Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Nobel Laureats of Indian Origin or Citizenship

India has produced quite a few Nobel Laureats over the years.
This year, not least due to the celebration of his 150th birthday, Rabindranath Tagore may be the first one that comes to mind, but there are many others. (And of the Nobel Laureats over the years that are NOT of Indian origin or citizenship, quite a few have had strong ties to India nonetheless, through their reseach, or because of personal interests in the country.)

1902 Ronald Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

1907 Rudyard Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
1913 Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
1930 Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics
1968 Hargobind Khorana was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1979 Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
1983 Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics
1998 Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics
2001 V.S. Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
2009 Venkatraman "Venki" Ramakrishnan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Sweden has also produced a number of Nobel Laureats. The latest in the line is Arvid Carlsson, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in year 2000.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Photo competition: Swedish Innovations - Indian Interpretations

Invitation for entries to juried photo exhibit “Swedish Innovations – Indian Interpretations”.
Entries accepted until September 8th, 2010.

There is a multitude of Swedish innovations, many of which are present in the lives of Indian people in one way or the other. As part of the Sweden-India Nobel Memorial Week, a juried exhibit of photographs, in which Indian photographers capture these innovations, will be organized.


This competition/ exhibition is open to amateurs as well as professionals.


Background
This year, Nobel Memorial Week will feature creativity as a driving force for innovations. As part of this, Indian photographers are invited to artistically capture and interpret Swedish innovations (in an Indian context or the interpretation in general – this is up to the each photographer). Ten photographs will be selected for the exhibit, which will be first displayed on the Nobel Memorial week party on October 30, 2010, hosted by the Ambassador of Sweden to India. Close to one thousand influential members of society will thereby get to see the photographs already on the opening day. The exhibit will afterwards be screened in the Swedish Trade Commission, among other places.

The photos will be featured with the names of the photographers in a booklet of “Swedish Innovations, Indian Interpretations”. One photographer will be honored with a round-trip ticket to the capital of Sweden, Stockholm.

The jury will consist of Indian cultural profiles, and the Ambassador of Sweden to India. The decision of the jury cannot be overruled.


Guidelines:
Entries should be in landscape format.

Each entry should be sent in a 8x12 inch print, marked on the backside with the name of the work (also indicating the innovation being captured), the name of the photographer, e-mail address and telephone number.

Photograph should be taken by the photographer himself/ herself. Photographs taken by other people or downloaded from the net or taken from an existing work by someone else will be disqualified.

Attach a letter in which you briefly describe yourself and give your contact details, including e-mail address.

Do not attach the original or electronic files in the application.

Photographers that are selected for the exhibit will be contacted in September and requested to send their high resolution photo in a file on a DVD or CD. If this has not reached the Embassy within 7 days, the photographer has forfeited his or her place.

Entries arriving at the Embassy of Sweden after September 8 will not be considered.

Winners will be contacted by e-mail on or before September 30.

For further information, please do not hesitate to contact Ms. Urvinder Kaur at urvinder.kaur@foreign.ministry.se.


Applications should be marked "Nobel Memorial Week Photo Competition" and sent to:

Embassy of Sweden
Attention: Sara Aulin
4-5 Nyaya Marg, Chanakyapuri
New Delhi, 110 021

Applications can also be handed in in the reception of the Embassy of Sweden in New Delhi during opening hours.

Applications will not be returned.



The Sweden-India Nobel Memorial Week background

The Sweden-India Nobel Memorial Week was instituted in year 2007, by the Ambassador of Sweden to India, H.E. Mr. Lars-Olof Lindgren, in cooperation with a number of selected representatives of Swedish industry in India. The week celebrates innovations, creativity and entrepreneurship, Swedish contributions to the development of the world and the fruitful Indian-Swedish relations.

The week also celebrates the legacy of Swedish inventor and philantropist Alfred Nobel, who at his death in 1896 donated the majority of his personal wealth to a trust, from which annual prizes were to be given to those who had made the greatest contribution to mankind during the proceding year. So has happened since 1901.

Over the century that has passed, the importance of innovations and scientific as well as cultural strides has increased rather than declined. Innovations have become key to solving challenges that the world faces, as well as instruments to enhance the chances of a global development that benefits all and does so in a sustainable manner. It is therefore little surprise that Ambassador Lindgren, and his colleagues from the business community felt it was time to make Sweden's contributions to the development of the world known in India. Also, as curiosity is at heart of all innovations, the ideas was not only to share with the Indian society the Swedish experience, but also to learn from the Indian society about solutions for the future.

To date, there are over 33 500 patented Swedish innovations, and the development is spurred by a national innovation system. Products like the steam turbine, the ball bearing, the gas powered beacon and the adjustable wrench all helped transform the country from an agrarian to an industrialized society in the absolute technological forefront.

Today, the urgency of protecting the environment has boosted many new products and services and many of the recent innovations are in the fields of renewable energy, waste management and sustainable transports. There are also innumerable innovations in the field of communications and mobile services, aimed at the needs of people in the computer age. One of these is Skype, the free Internet calling service.

During the Sweden-India Nobel Memorial Week, the focus is to capture the importance of innovations to a sustainable development of the world. And the communication from the organizers is that creativity and culture are key elements in innovations. We hope you will follow us on an exciting Sweden-India focused innovation week in the end of October!