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By:

Abhijit Mulye

21 August 2024 at 11:29:11 am

Indian students strike gold

Mumbai: India’s brightest young scientific minds have once again proven their mettle on the global stage, securing exceptional medal hauls at two of the world’s most prestigious science competitions for secondary school students. Showcasing unprecedented academic prowess, the Indian delegation brought home a historic all-gold sweep at the 58th International Chemistry Olympiad in Uzbekistan, alongside an impressive haul of one gold and three silver medals at the 37th International Biology...

Indian students strike gold

Mumbai: India’s brightest young scientific minds have once again proven their mettle on the global stage, securing exceptional medal hauls at two of the world’s most prestigious science competitions for secondary school students. Showcasing unprecedented academic prowess, the Indian delegation brought home a historic all-gold sweep at the 58th International Chemistry Olympiad in Uzbekistan, alongside an impressive haul of one gold and three silver medals at the 37th International Biology Olympiad in Lithuania. These stellar performances cement India’s position as a powerhouse of STEM talent, reflecting the rigorous training and dedication cultivated by the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) and a nationwide network of educators, said national coordinator of Science Olympiads Prof. Anwesh Mazumdar. In a landmark achievement, all four students representing India at the International Chemistry Olympiad, held in Tashkent from July 10 to 19, bagged gold medals. This marks India’s first-ever all-gold sweep in the history of the competition. The victorious quartet includes Debadatta Priyadarshi from Bhubaneswar, Harshit Singla from Mandi Gobindgarh, Kabeer Chillar from Delhi, and Sandeep Kuchi from Hyderabad. This year’s event was the largest to date, featuring 363 students from 93 countries. India’s flawless performance tied the nation for the top spot in the country-wise medals tally, sharing the first position with China, Vietnam, and an individual participant from Russia. The students navigated highly complex experimental and theoretical tasks, including decoding the composition of historical and natural artifacts, calculating the mass of uranium used in a 1966 detonation, and performing advanced pH-metric titrations. The team was guided by Head Mentor Professor Subhajit Bandyopadhyay, Mentor Dr. Indrani Sen, and Scientific Observers Dr. Anubendu Adhikary and Dr. Jayasree Gopalakrishnan. Running concurrently in Vilnius from July 12 to 19, the International Biology Olympiad saw the Indian team secure one gold and three silver medals against a highly competitive field of 307 students from 78 nations. Bhavyaa Gunwal from Mahendragarh clinched the gold medal, while Soumil Maity from Howrah, Nishit Kalani from Pali, and Anmol Kumar from Mansa each brought home silver. The biology competition pushed the boundaries of secondary education with a gruelling six-hour theoretical exam and an intensive six-hour practical laboratory test designed by the Vilnius University Life Sciences Centre. In the labs, students executed complex molecular biology tasks like restriction digestion, evaluated the pharmacokinetics of aspirin, performed precise insect morphology dissections, and utilized cutting-edge digital software for plant transcriptome analysis. The delegation was led by Professor Rekha Vartak and Dr. Anupama Ronad, alongside Scientific Observers Dr. Ranjithsinh Devkar and Dr. Siddhesh Ghag.

Schisms and Appeasement in Western Vidarbha

As the Assembly polls loom, Amravati district in Western Vidarbha is turning into a microcosm for coalition schisms as well as appeasement of established players. A striking instance is the Daryapur Assembly segment where the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has announced Abhijit Adsul as the Mahayuti’s candidate. This decision has ignited tensions with incumbent MLA Ravi Rana, an independent supporting the BJP who has asserted that Adsul is unwelcome not just in Daryapur but throughout the district. The situation has posed problems for the Mahayuti in western Vidarbha besides triggering old tensions between the Ranas and the Adsul family.


Ahead of the Lok Sabha this year, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) decision to nominate independent MP Navneet Rana for the Amravati Lok Sabha seat had sparked significant dissent within the ruling Mahayuti coalition, with Abhijit’s father - former Lok Sabha MP Anandrao Adsul, a prominent figure in the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena - calling his ally, the BJP’s choice of Navneet Rana as “political suicide.” Despite indicating that Abhijit would contest against Navneet Rana as an independent in the Lok Sabha, the coalition schism was averted.


Now, with the Shiv Sena intent on placating the Adsul family comeback, the dynamics are fraught again. Ravi Rana, the MLA from Badnera, remains at daggers drawn with the Adsul clan, alleging that Adsul had engaged in a smear campaign against his wife, Navneet Rana, during the Lok Sabha election.


To make matters worse, Ravi Rana has enlisted former BJP Ramesh Bundile into his Yuva Swabhiman Party, aiming to consolidate support and mount a formidable challenge against Adsul in Daryapur.


In the 2014 assembly elections, Bundile had emerged victorious in Daryapur by a substantial margin of 19,582 votes, trouncing Abhijit Adsul, then a sitting Shiv Sena MLA.


Meanwhile, another bitter foe of the Ranas - Bacchu Kadu, leader of the Prahar Jan Shakti party, has asserted that Maharashtra favoured the ‘third front’ of the Parivartan Mahashakti, led by Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati of Maharashtra Swarajya Paksha, himself and Raju Shetti of the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana.


Kadu, the incumbent MLA from Achalpur, was once a Mahayuti ally who was broken away from the ruling coalition. The BJP has fielded Pravin Tayade to supplant the formidable Kadu, a four-term consecutive legislator.


Meanwhile, the opposition Congress– the most prominent of the three Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) partners in this belt - is turning to its seasoned veterans in a bid to reclaim its strongholds in western Vidarbha. In Amravati, the party has nominated former women and child development minister Yashomati Thakur from Teosa, former minister Sunil Desmukh, former MLA Virendra Jagtap from Dhamangaon Railway, and Aniruddha Deshmukh, the Congress district president from Achalpur.


All four candidates are set to face their traditional opponents in the upcoming elections. Notably, aside from Thakur, the other three candidates suffered defeats in the 2019 assembly elections. Jagtap, making his seventh bid for election, is joined by Thakur in her fifth attempt and Bablu Deshmukh, who is vying for the seat for the third time. Deshmukh’s return marks his first candidacy after a 15-year hiatus; he previously ran as a BJP candidate in 2019, losing to Congress’s Sulbha Khodke, before rejoining Congress three years ago.

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