Below-Normal Monsoon & El Niño Threat … …

 

The India Meteorological Department announced last week its prediction that during July, below-normal rainfall is likely across most parts of the country – 94 percent of the long-period average of 280.4 mm – except the North-West and North-East regions, as well as East-Central India and the eastern peninsular region, where normal rainfall is likely. This is a double whammy, for the southwest monsoon of 2026 started with just 60 percent of its normal rainfall in June, the fifth-lowest since 1901, delaying the Kharif sowings across the country. Reports also indicate that the sowing of red gram, green gram and black gram in parts of Karnataka and Maharashtra has already been affected.  

This predicted below-normal rainfall in July, closely followed by a 40 percent deficiency in June’s normal rainfall, is certain to affect reservoir replenishments and water availability in several parts of India, including major cities. Reports indicate that water levels in the 166 reservoirs have already dropped from 50.45 billion cubic meters to 48.45 billion cubic meters. Further, a poor monsoon impacts the economy in three ways: it directly affects agricultural output, it hits the rural economy, denting aggregate demand, and it can also threaten to push up food prices, causing inflation.

Adding to these concerns, the World Meteorological Organization and the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have confirmed the emergence of El Niño conditions in the Pacific. Sea-surface temperatures in the east-central Pacific Ocean are reported to be well beyond El Niño thresholds. Reports indicate that it is likely to continue till early spring and will intensify with time. All global models are indeed forecasting that it may become one of the most powerful El Niño events since 1950.

This news is triggering more fear, for El Niño is historically known to disrupt the southwest monsoon rainfall over India. However, there is a slight ray of hope: if the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), which is currently neutral, turns positive, it can bring more moisture to India, often resulting in monsoon rain even in an El Niño year. The IMD hopes that the IOD will turn positive in September, and if it does, it might mitigate the adverse impacts of a strong El Niño to some extent.

Indian Ocean Dipole

The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is an ocean-atmosphere climate phenomenon. It is defined by irregular oscillations in sea-surface temperatures across the tropical Indian Ocean. The IOD is measured using the Dipole Mode Index (DMI). This index tracks the temperature difference between the western equatorial Indian Ocean (near East Africa) and the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean (near Indonesia). A positive IOD occurs when the western Indian Ocean becomes anomalously warmer, while the eastern side off Sumatra and Java becomes cooler than normal. This configuration drives moisture-laden winds toward Africa and Indian subcontinent. This phenomenon strengthens rainfall over East Africa. It can also increase rainfall over parts of India.   During a negative IOD the western side cools and the eastern side warms more than normal. As a result, moisture-laden winds are pushed towards Indonesia and Australia often resulting in copious rains in these regions. It leads to drought-like conditions in India and East Africa. During neutral phase of IOD, no significant difference exist between east and west sides of the ocean, leading to normal regional climatic conditions. IOD is also known to interact with El Niño: A positive IOD, may partly offset the drying effects of El Niño over the Indian Ocean region, while a negative IOD can reinforce wetter conditions in Indonesia and Australia.

Nonetheless, amidst these uncertainties, the immediate concern is farmers and farming, particularly the vulnerable rainfed farming. Deficient rainfall in several regions, particularly during the critical August and September period, adversely affects standing kharif crops, which in turn sets in motion the vicious cycle of poor agricultural output, rising food prices, falling rural income, and a slide in overall economic growth. True, today, agriculture and allied activities may account for a meager 18 percent of national GDP, but a significant proportion of the Indian population still depends on agriculture for its survival. The Reserve Bank of India also identified an adverse southwest monsoon as one of the principal domestic risks to both growth and inflation. We have also seen how deficient rainfall and high temperatures owing to El Niño during 2023-24 exerted persistent pressure on food prices.

Of course, there is no cause for alarm at this stage, as the government is said to hold wheat and rice stocks of about 122 million tonnes – double the annual requirement under free food grain schemes – and around five million tonnes of pulses stock. So, what matters most now is managing the risk of localized stresses caused by deficient rainfall in the rural ecosystem by roping in all arms of the government – from the central to the state governments to district-level authorities – to draw district-level contingency plans to address weather uncertainty and execute them effectively in time.

The agencies implementing these plans must first design alternative cropping schemes in consultation with agricultural scientists to tide over the prevailing drought conditions, and also be ready with a sufficient stock of seeds of such select crops known for drought resistance so that farmers can catch up with the shortened growing season. The next in importance is the affordability of farmers for such quick switchovers to sow another crop. Having already spent their resources once on the failed first sowings, small and marginal farmers may find it difficult to purchase seed afresh unless timely financial support is available. So, banks should also be included in these contingency plans. Thirdly, farmers must be guided to practice moisture-conservation methods to minimize stress on growing crops. We are today better equipped than before in terms of scientific inputs and financial resilience to manage drought conditions. So, what matters more in minimizing the adverse impact of deficient monsoon rainfall is district-specific policy preparedness and effective execution of contingency plans through coordinated action across institutions.

Hantavirus – What We Need to Know …

 

The Hantavirus outbreak on the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius, which set sail from Argentina on 1st April, has raised alarm around the globe. The index patient appears to have boarded the ship in Argentina. However, it is not clear where he acquired it.

As of May 8, the WHO reported eight cases and three deaths on the cruise. It was also reported that a doctor aboard the cruise ship who was attending to an index patient contracted Hantavirus. Such contamination was probable because of close contact with a patient in a poorly ventilated space for quite some period, that too, without any protective equipment.

The ship finally docked in Tenerife, in Spain’s Canary Islands, and Spain allowed its 147 passengers and crew from 23 countries to disembark and leave for their respective countries, with advice to remain in isolation. WHO recommended 42 days of isolation for each person.

Medical experts opine that Hantavirus is deadlier than COVID. But they also say that it is significantly harder for Hantavirus to spread from person to person, for it requires prolonged contact with a person who is sick and is shedding the virus. Though it is much less transmissible from human to human, there are many opportunities for its easy transmission on a cruise ship. But it is hard to see the outbreak continuing for long in normal circumstances.

Most of the Hantavirus infections are primarily acquired through contact with the urine, feces, or saliva of infected rats or by touching contaminated surfaces. Usually, such exposures occur while cleaning premises infested with rodents. Human infections are more commonly reported from rural areas where rodents are common, and opportunities for exposure are greater.

What is a Virus?

A virus is a small piece of genetic information enclosed in a protective protein coat called a capsid. Generally, they are not considered to be alive, for they do not metabolize, grow, or reproduce on their own. Instead, they use the host cell’s material to make more copies of themselves. It’s like someone breaking into your kitchen and using your utensils, mixer, oven, etc., to make more copies of themselves with the recipe they brought in (genetic information). Some common types of viruses are: Influenza viruses, human herpes viruses, Coronavirus, Human papillomaviruses, Enteroviruses, Flaviviruses, Orthopoxviruses, Hepatitis viruses, Ebola virus, etc. Viruses usually enter our bodies through our mucous membranes, including the eyes, nose, mouth, penis, vagina, and anus. Some enter our body through a mosquito bite or a bite of a tick. Some of the common diseases caused by viruses are: Common colds, Flu, COVID-19, Chickenpox, Measles, HIV/AIDS, Polio, Rabies, Smallpox, Zika, Hepatitis, etc. The typical virus life cycle runs as follows: it interacts with the target cell and introduces its nucleic acid into it. This interaction occurs through the binding of the virus to a specific receptor domain on the cell. Once its nucleic acid is introduced, the host cell no longer replicates. Instead, it makes virus proteins. The viral proteins produced in one part of the cell and the nucleic acid replicated in another part somehow come together and form new virus particle. It is then expelled from the cell. It then infects the nearby cells. Immediately after infection, the body reacts by producing interferon and other immune-enhancing molecules known as cytokines, as a first line of defense against the virus. This response is called ‘innate immunity’. Adaptive immunity, i.e., production of antibodies for a specific virus, will occur much later, say 10-21 days later. Viruses spread in two ways: direct contact that includes blood-borne transmission, fecal-oral transmission, airborne spread by droplets or aerosols, contact with bedding, clothes, etc., and vector transmission. Indirect contact spread includes instances where mucus from a runny nose may get onto the hands, or the virus may be left on surfaces such as doorknobs, telephones, etc., and is picked up by another individual, who then touches his eyes or nose, resulting in infection. To curb the spread of the virus, people should stay away from the sick. And those infected by the virus must stay home. It is necessary to wash hands often with soap and water. An alcohol-based hand rub also serves the purpose. Linens, eating utensils, and dishes belonging to the sick should not be shared without thoroughly washing them. Frequently touched surfaces by the sick person must be cleaned and disinfected at home.

The only Hantavirus capable of human-to-human transmission is the Andes strain. It is endemic to Argentina, which regularly reports cases of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) primarily caused by the Andes strain. The primary driver of the virus is exposure to infected long-tailed mice. But its spread between people requires prolonged contact with a sick person in enclosed spaces or exposure to the sick person’s body fluids.   

The symptoms of HPS due to the Andes virus appear 4-42 days after exposure. The early symptoms include fatigue, muscle aches, particularly in the large muscle groups like thighs, hips, back, and shoulders. Some may also experience headache, dizziness, chills, and abdominal problems such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain.

Following these preliminary symptoms, the patient may face a sudden onset of respiratory distress and hypotension. The onset of the cardiopulmonary phase is evidenced by various degrees of compromise of respiratory function. In acute cases, patients may experience progressive pulmonary edema and hypoxia. Fatal cases are characterized by severe compromise in hemodynamic function. The overall fatality rate is reported to be around 30-35%.

Mild cases do resolve by themselves. Nevertheless, they need supportive care to heal. For instance, if a patient develops fluid in the lungs, he/she has to be put on a respirator, and may even need to be put in ICU supportive care. However, no specific treatment protocol has been established in the medical community.

During the 2018 outbreak, Argentina implemented enforced self-quarantine. It also imposed some limitations on large gatherings. Such restrictions appear to be effective in containing the spread of the virus.

The World Health Organization has, however, stated that Hantavirus remains a low risk because it is a zoonotic disease that spreads primarily through rodent saliva but not through human-to-human transmission. Nevertheless, India, given its crowded and unhygienic urban habitations with poor sanitation infrastructure, cannot ignore vulnerability to becoming a breeding ground for disease-carrying rodents. Our public health delivery system being what it is, we may have to remain alert to check its occurrence and control it well before it becomes a threat.  

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GalyxEye’s Drishti Satellite: A New Vision for Earth

 

On May 3^rd 2026, at 12.29 pm IST, a Bangalore-based space start-up incubated by Madras IIT, GalaxEye, has successfully launched Mission Drishti, the world’s first OptoSAR satellite, into orbit. This 190 kg satellite was launched aboard a SpaceX-owned Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, USA.

You might wonder: “Launching satellites is now almost a routine matter; so, what’s remarkable about GalaxEye’s 190 Kg satellite?”  Yes, everything about it stands out as special.

According to the company’s press release, “It is the first satellite globally to integrate Electro-Optical (EO) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors into a single operational platform, enabling all-weather, day-and-night imaging capabilities. This integrated approach addresses long-standing limitations of conventional systems and enables more reliable and consistent data acquisition across diverse environmental conditions.”

What makes this mission so special is not the weight of the satellite but the breakthrough technology that it carries, which sets it apart. The SyncFusion technology of Mission Drishti satellite synchronizes SAR and optical images through hardware-level co-location and AI-driven software processing.

The X-band SAR sensor and 7-band multispectral optical imager are mounted on a single, thermally stable optical bench within a compact payload. This physical alignment eliminates parallax errors from the outset, ensuring both sensors capture data exactly from the same vantage point during a single satellite pass.

Onboard and ground-based AI models perform sub-pixel co-registration, jitter correction, and precise temporal alignment of data points. The result is a unified dataset that fuses SAR's all-weather penetration with optical clarity into "SyncFused" imagery, providing synchronized, context-rich output without needing separate passes.

This breakthrough technology captures the Earth in unprecedented detail. “This integrated approach addresses long-standing limitations of conventional systems and enables more reliable and consistent data acquisition across diverse environmental conditions”, claims the company.   

Images offered by GalaxEye's satellite have an inbuilt advantage over traditional SAR or optical imagery alone by virtue of combining their strengths into a single, aligned dataset from one satellite pass.

Unlike Optical images, which fail in clouds, darkness, or smoke,  SyncFused technology adds SAR’s penetration for continuous imaging while overlaying optical’s visual clarity and texture for intuitive interpretation—eliminating “speckle” noise in SAR data, which complicates image interpretation, segmentation and classification.

Traditional fusion from separate satellites introduces parallax (angle differences) and temporal gaps. As against this, SyncFused's co-located sensors ensuring perfect time and perspective alignment (Precise synchronization), provides 3x more information with sub-pixel accuracy for mission-critical uses like defense operations.

Obviously, this yields better results in sectors like agriculture where crop health or soil moisture estimates are to be made, or mapping oil spills in oceans etc., by reducing analysis errors and dependency on ideal conditions. 

That aside, AI fusion in GalaxEye's  SyncFused  OptoSAR technology aligns and merges SAR and optical data using machine learning models for precise and automated processing. It is said that AI algorithms perform fine-grained alignment of pixels from the SAR and MSI sensors, correcting for tiny geometric distortions and ensuring every data point matches spatially despite differing sensor physics. 

AI in the ground and onboard detects and compensates for satellite vibrations (plus) minor timing offsets, creating seamless captures without manual intervention. The models generate intuitive ‘SyncFused’ images by overlaying SAR’s structural data onto optical visuals, and as it also reduces speckle noise, their interpretability improves.

This breakthrough technology was developed, and the Drishti mission was launched by GalaxEye Space Solutions Pvt Ltd., an Indian start-up founded by a five-member team from IIT Madras Alumni: Suyash Singh – Co-Founder & CEO, Denil Chawda – Co-Founder & CTO, Rakshit Bhatt –Vice President, Computing, Kishan Thakkar – Vice President, Product Development and Pranit Mehta –Vice President, Business Development.

 

This launch signals that India has come of age. Once successfully deployed and commissioned, initial imagery is expected to be delivered to customers in the coming weeks. GalaxEye’s founder, Suyash Singh, said that the launch has already generated significant interest from government and commercial stakeholders internationally seeking access to high-quality, high-frequency Earth observation data. According to Mehta, the current global market for earth observation satellite images is about $3.5-4 billion.  

 

GalaxEye has partnered with NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of ISRO, to market and sell its data globally. Through the commercial sale of its unique satellite imagery data to defence, agriculture and utilities sectors, GalaxEye can generate revenue and become self-sustaining. It is currently in its commissioning phase and is targeting to roll out analysis-ready datasets within the next six weeks.

 

GalaxEye says that it plans to build a 10-satellite network by 2030 to ensure continuous monitoring of Earth without gaps. This shall position India as a serious player in global Earth observation.

 

The Five-Man team from the portals of IIT Madras richly deserves our congratulations for revolutionising the imaging services with their Drishti mission. It’s an exciting time for Indian space-tech with GalaxEye pushing the boundaries, and we wish them grand success in their future endeavours. 

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PFBR hits criticality—A Giant Leap for India

 

On 6^th April, India’s Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu attained criticality. It is a significant advancement towards our much-dreamt-of three-stage nuclear program. With this achievement, we move closer to realising the full potential envisaged under Homi Bhabha’s three-stage nuclear program.   

This indigenously developed 500 MWe fast-breeder nuclear reactor shall serve as a vital bridge between the existing fleet of pressurised heavy-water reactors (PHWRs) that are in operation and the future thorium-based reactors. It will, of course, take a few more months to perform a few tests before it becomes fully operational and gets connected to the grid.

To better appreciate the significance of this accomplishment, we must first know what Homi J Bhabha, the father of India’s nuclear programme, proposed way back in the 1950s.  He, keeping in view the limited Uranium and vast thorium deposits in our country, proposed a three-stage nuclear programme to achieve long-term energy independence.  This runs as:

• First stage involves the usage of natural uranium as fuel in heavy water reactors for producing power and plutonium-239 from reprocessed spent fuel.
• Second stage involves the usage of the plutonium reprocessed from the spent fuel under stage I in the nuclear cores of Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs) with either uranium or thorium blankets to produce more plutonium or uranium-233, which are required for running the third stage reactors.
• Third stage involves breeder reactors using the resulting uranium-233 as fuel in their cores with thorium blankets to generate two-thirds of that reactor’s output from thorium itself. 

Now, let us examine where we currently stand vis-à-vis this framework:

Stage 1

We have established around 22 Pressurised Heavy-Water Reactors (PHWRs) between 1960 and the early 2000s. We have used natural uranium as fuel to run these reactors. Uranium is a naturally occurring element. It primarily has three radio-isotopes—U-238, U-235 and U-234. Of these, U-235 is the only naturally fissile uranium isotope. U-238 is the most abundantly available isotope. But it is not fissile. It, however, absorbs neutrons and converts into plutonium-239 (Pu-239).

These reactors run on the principle of nuclear fission. In all these reactors, natural uranium is used as fuel with heavy water— deuterium oxide (D₂O)—as a coolant. In the reactor, the neutrons collide with U-235 nuclei, causing them to split and release a large amount of energy in the form of heat. This heat is used to generate steam, which ultimately drives the turbines to generate electricity.

In these reactors, plutonium is produced as a byproduct. The U-238— which constitutes 99.3% of the natural uranium fuel— captures a neutron during the fission reaction and decays into plutonium-239. Thus, PHWRs using natural uranium and efficient heavy-water moderation produce a significant amount of P-239 as the fuel burns. This plutonium becomes the fuel for the second-stage reactors.

Stage 2

The second-stage reactor, namely, Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR), uses a mixed oxide of plutonium produced in the first-stage reactor and uranium as fuel. This mixture is called Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX). The core of the reactor is also surrounded by a blanket of U238. This enables breeding and optimises neutron economy.

In this reactor, liquid sodium is used as a coolant. Though sodium, as a coolant, transfers heat efficiently, it raises safety concerns. Reacting violently with air and water, liquid sodium produces fires. Hence, it demands highly specialised leak-proof systems to prevent sodium fires.

It is these fires that made Japan abandon its work on FBRs. Even countries such as France and America gave up this technology due to its complexity.   Russia is the only country that is operating a fast-breeder reactor on a commercial scale.

Now, with the achievement of criticality of Kalpakam PFBR, we have become the second country in the world to operate a fast breeder reactor. Here, criticality means: sustaining a controlled fission chain reaction producing a constant power output.

The advantage of PFBR is that it produces more fuel than it consumes.   The U-238 blanket captures excess fast neutrons leaking from the MOX core and undergoes transmutation—U-238→U-239→Pu-239—producing more fissile plutonium than the reactor consumes. Neutrons captured by Th-232 produce U-233, which eventually leads to Bhabha’s 3^rd stage reactors: the thorium cycle.

Stage 3

The third stage involves the development of the Advanced Heavy Water Reactors (AHWR), which are specifically designed to run with thorium as the fuel. Here, it is required to be noted that thorium is not a fissile material and hence it must first be converted to uranium-233 for use as a fuel.

Hence, thorium is mixed with U-233, which acts as a driver fuel in the reactor. The driver fuel undergoes fission and releases neutrons. They convert thorium (Th-233) into more U-233. This then becomes the fissile fuel in the reactor.

Development of thorium reactors may be a couple of decades away, for we first have to build and operate FBRs to successfully generate power and breed plutonium-239. We have to bear in mind that the fast breeder that achieved criticality is only a prototype. It took more than 20 years to build the PFBR. So, it may take another two to three decades for us to reach the third stage of thorium-based reactor development.

Though it took 20-plus years to attain criticality for the PFBR at Kalpakam, it is, in the words of Nick Touran, who specialises in advanced nuclear reactor design, “a great accomplishment”.

Dr Anil Kakodkar, the prominent nuclear scientist and former chairperson of AEC, said, attainment of PFBR’s criticality placed India in “the second stage of our three-stage nuclear power program”. He also offered “Congratulations to every contributor to this critical technology that makes India only the second country to operate a large fast reactor”.  

Reacting to the accomplishment, DAE said: “Beyond energy generation, the fast breeder programme strengthens strategic capabilities in nuclear fuel cycle technologies, advanced materials, reactor physics and large-scale engineering. The knowledge and infrastructure developed through this programme will support future reactor designs and next-generation nuclear technologies”.

Having thus achieved a ‘critical milestone’ in our nuclear journey, let us hope that the country is not far away from what Homi Bhabha envisaged: using thorium as fuel for nuclear reactors to produce electricity.

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India AI Impact Summit 2026

 

The AI Impact Summit 2026, hosted for the first time by a developing country in New Delhi on February 18-19, concluded with 88 countries and international organisations adopting the New Delhi Declaration on AI Impact, marking a significant milestone in global cooperation on artificial intelligence. Guided by the age-old Indian principle, “Sarvajan Hitaya, Sarvajan Sukhaya” (Welfare of all, happiness of all), this non-binding landmark agreement proclaims that the benefits of AI are equitably shared across humanity. It is hailed as an attempt to democratise AI-access across humanity. It’s more of an ambitious declaration, perhaps.  

Despite successfully hosting a global summit with the participation of top-notch industry leaders and Presidents and Prime Ministers of many countries, “India is not an AI superpower” is what the Economist paper has to say on India’s AI claim. Why, this is not the first time that someone slighted our claim about AI capabilities. In the recently concluded Davos meet, the Chief of the IMF almost dismissed India as a second-rate AI power. Ashwini Vaishnaw, our IT minister, sitting in the same panel, had, of course, brushed aside the IMF Chief’s comments by saying, “I don't know what the IMF's criteria are, but Stanford University ranks India third in the world in AI penetration, AI preparedness, and AI talent. It ranks second in AI talent. Therefore, your second-tier classification is incorrect. India is clearly in the first group”.

Continuing his rebuttal, Vaishnaw put forth some interesting arguments: AI leadership is not defined solely by building large models, for 95% of AI work can be done with 20-50 billion parameter models. It is in this arena that India has developed a “bouquet” for sectoral deployment. He further stated that India is building capabilities across all five layers of AI architecture, viz., application, model, chip, infrastructure, and energy. Indeed, he claimed that India would become the world's largest supplier of AI services at the application layer.

Amidst this conflicting scenario, let us first take a look at the ground realities of India’s adoption of AI technology: One survey report indicates that 90% of Indian firms are using AI compared to 62% globally. India is said to be leading the world in voice-driven AI. Sarvam AI is one such company that has come into the limelight at the summit. Adopting open-source models trained on local voice and language data, the company created Sarvam 1, a suite of open-source foundational models and AI tools meant for Indian languages. They have also launched Shuka 1.0, India’s first open-source Audio LM. This initiative can be described as part of India’s sovereign AI effort that aims to reduce its reliance on foreign AI systems. Seeing Sarvam developed local AI models, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, said: “… I just don’t see any impediments to that, and I think it is very, very well positioned”.

This is what, indeed, the political leaders of India and officials from its government agencies attempted to highlight at the summit. Abhishek Singh from India AI, a government agency, said, “We are not trying to burn millions of GPUs building artificial general intelligence,” but are aiming at becoming the world’s “adoption capital”. In a similar vein, Rudra Chaudhuri, Vice President of Observer Research Foundation (ORF), who works closely with India’s growing innovation ecosystem, commented that “India’s approach is bottom up. It’s not the model, it’s the use case that you have to build around.”

Several Indian startups have attracted global interest and investment in areas such as cloud computing and customer service. Many others are focusing on applying AI to urgent problems of the developing world. Supernova AI is one such example: This app makes English tuition affordable to all Indians who lack access to good schools and want to master their English speaking skills. It is indeed growing at a clip. Similarly, telemedicine and AI triage chatbots are expanding rapidly. It is thus evident from the foregoing that India is focusing more on applications.

That said, given the way in which frontier models are galloping along, one may wonder whether such indigenous apps will remain effective in the long run. Secondly, the cost of producing such apps may also become a veritable question. But Chaudhuri of ORF argues that many such uses will not require expensive “bleeding-edge models”. In other words, what all these developments point to is: Indian companies will have to learn how to apply AI frugally.

That is one side of India’s AI story. The other side is the abundance of enthusiastic and talented techies who are eager to work out how AI can be harnessed, as is evident from the presence of a quarter of a million attendees at the summit. Secondly, massive investments of around $200 bn are in the pipeline from Google, Amazon Web Services, Adani and Reliance, etc., to expand data centres’ capacity —the infrastructure meant to help India become an AI superpower—in the country from 1.5 GW in 2025 to 8-10 GW by 2030. Similarly, Microsoft has plans to invest about $20 bn in AI infrastructure in the country over the next few years. Of course, it is not clear whether India will benefit from these data centres, though Jensen Huang of Nvidia argues that they could be as good for India’s economy as the internet.

All these developments, plus a vast STEM talent pool of about 15% of the global AI workforce, are likely to augur well for India to become a member of the top-three global AI superpower group. Nevertheless, to reduce the gap with the US and China, India must increase its financial commitment for R&D, infrastructure development, skilling people and talent retention. As Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, who participated in the summit, said in an interview with the Economic Times, “… the scale of the opportunity it [India] has with AI is immense.”  

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Nuno Loureiro: A physicist’s physicist

Dr Nuno Loureiro, professor and director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, died of gunshot wounds on December 16^th 2025. 

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Nuno Loureiro was born in 1977 in Viseu, a small city in central Portugal. As early as the primary school stage, Loureiro decided what he wanted to be. Unlike many of his schoolmates, he chose to be a scientist. Of course, he could not tell how this ambition germinated.  But by the time he turned 17, he decided to devote his life to physics.

Graduating with a degree in physics from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in Lisbon, Loureiro moved to Imperial College in London and obtained PhD for his study of ‘tearing modes in plasma’—– the fourth phase of matter, in which ions and electrons form a sort of super-hot broth that accounts for 99.9% of the ordinary (baryonic) matter in the visible universe. Even stars like our Sun and nebulae are made up of the same stuff.    

Plasma has abundant energy. It is filled with electrical and magnetic fields. They interact in highly dynamic ways—constantly pushing and pulling themselves until they are torn apart and reformed. It is this phenomenon of ‘tearing modes’ in plasma leading to ‘magnetic reconnection’ which converts magnetic energy into kinetic and thermal energy, that Loureiro researched at Imperial College for his PhD.

Loureiro was so fascinated by solar wind—a highly variable stream of particles ejected by the Sun that are charged with energy, which demonstrates magnetic interactions on a massive scale—that he took it as a prime natural laboratory to study plasma turbulence. Secondly, the immense energy carried by solar wind is considered capable of meeting our substantial energy needs if it were harnessed. And thus, the turbulent plasmas and the mechanisms of magnetic reconnection soon became his research pursuit for the rest of his life.   

After obtaining his PhD in 2005, Loureiro undertook postdoctoral research at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory for the next two years. In 2007, he moved to UKAEA Culham Center for Fusion Energy. Then in 2009, he returned to IST, Lisbon and carried out research at the Institute for Plasma and Nuclear Fusion Energy.

In 2016, he joined MIT in search of the company of best minds and best facilities to study the wayward matter—Plasma, and replicate the huge fusion forces observed in the Sun and other stars and generate continuous energy without using oil or coal.  As an assistant professor and then a full professor, he taught courses at MIT, viz., Intro to Plasma Physics and Theory of fusion systems, for which he was twice recognised with the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering’s PAI Outstanding Professor Award.

Loureiro pursued plasma studies with passion. He studied it in the laboratory with tokamaks—doughnut-shaped reactors—using magnets to try to hold plasma steady at a temperature of millions of degrees, as in stars. He was also getting data from satellites stationed at a very close range from the Sun, which could be used to measure plasma behaviour in space and use it as an “exquisite accuracy” for his laboratory plasma models—an attempt to connect the physics of the lab with that of space. Simultaneously, he and his students were obsessively tracking the kinetic energy of plasma in a vessel, comparing temperatures at the periphery and the core with an objective to construct a numerical model to predict the outcomes. They indeed attempted to cause fusion, but “plasma would do its own thing”. Thus, the question of harnessing all that energy for the good of humanity remained as an intellectual challenge and a real practical problem.  

Loureiro’s research at MIT advanced our understanding of plasma behaviour and also uncovered the physics behind astronomical phenomena like solar flares. In 2024, he was named director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center of MIT, though his contributions to fusion science and engineering began far before that. 

His work in astrophysics revealed fundamental mechanisms of the universe. Based on the unprecedented observations of a binary neutron star merger in 2018, he came up with the first theory of turbulence in pair plasmas (electron-positron plasmas) that differ from regular plasma.

His research on magnetised plasma dynamics, magnetic field amplification and confinement and transport in fusion plasmas led to the design of fusion devices that could harness the energy of fusing plasmas. It almost brought the dream of clean and limitless fusion power closer to reality.  Nevertheless, Loureiro, for whom the struggle for success itself was enough, admitted that reliable fusion energy is still a long way off.  

Loureiro, whether working on fusion or astrophysics, always merged fundamental physics with technology and engineering to maximise the impact. This extraordinary scientist won several prizes. Notable of them is the Presidential Early Career Award for young scientists presented by Joe Biden, former President of the US.   

This leading researcher in the field of dynamics of space and astrophysical plasmas was shot at his home on December 15, 2025, and died the next day. Authorities linked the murder to Neves Valente, who committed suicide on December 18, 2025. Valente attended the same physics program along with Loureiro at IST, Lisbon and topped the class with an average of 19/20. This brilliant Valente later went to Brown University, but after a few months, dropped out and disappeared.  He reappeared on 13^th December to kill two students and injure nine others at Brown University, and later on 15^th at Brookline, Massachusetts, to shoot his classmate Loureiro. Authorities could not establish a firm motive for shooting Loureiro. 

Ironically, Loureiro’s research also reveals that all kinds of explosions can be neither controlled nor explained.  But his death is an immeasurable loss to the entire fusion and plasma research world.

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Dr Jane Goodall: A Conservationist and Activist

 

Dr Jane Goodall, the lady who “abolished the barrier between man and animal” by dedicating 65 years of her life to studying the behaviour of wild chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania, died at the age of 91 on October 1, 2025.

In November 1960, after spending many solitary hours watching from afar, Goodall could get close to one chimpanzee, which she later named David Greybeard, to observe it stripping leaves from a twig and then inserting it into a termite mound and twisting it around before pulling it out and eating the termites that had latched on to it. This significant discovery made her a renowned ethologist.  

Besides making implements from leaves and sticks, chimpanzees are also found to build nests in trees, hunt for meat, form family relationships, and wage war on rival troops, which Dr Goodall recorded to educate people about their manly skills. Indeed, she became famous for informing the world about chimpanzees displaying rational thought and emotions such as joy and sorrow, as well as actions like hugs, tickling and pats on the back, just as humans do among family members and close friends.

From an early age, Jane Goodall, the carefree child, had a deep passion for wildlife. She read ardently about the natural world, and at just eight years old, she announced to her family that she wanted to go to the forests of Africa “to live with and write about animals”. At the age of 23, she finally realised her childhood dream by accepting the offer made by her classmate to stay on their family farm outside Nairobi. 

Having thus achieved her childhood ambition of travelling to the forest in Africa in 1957, Goodall approached Dr Louis Leakey, the noted palaeontologist, with a request to employ her as a secretary at the National Museum in Nairobi, Kenya, and take her on a fossil hunting expedition in Tanzania.  Later, noticing her aptitude for patient field work and her “boundless curiosity”, Dr Leakey included her in a study of chimpanzees in Gomba, Tanzania. The rest is history.

Her groundbreaking work at Gomba, promoted by National Geographic magazine, brought her to the attention of the world’s media. Nevertheless, realising that Goodall’s work will be viewed seriously only when she is academically qualified, Dr Louis arranged for Goodall to study for a PhD in Ethology at Cambridge. She submitted her thesis—The Behaviour of Free-living Chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve—and obtained PhD in 1965.

Throughout her life, she inspired many scientists, notable among them are Dian Fossey, who studied gorillas in Rwanda and Birute Mary Galdikas who studied orangutans in Borneo. She was a “tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world”. Her research reshaped our understanding of the natural world. As the former Canadian Prime Minister commented, “she was a pioneer whose research and advocacy reshaped our understanding of the natural world”. She urged us all to remember that “every single one of us matters, every single one of us has a role to play, and every single one of us makes a difference every single day”.

Over the decades, she became a figure of international repute: a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, United Nations Messenger of Peace, and a bestselling author of many books. Her seminal book—In the Shadow of Man—details her research and discoveries about chimpanzee behaviour in Gombe Stream, and this brought her international acclaim.  The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times written in collaboration with Douglas Abrams is another bestseller of her which focuses on optimism in the face of global challenges. My Life with Chimpanzees is the bestselling autobiography of her that appeals to readers of all ages. She was also featured in many documentaries, of which, Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees made her a globally famous celebrity, of course much to her bemusement.

However, she is known to have used this fame only as a means to her mission of making the world a better place to live. In 1977, she established the Jane Goodall Institute with a mission to continue her research on chimpanzees and protect their habitats through community-centred conservation. It also supports work on primate welfare through public education and legal advocacy.  Today, it has offices in 25 countries, working with locals to improve natural habitats. In 1991, Goodall founded the Roots & Shoots environmental program, which is a youth initiative for conservation and humanitarian action.

Goodall travelled for about 300 days a year during her middle years and old age, to give speeches and raise awareness for environmental causes, including conservation, biodiversity loss, and the interconnectedness of all living things.  As a conservationist, she encouraged everyone to “use the gift of our life to make the world a better place”.

She cares so passionately about the environment, about animals, about children that in an interview with Steve Curwood that was aired on PRX, she questioned: “Do you think I’m going to let the Donald Trumps and Bolsonaros and people like that knock me down and keep me down?” She continued, “No, I’ll go on fighting till the day I die.    Because I am passionate, and because I believe we have a window of time. …[I]t’s only if we all do our bit and get together that we can start slowing down climate change [and] heal some of the harm that we’ve inflicted”.

In one of her interviews, perhaps the last one, she said, “I see nature being destroyed all around the world”. She lamented, “… what we are doing is stealing our children’s future … We still haven’t learned to treat animals with respect”. She went on to say, “In these times today, with what’s going on in the world, we must not give up, and instead fight harder for truth and justice. If you lose hope, then we are doomed”.

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2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine

 

On 6^th October, the Noble Assembly at Karolinska Institute has decided to award the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to: Mary Brunkow of Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, USA; Fred Ramsdell of Sonoma Biotherapeutics, San Francisco, USA; and Shimon Sakaguchi of Osaka University, Osaka, Japan “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance” that prevents the immune system from harming the body. 

Their work—identification of “immune system’s security guards” that prevent the body from harming itself — laid the foundation for a new field of research to invent potential therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases. To better appreciate the Nobel Laureates’ contribution, we must first understand what the immune system is all about. 

Our immune system protects us every day from the thousands of different viruses, bacteria and other microbes that attempt to invade our bodies. Suffice it to say that without a functioning immune system, we would not survive.

It is T cells—a type of white blood cell called lymphocytes—that play an essential role in our immune system. They fight germs and protect us from diseases. These T cells have special proteins on their surface that are called T cell receptors. These receptors, acting like sensors, help T cells scan other cells and discover whether the body is under attack. There are two main types of T cells:

Cytotoxic T cells: They are also called CD8+ cells because they have the CD8 receptor (a type of protein) on their membranes. They kill cells infected with viruses and bacteria, and they also destroy tumour cells.

Helper T cells: They are also called CD4+ cells because they have a CD4 receptor (a type of protein) on their membranes. Unlike Cytotoxic cells, these cells don’t kill cells directly. They send signals to other cells in our immune system—Cytotoxic T cells, B cells, and another type of white blood cell called macrophages—as to how to coordinate an attack against invaders.

There is another kind of T cells, though not considered as main type, called T suppressor cells. They play a critical role in our immune system by preventing T cells from attacking our body’s healthy cells.

Interestingly, some of these T cells function as memory T cells. These are not fighters. They remember the intruder and thus enable the immune system to recognise it whenever the virus or bacteria return, and quickly activate our defence system against the invader.

These T cells exist in different places depending on their stage in the cell cycle. They come from stem cells in our bone marrow. Then migrate to the thymus to mature and develop their immune functions. Here in the thymus, the T cells that recognise the body’s own proteins are sorted and removed; otherwise, they may attack the body’s own cells. This process is called ‘central tolerance’. Finally, they relocate to our lymph tissue or bloodstream. They remain in our body as a standby until we need them to protect us.

As mentioned earlier, in our adaptive immune system, T cells are key fighters. They identify invading viruses by recognising viral peptide fragments present on the surface of infected cells within Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) molecules. An infected cell processes viral proteins into small peptides and presents them using the MHC proteins. Killer T cells have receptors that bind to these viral peptides bound to MHC molecules, and this process facilitates the identification of an infected cell as abnormal.

Once an intruder is detected, our adaptive immune system builds a customised defence to fight it. Every T cell is unique in that it is designed to fight only one type of intruder. Once our immune system identifies the threat, it picks up the specific T cell designed to defeat the intruder. This T cell copies itself, creating more T cells to defeat the intruder. These T cells that join the battle against the intruder are called effector cells.

T cells continue to protect our body even after the intruder is eliminated. Some of these T cells morph into memory cells. Like effector cells, these memory cells won’t fight against the intruder. Instead, they remember the intruder so that if it revisits, our immune system can identify it and quickly launch defensive action.  

With this understanding, let us now move to examine the research done by the present Laureates. Indeed, the work considered for the award was carried out by these laureates over several decades. Shimon Sakaguchi paved the way with his pioneering research —first published in 1995— that discovered a new class of T cells, called regulatory T cells or Tregs (a previously unknown class of T cells), that help turn the immune response down after it eliminates an invader and thus prevent other T cells from attacking healthy tissues of one’s own body.

Sakaguchi’s discovery fundamentally changed our understanding of immune tolerance. It showed that it is not just due to the elimination of harmful cells in the thymus, but also due to an active suppression by Tregs in peripheral tissues that immune tolerance is ensured. Thus, his work demonstrated that Tregs are crucial for preventing autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, etc. His research also showed how cancer cells can exploit regulatory T cells to evade immune attack, paving the way for new therapeutic avenues. 

Taking forward Sakaguchi’s findings, Brunkow and Ramsdell (2001) found that mutations in the FOXP3 gene lead to the absence or malfunction of regulatory T cells, resulting in severe autoimmune disease. Brunkow and Ramsdell examined the ‘scurfy’ mouse, which exhibited fatal autoimmune symptoms, and using positional cloning, identified a mutation in a then unknown gene on the X-chromosome. They discovered that this gene— named by them as FOXP3—was responsible for the development and function of regulatory T cells (Tregs). Following this, they linked mutations in the human FOXP3 gene to a rare but deadly syndrome in children called IPEX (Immunodysregulation polyendocrinopathy enterotrophy X-linked) syndrome. They thus confirmed the central role of FOXP3 and Tregs in maintaining immune tolerance.

Thus, the research output of Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell formally proved that FOXP3 is a master regulator for Treg cells development and function, offering a mechanistic explanation for immune tolerance and autoimmunity. Their research laid the groundwork for understanding how “peripheral immune tolerance” is established and maintained through regulatory T cells.

Subsequently, in 2003, Sakaguchi and his team demonstrated that the FOXP3 gene was the crucial molecular switch controlling the development of the Tregs that he had discovered earlier.

This collective work demonstrated that self-tolerance is maintained in our body by two processes: i) Central tolerance, in which the thymus eliminates most of the self-reactive T cells, and ii) Peripheral tolerance, in which Tregs, governed by FOXP3, police the body and suppress any remaining self-reactive T cells.

Thus, this year’s Nobel Laureates in Physiology—Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi—provided us critical answers to the marvels of the immune system through a combination of their insightful observations and careful experimentation. This, in turn, opened new paths for treating autoimmune diseases, cancer and improving organ transplant tolerance.

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Prof Jayant Narlikar: The Man Who Challenged Big Bang Theory

 

Prof Jayant Vishnu Narlikar, a towering figure in Indian science, a visionary astrophysicist and an immensely popular science communicator, died on 20 May 2025 in Pune.

Born on July 19, 1938, in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, Prof Narlikar, graduating from Banaras Hindu University, went to Cambridge to study mathematics. There, he secured the Wrangler and Tyson Medal in the Mathematical Tripos.   Specialising in astronomy and astrophysics, he obtained several degrees from Cambridge in mathematics: B.A. (1960), Ph.D. (1963), M.A. (1964) and Sc.D. (1976).

He remained in Cambridge as a Fellow of King’s College between 1963-72 and a Founder Staff Member of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy (1966-72).  It is during this period that his research interests in cosmology and astrophysics took a solid shape under the mentorship of Dr Fred Hoyle.

The collaboration between Fred Hoyle and Narlikar led to the proposal of an alternate model to the Big Bang theory of the universe’s origin. Together, they developed and refined the steady-state theory, which posits that the universe has no beginning or end in time and maintains a constant density through the continuous creation of new matter, even as it expands. This stands in contrast to the Big Bang theory, which suggests that the universe began from a singular event and has been evolving ever since.

Prof Narlikar’s main contribution to this theory was in the form of a rigorous mathematical framework, which modified Einstein’s equations to allow for the creation of new matter in the universe. This collaboration led to the Hoyle-Narlikar theory, which, by incorporating Mach’s principle, proposed a conformal theory of gravity as an alternative to the standard cosmological model.     

However, both the steady-state and quasi-steady-state models have lost favour due to observational evidence— particularly the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the abundance of light elements, and the observed evolution of galaxies, and quasars over time— which supports the Big Bang theory. Nevertheless, the Hoyle-Narlikar partnership remains a significant chapter in the history of cosmology, having rigorously challenged mainstream ideas and sparked scientific debate.

In 1972, Dr. Narlikar returned to India and joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), where he spent 17 years building up the Theoretical Astrophysics Group to international prominence.

In 1988, he established the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune and was its founder Director until 2003. Under his visionary leadership, IUCAA gained worldwide recognition as a center of excellence in teaching and research in astronomy and astrophysics.

Prof Narliker remained a tenacious challenger of orthodoxy for over six decades. He firmly believed that even the most controversial scientific ideas need to be investigated. They should not be summarily rejected simply because they do not fit in the conventional framework. This philosophy strikingly reflects in his keen interest in panspermia:  the theory that suggests life exists throughout the universe and is spread through space dust, meteoroids, asteroids, comets and planetoids.  

Indeed, between 1999-2003, he led an international team in an experiment that involved sampling air at altitudes up to 41 km to study the presence of microorganisms. Biological analysis of the collected samples revealed the presence of live cells and bacteria, pointing to a fascinating possibility of Earth being continually bombarded by microorganisms, some of which might have seeded life here.

Besides being an active researcher, Prof Narlikar was also a popular science communicator. He kindled young minds of India with his popular science books, television programmes, and science fiction stories. His ability to explain complex scientific ideas in simple terms with clarity and wit earned him UNESCO Kalinga Award in 1966 for popularising science. 

Interestingly, at a meeting held in 1995 to celebrate the 80^th birth day of Fred Hoyle at the Cambridge University’s Institute of Astronomy (IoA)—which Hoyle himself had founded in 1972—he started his speech that was meant to trace his main contributions to astronomy, by saying: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of a Jayant”. This highlights the profound impact of Prof Jayant Narlikar on the field of Astronomy. 

In the passing of Prof Narlikar, India has lost a visionary scientist and a passionate communicator of science to the common man.   

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