Some Major Contributions of India To World Civilization - II by Debanshu Bhattacharya
(Author’s Note:
It is my feeling that while the contributions of ancient cultures such as China and Egypt are well publicized in the press, contributions of India, by comparison, are not that well touted.
This is the second article in a series that attempts to bring a few of India’s contributions to our children’s attention. I must confess, however, that I will not be able to provide exact references for these facts; they are taken from the Internet.)
In the first article in this series, we discussed India’s contributions in the fields of mathematics, medicine and education. In this article, we will discuss some other areas in which India has made significant contributions.
In addition to mathematics, India was the pioneer when it came to studies on Astronomy. Aryabhatta (476-660) was the first astronomer in the world to arrive at the currently universally known fact that earth is round and that it rotates on its own axis as well as travels around the sun thus causing day and night. This is long before the times of Galileo and Copernicus. Bhaskaracharya calculated the time it takes the sun to orbit the sun in the fifth century as 365.258756484 days! Indian astronomers had the uncanny ability to calculate exactly the time of solar and lunar eclipses, the position of the planets and even the position of various star systems and constellations. The first observatory was also built in India by King Sawai Jai Singh II (1686-1743).
India is the cradle of language. Sanskrit is the mother of all Indo-European languages, which number 132 in all. Common words in English and Latin such as mother, father, brother and sister can easily be derived from Sanskrit equivalent words. It is the most logical and scientific of all languages and according to Forbes magazine, the most suitable language for computers.
India has made many significant contributions in the areas of agriculture and textiles. Records of rice farming have been found at many of the archeological sites of pre-7000 BC. Many types of rice fields are described in Sanskrit texts of the sixth century BC. India is the home of cotton. Discovery of dyed cotton at the sites of the Harappan Civilization clearly proves that the art of weaving and coloring cotton was known in India, 5000 years ago. India has been also the exporter of silk from the time of Kanishka in 58 BC. Muslin cloth from India was the most finely woven and prized possession in Rome of at the time of Nero.
Urban planning has its roots in India. Excavation sites at the Indus Valley Civilization reveal carefully planned cities with houses built with dried bricks, some two-story houses and houses built on raised platforms to protect them from seasonal floods. Most homes had a bathing area supplied with water from a public or private well. In large communities, each house was even connected to a central drainage system. There were even storage buildings for grain or reservoirs of water. All these some 5000 thousand years ago!
In the next article, we will discuss some little known factoids about India’s contributions both in ancient and in more recent times.
Another Rising Star In the BAGC
Sanjay Basu, son of Samir and Juthika (Dolly) Basu, makes us very proud. A top student of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sanjay has been selected “Truman Scholar” in the month of May, 2001. He is one of the 54 students selected among top students of more than 300 universities around continental USA. The students nominated by the universities during the student’s junior year have to exhibit leadership potential and the likelihood of “making a difference”. The Truman Foundation employs a two-step selection process to select Truman Scholars. A committee examines all nominations from colleges and universities and selects about 200 Finalists. Thereafter, Truman Scholarship Finalists are interviewed, from a 3-4 state region, by a 5-member regional selection panels composed of senior public servants, college and university presidents. If a panel decides that no Finalist from a state satisfactorily meets each of the scholarship criteria, it does not select a Scholar from that state. Sanjay represented the state of Illinois. Before receiving the Truman Scholarship, Sanjay received the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, Tylenol scholarship and Robert Bird scholarship given to two state scholars of each state. In the year 1998 he was also selected by “USA Today” as one of the 20 most advanced students in USA. Sanjay has founded “United Trauma Relief ”, a college based humanitarian aid organization that provides medicine to poor persons with AIDS and supplies disaster services for International Aid efforts. Founded in the year 2001, the organization has so far provided free drugs to several hundreds of AIDS patients in Africa and university students from more than 200 universities in US have already joined this organization. During his study at the MIT, Sanjay was also doing research in the “Genetics & Aging Unit of Harvard Medical School, located at Massachusetts General Hospital” on Alzheimer’s disease. Sanjay was the first undergraduate student who was allowed to do research, on a regular basis, in this laboratory. He, along with two doctors of the Harvard Medical School, discovered the evidence of Genetic linkage of Alzheimer’s disease last year. This finding was published in both “Science” and “Nature” magazines. Sanjay is an editor of MIT “Tech” magazine and founder and chief editor of MIT’s “Undergraduate Research Journal (MURJ)”. Sanjay also volunteers for the Red Cross, every weekend, for relief of fire and disaster victims in the Boston area. Our hearty congratulations to Sanjay!
Congratulations to Subham Sanyal and his troupe for the splendid performance of the play “Ekti Abastab Galpo” (A Surreal Story)! The BAGC had officially sponsored their participation at the Banga Mela in St. Louis this summer, where the play received rave reviews. However, as many members of the Bengali community in Chicago had not been able to attend the Mela, the troupe staged a private showing again on August 24 at Cutting Hall in Palatine. The play was a thought-provoking exploration of the validity of the judicial system and capital punishment. Though the play at first had the auditorium echoing with peals of laughter, it suddenly turned grim and then ended in a note of poignancy that left the audience mute for a while. The production achieved a very high level of professionalism in all aspects – presentation, stage décor, background sound and general coordination. Playing to a packed auditorium, the entire cast displayed great thespian skills, especially notable amongst which were powerful performances by Jasendu Sekhar Chakrabarty, as the jailer, and Subham Sanyal, as Ka Mandal, delightful cameo roles by Soumya Bhattacharya, as Constable Ram Singh, and Asim Gangopadhyay, as Ahin, and a tour de force performance by Kalyan Maitra as the priest, Bachaspati.
BAGC’s very own budding scientist Debarshi Mustafi, continues in his winning spree. Debarshi, who has received numerous science awards in the last two years, lapped up an impressive array of distinguished awards this year with his Bio-chemistry project on antibiotic resistance. · On March 26-April 1, 2001, in the Chicago Science Fair at the Museum of Science and Industry, he won the first prize from both Motorola and BP Amoco, the two primary sponsors of the fair. · He also ranked first among the selected high school students in a one-day research symposium organized by Illinois Institute of Technology. · On May 4-5, 2001 he won the "Best in Category" award in the State Science Fair, organized by the Illinois Junior Academy of Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. · On May 6-12, 2001, representing the city of Chicago in the 2001 Intel International Science Fair at San Jose, California, Debarshi set a new standard by wining in all three categories – second prize in the Intel Grand Award, first prize in the special award, and first prize in the government award from the US Army. About 1200 high school students from over 40 countries participated in the fair. Debarshi’s prizes this year include a certificate, $1500 in cash, $3000 in college scholarships, $3,000 in US bonds, a plaque, and a gold medal, and his achievements have been documented in the Hyde Park Herald and the Chicago Sun-Times. Debarshi, presently a Junior in Kenwood Academy, resides in Hyde Park, Chicago with his parents Reba and Debkumar Mustafi. “It was when my father contracted pneumonia, that I thought of performing an experiment,” explained Debarshi. The experiment consisted of identifying enzymes that offer resistance to antibiotics and finding an inhibitor. Debarshi’s project “Kinetic Studies of Inhibition of B-Lactamases” demonstrated that a chemical blocker called benzo(b) thiophener Z-boronic acid helps antibiotics overcome resistance. When asked what classes he took that helped him learn about the methods of performing an documenting scientific experimentation, Debarshi credited his AP Biology for the good science base that it helped to develop. “ Read a lot of science books and journals. When you think you have a hypothesis for an experiment, just go right ahead and perform the experiment,” advises Mustafi to younger aspiring kids interested in the Biochemistry field. Despite his deep interest in bio-chemistry, Debarshi plans on pursuing his career in Engineering. Though he has not yet made up his mind as to which school to attend, he is exploring Stanford University in California, and Washington University in Missouri Apart from his interest in Science, Debarshi plays in his school’s Varsity Soccer team and is involved with community projects in the Hyde Park area. Debarshi is also an active youth in BAGC and has played roles in a number of plays. In the last Kali Puja, dressed impeccably in dhuti-panjabi, he impressed us with his skills as MC. As a youth member of the BAGC, Debarshi feels that the youth programs should be reconstructed so that kids will stay out of trouble and enjoy themselves during BAGC events.
Births:
· Shilpa and Abhijit Datta, on the birth of their daughter, Ritika, on June 16, 2001. A sister for Ankita.
· Debjani and Sunondo Roy, on the birth of their son, Robi, on June 21, 2001. A brother for Nandini.
· Rupa and Dibyen Nandy, on the birth of their daughter, Ruhika, on August 17, 2001.
· Arpita and Saikat Bhattacharjee, on the birth of their son, Arnav, on August 30, 2001.
· Tanya and Abhijit Mitra, on the birth of their twin daughters, Apsara and Aishwarya, on September 11, 2001.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
President's Message
by Amitava Deb
Rammohan Roy
by
Ranjit Roy
· Amitava Deb (Chairman and 2001 BAGC President) · Debdas Banerjee · Manisha Bose · Rupali Chaudhuri · Nirmalya Ghosh
September 11
Perspective of an Asian American
by Indrani Mondal
They came in stealth on a bright September morn. Planes flying high in the sky. But not high enough. They were on a mission to destroy. And they did just that., leaving ashes and ruin. Nothing will ever be the same again. No one will be able to look up at a plane flying above without remembering those eerie, almost surrealistic images of conscious, premeditated destruction, the mercilessly scarred New York city skyline and the thousands who grieve for loved ones lost in an unexpected, unwarranted horror. No one will look at us, Americans of Asian (and Middle Eastern) descent without a twinge of unease. Indeed this distrust, this ‘loss of innocence’ strikes at the very root of a society which is a ‘rainbow preserve’ of many cultures. Look at us now, we who are Americans by choice not by birth. On the one hand, the terrors that befall America are our terrors too. On the other, our physical affinity with the perpetrators and their helpers make us scapegoats and easy targets for the wrath of lay Americans. Caught in this double-pronged attack we, who came here in pursuit of the American dream, find ourselves in the midst of a nightmare. If this persists the freedom and openness America stands for will be sorely tarnished and the perpetrators will have achieved their purpose of defaming freedom and democracy. What a tragic way for the twenty-first century to unfold in this land of immigrants! But, apart from the political, economic and social issues which have erupted as a direct backlash of this stupendous loss, harder questions remain to be answered. How and why did the hatred for America grow so monumental as to hit some of its cherished monuments and symbols of greatness? And why did America, which is supposed to have the greatest brain power from all over the world, not know about it till it was too late? Suicide-murders often involve loss of value, both human and ideological. Human, because of the violation of the basic sanctity of human life. Ideological, not only because, as in this case, the idea of freedom was sought to be ridiculed by proving how vulnerable its symbols are, but also because the tools and methods used to inflict destruction on a free society were in fact made available by that free society itself. No doubt those responsible for this inordinate suffering need to be pursued relentlessly and brought to justice, but America would do well to realize that the real cause cannot be an individual or individuals or even organizations with different views than our own. America needs to find answers more far reaching than catching a terrorist leader ‘dead or alive’. Why has the world system been allowed to foster such areas of intense unrest and terror that they can produce human explosives who can mingle with and unhesitatingly use those they seek to destroy? This country and its people need to get more connected with the causes of such deep rooted dissent and neutralize them before they turn so lethal. Since the hot pockets of such turmoil are mostly in the Mid-east and Asia, America would do well to pay more attention not only to these regions on the globe but also to its immigrants from those regions. Not by curtailing their rights and scrutinizing their migration papers ( that too may be necessary) but by listening to what they have to say. Voices of Asian Americans are conspicuous by their absence in American politics. This is a void that needs to filled without further ado. So as Asian Americans we have a very important role to play. We have to make ourselves heard to our fellow Americans. Maybe our insight will help this nation deal with a problem more intricate and sinister than anything it has ever known before. And while we all search for answers political, economic, social and transnational may the same God, called by different names in different religions, watch over all Americans and the world where they have played such a pivotal role.