Across Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers

  INTRODUCTION There is an age-old belief that Talent is inborn, i.e., it is genetically inherited, or God gifted. However, since the mid-1800s, this belief has been questioned, sporadically, in various academic conversations. Such conversations intensified over the past couple of decades, peaking during the four years between 2006 and 2009. During those four years, distinguished scientists and best-selling authors published valuable contributions on this subject.   As it happens, all of them take the same view, which is a contrarian view. They debunk the age-old popular notion that 'Talent is innate'. Instead, based on their case studies, they argue in favor of the contrarian hypothesis that 'Talent is not innate. It is developed'. They contend that it is developed through hard work providing certain constituents are present. In what follows, in the first part of the article, I cite two representative case studies out of the many case studies done by those scient...

  Figure 1 Sibdas Chakrabarti making a presentation at Bengal  Engineering and Science University - 10 Nov 2009 I met Sibdas Chakrabarti OBE, for the first time, on 10 November 2009. That evening he made a presentation at the civil engineering department of Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU), which is located at Shibpur, Howrah, West Bengal Figure 1 . An alumnus of BESU, Sibdas had moved permanently to England in the 1960s. In November 2009, he was visiting his family in Kolkata and taking advantage of that visit he had prescheduled the presentation at his alma matter that evening.   As it happened that same evening, another person, also visiting from England, was invited to make a presentation at the same civil engineering department. This person was Dr Graham Owens, President of the Institution of Structural Engineers. The two events clashed. I was then a council member and the country representative of the Institution. At Graham’s request, I tried to...

https://bit.ly/35bEDUb   Go to the link and watch on Facebook live streaming, a bouquet of song, dance, music, and recitation - a celebration of Agomoni, the coming of Goddess Durga to the earth. The event was organised by the Indo-British Scholars' Association and their collaborators Bengal Heritage Foundation and London Sharad Utsav. As the Vice President of Indo-British Scholars' Association, I was privileged to deliver the welcome speech (1:40 to 8:00).  The presentation was viewed by 5,300 persons across the globe. The organisers are overwhelmed by the response.

  Introduction During this extraordinary period of COVID-19 pandemic, the media use the word virus endlessly every day. Among others, the media remind the viewers repetitively how long the virus might remain active on various surfaces. So, the layperson asks: Is a virus a living organism? What is the size of a virus? How are viruses different from bacteria, or parasites, or fungi, or algae? These and similar questions cross a layperson's mind but are not answered by the media. This article attempts to address some of these questions. It is not a comprehensive narrative on the subject. Far from it, this article only touches upon a few of the relevant terminologies and tries to demystify those for the layperson. The author wishes to disclose here that he is not a medical doctor, or virologist, or microbiologist.   He is a layperson who delved into the subject to satiate his curiosity. He searched reliable sources and collated simple answers to some of the questions and thoug...