Category Famous Personalities

WHO IS WORLD’S NUMBER ONE SCHOLAR?

Dr.Bhim Rao Ambedkar declared no. 1 scholar in world by colombia University. He was a world-class lawyer, social reformer and number one world-class scholar as per the Ministry of Social Justice, Government of India. Ambedkar graduated from Elphinstone College, University of Bombay, and studied economics at Columbia University and the London School of Economics, receiving doctorates in 1927 and 1923 respectively and was among a handful of Indian students to have done so at either institution in the 1920s. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar is remembered as one of the most respected and revered leaders India has ever produced. To the young and old alike, he is an icon of equality, fraternity and social justice. He advocated politics with values, democracy with fraternity, and religion with social responsibility.

Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891 at Mhow, in the Central Province (presently Madhya Pradesh). He was the fourteenth and the last child Ramji Maloji Sakpal and Bhimabai Sakpal. Bhimrao was a brilliant student who earned two doctorates in Economics from the prestigious Columbia University and the London School of Economics. He was a well-known statesman, ambitious leader, erudite economist, expert jurist, dynamic journalist, brilliant scholar, prolific writer and social reformer, all capsuled into one. As the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution, he was its principal architect. He championed the cause of the Dalits, women, the poor and other socially backward people of India. He was the first law minister of independent India. After a prolonged illness, he died in the year 1956, a few months after converting to Buddhism. The country honoured him with the highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, posthumously in 1990.

Coming from a poor and backward class who were treated as untouchables, the Ambedkar family was exposed to the sheer brutality of the caste system and its atrocities in life. The bitter experiences in life gave him enough fire to burn with the desire for social justice and equality and shape him as a social reformer. He campaigned against social discrimination towards the untouchables of his time. He condemned child marriage and the mistreatment of women in society. He vociferously crusaded against the caste system in India. He fought for the legal protection of the Dalits, and for equality of opportunities through the reservation system. He inspired millions and represented the voice W for self-respect, intolerance of injustice, and struggle against social and economic oppressions.

As a political philosopher and architect of the Indian Constitution, Dr Ambedkar had a prophetic vision of how political parties, down the decades, would use caste and creed to influence voters. Perhaps the India of today is what Dr Ambedkar had feared seven decades ago.

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By whom the electric light bulb was born and how?

Thomas Edison had discovered in his experiments that there were certain bodies through which electric power flowed more easily. He called these good conductors and other bodies that resisted the flow of electric power he called bad conductors. When electricity tried to travel along a bad conductor the latter would resist so much that it glowed until became white-hot.

A carbon filament, for example, gave out a good deal of light; but the light did not last very long because the carbon would soon burn itself up as it was in contact with the oxygen in the air.

Edison then carried out an experiment inside a glass bulb from which he had removed all the air. This time the light of the glowing filament lasted much longer and the fist electric light bulb was born.

Carbon filaments have now been replaced by tungsten wire as its high melting point, low rate of evaporation and low electrical consumption make it most suitable for use in light bulbs. A further improvement has been the introduction of an inert gas in to the bulb. This was at first nitrogen but is now a mixture of 88 per cent argon and 12 per cent nitrogen.

 

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How many women have flown in space so far?

As of December 2019, of the 565 total space travelers, 65 have been women. There have been one each from France, Italy, South Korea, and the United Kingdom; two each from Canada, China, and Japan; four from the Soviet Union/Russia; and 50 from the United States. The time between the first male and first female astronauts varied widely by country. The first astronauts originally from Britain, South Korea, and Iran were women, while there was a two-year gap in Russia from the first man in space on Vostok 1 to the first woman in space on Vostok 6. The time between the first American man and first American woman in space was 22 years between Freedom 7 and STS-7, respectively. For China, this interval was almost eight and a half years between the Shenzhou 5 and Shenzhou 9 space missions, and for Italy, there was approximately twelve years between the STS-46 and Expedition 42 spaceflights.

A span of 19 years separated the first and second women in space. They were cosmonauts on the Vostok 6 and Soyuz T-7 missions. Though the Soviet Union sent the first two women into space, only four of the women in space have been Russian or Soviet citizens. However, British, French, Italian, dual-citizen Iranian-American and South Korean women have all flown as part of the Soviet and Russian space programs. Similarly, women from Canada, Japan, and America have all flown under the US space program. A span of one year separated the first and second American women in space, as well as the first and second Chinese women in space, taking place on consecutive missions, Shenzhou 9 and Shenzhou 10.

 

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In 2006, which astronaut with Indian ancestry established a world record for women with four spacewalks?

Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams, who holds the record of the longest space flight (195 days) for a woman, arrived at her new home amid stars with an international cast of crew for another four-month stay.

In 1993 she became a naval test pilot, and she later became a test pilot instructor, flying more than 30 different aircraft and logging more than 2,770 flight hours. When selected for the astronaut program, she was stationed aboard the USS Saipan.

Williams completed an M.S. in engineering management from the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne in 1995, and she entered astronaut training in 1998. She traveled to Moscow, where she received training in robotics and other ISS operational technologies while working with the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) and with crews preparing for expeditions to the ISS.

 

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Which is the first woman of Indian descent to go into space?

Born on March 17, 1962, in Karnal, Kalpana Chawla was the first Indian-origin woman to go into space. Chawla joined NASA in 1988 and first flew aboard Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997. The astronaut died on her second mission aboard Columbia in 2003. Sunita Williams, born in the US, became the second Indian-origin woman to travel into space in 2006.

Born in Karnal, Chawla received a degree in aeronautical engineering from Punjab Engineering College before moving to the United States for her masters and PhD. In 1994, she was selected as an astronaut candidate at NASA.

Chawla first travelled to space aboard the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia flight STS-87. The shuttle made 252 orbits around the Earth in a little over two weeks, before the tragic accident that took place in February while it was returning to Earth.

Chawla moved to the United States to pursue her graduate education; in 1984 she received a Master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas, and a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado in 1988. She held commercial pilot’s licenses for single- and multi-engine aeroplanes, seaplanes and gliders, and was also a certified flight instructor.

After becoming a naturalised US citizen in April 1991, Chawla applied for the NASA astronauts corps. She was selected in December 1994 and reported to the Johnson Space Center in Houston in 1995 as an astronaut candidate in Group 15. In November 1996, Chawla was assigned as a mission specialist on STS-87 aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, becoming the first woman of Indian descent to fly in space.

 

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In 2020, which astronaut completed the longest-ever single space-flight by a woman?

NASA astronaut Christina Koch has completed the longest-ever single spaceflight by a woman.

The Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Koch parachuted down to the grasslands of Kazakhstan at around 09:12 GMT.

She spent 328 days on the International Space Station (ISS), surpassing the previous record held by fellow American Peggy Whitson.

Her stay is just 12 days short of the all-time US record set by Scott Kelly, who was on the ISS from 2015-2016.

During her mission, Koch completed six spacewalks — including another two with Meir — and spent 42 hours and 15 minutes outside of the station.

Koch also devoted much of her time to a variety of experiments and investigations. The space station acts as an orbiting laboratory that can be used to test how different aspects of everyday human life on Earth react to the lack of gravity.

On the station, astronauts experience a plethora of science activities. Sometimes, they’re the test subject, contributing to studies about human health in space. Other times, they’re working with scientists on Earth to test their experiments.

 

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