and life as a political agent in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mr. Iyengar played a key role in India's 1st Peaceful Nuclear Explosion in 1974
- The former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), P.K. Iyengar, 80, who passed away in Mumbai on Wednesday, was a great scientist and a role model to many people, according to AEC Chairman Srikumar Banerjee.
- Dr. Iyengar played a leading role in India's first Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) in May 1974 at Pokhran in Rajasthan. “He was the Director of the Physics group at the BARC at that time. High pressure physics was an important component of the PNE and it was part of the Physics group. The PNE was a good achievement.
- He was trained in Canada under Dr. B.N. Brockhouse, a Nobel Laureate in Physics.
- He led a team that indigenously designed and developed the PURNIMA reactor, which was commissioned in 1972.
- He made a significant contribution to the indigenous building of the Dhruva reactor, which attained criticality when he was Director, BARC. Dhruva continues to be a world-class facility even today
- He started building neutron spectrometers in 1958 around Apsara, Asia's first nuclear reactor, even before the high flux reactor CIRUS was operational, and gave India an early start in neutron beam research.
- He was primarily responsible for the establishment of the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology in Indore.
- Dr. Iyengar vigorously pursued the nuclear power programme with the commissioning of reactors at Narora in Uttar Pradesh and Kakrapara in Gujarat.
- He emphasised the importance of the development of the Fast Breeder Test Reactor at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research at Kalpakkam, near Chennai.
- He received several awards, including Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award and Padma Bhushan.
