In 1915, 29-year-old Indian entrepreneur Jhamandas Watumull arrived in Hawaii’s O’ahu island to set up a retail shop of his import business with his partner Dharamdas.

The two registered Watumull & Dharamdas as a business on Honolulu’s Hotel Street, selling exotic goods like silks, ivory crafts, brassware and other curios from the East.

Dharamdas died of cholera in 1916, prompting Jhamandas Watumull to send for his brother Gobindram to manage their Honolulu store while he took care of their business in Manila. Over the next several years, the brothers would travel between India and Hawaii as they solidified their business.

Today, the Watumull name is ubiquitous on the islands – from garment manufacturing and real estate to education and arts philanthropy, the family is inextricably linked with Hawaii’s rich history.

The first South Asians to move to the island from India, they are now one of its wealthiest families.

“Slowly, slowly, that’s how we did it,” Jhamandas told a local Hawaiian publication in 1973.

Born in pre-independent India, Jhamandas was the son of a brick contractor in Sindh province’s Hyderabad (now in Pakistan). The family was educated but not wealthy. After an accident paralysed his father, Jhamandas’ mother bought his passage to the Philippines where he began working in textile mills. In 1909, he began his own trading business in Manila with his partner Dharamdas.

His grandson JD Watumull says Jhamandas and Dharamdas moved to Hawaii after a drop in their Manila business after the US, which occupied Philippines at the time, curtailed ties with foreign businesses.

Their Hawaii business was renamed East India Store soon after Jhamandas’ brother Gobindram began managing it. In the following years, the business expanded into a major department store with branches in several parts of Asia as well as Hawaii, says SAADA, a digital archive of South Asian American history.

In 1937, Gobindram built the Watumull Building in Honolulu’s Waikiki neighbourhood to house the company’s headquarters. According to SAADA, the multi-million-dollar business had expanded to 10 stores, an apartment house and assorted commercial developments by 1957.

The Star-Bulletin newspaper describes products at the store – linens, lingerie, brass and teak wood curios – as woven with “romance and mystery” that transported one “to distant lands and fascinating scenes”.

The Aloha shirts

As Hawaii emerged as a popular destination for wealthy tourists in the 1930s, shirts in bold colours with island motifs called the ‘Aloha shirt’ became a sought-after souvenir.

According to Dale Hope, an expert in Hawaiian textile and patterns, the Watumull’s East India Store was one of the first on the island to carry designs with Hawaiian patterns.

The designs were first commissioned in 1936 by Gobindram from his artist sister-in-law Elsie Jensen.

“Instead of Mount Fuji, she’d have Diamond Head, instead of koi [she’d] have tropical fish, instead of cherry blossoms [she’d] have gardenias and hibiscus and all the things we know here,” Hope said.

The designs were sent to Japan where they were handblocked onto raw silk, Nancy Schiffer writes in the book Hawaiian Shirt Designs.

“These subtle floral patterns, modern and dynamic in concept, were the first Hawaiian designs to be produced commercially,” Schiffer notes.

“They were sold by the boat load and were exhibited as far away as London,” William Devenport says in the book Paradise of the Pacific.

Gobindram’s daughter Lila told Hope that the Watumull’s Waikiki store had American movie stars Loretta Young, Jack Benny, Lana Turner and Eddie “Rochester” Anderson coming to buy these shirts.

“More and more we are finding out that Watumull has become a synonym for Hawaiian fashions,” Gulab Watumull said in a 1966 interview in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

The Watumulls soon bought the Royal Hawaiian Manufacturing Company, where the first matching family aloha wear was created.

Long road to citizenship

Despite their success, it would be decades before the Watumull brothers – Jhamandas and Gobindram – received US citizenship. Their early years in the country were marred by discrimination and difficult immigration laws, the Hawaii Business Magazine wrote.

In 1922, Gobindram married Ellen Jensen, an American, whose citizenship was stripped under the Cable Act for marrying an immigrant who was not eligible for US citizenship. Jensen would go on to work with the League of Women Voters to reform the law and regain citizenship in 1931.

Gobindram would become a citizen in 1946 when a law allowing Indians to gain citizenship through naturalisation was enacted.

His brother Jhamandas, meanwhile, continued to split much of his time between India and Hawaii.

During India’s 1947 partition, the Watumull family moved from Sindh to Bombay (now Mumbai), leaving much of their property behind, SAADA says.

Jhamandas’ son Gulab eventually arrived in Hawaii to work in the family business and become its head.

In 1955, the brothers split the business with Jhamandas and Gulab keeping its retail portion while Gobindram’s family took over its real estate section.

Jhamandas moved permanently to Hawaii In 1956, a few years after the death of his wife and one of their sons, and in 1961, became a US citizen.

India connect

Over the years, the family remained invested in the welfare of India and its people. Gobindram was an active member of the Committee for India’s Freedom and often travelled to Washington to support the country’s case for independence, Elliot Robert Barkan writes in Making it in America.

Gobindram’s home in Los Angeles was “a Mecca for people concerned with Indian independence”, Sachindra Nath Pradhan notes in the book India in the United States.

The Watumull Foundation in 1946 sponsored a series of lectures by Dr S Radhakrishnan – who later served as India’s president – at American universities.

Gobindram’s wife Ellen was instrumental in bringing an international parenthood conference to Delhi in 1959, leading to the establishment of the country’s first birth control clinics.

The family’s philanthropy has and continues to include funding for educational institutions in Hawaii and in India, endowments for Honolulu-based art programmes and promoting Indian-Hawaiian exchange.

Many of the Watumull brothers’ grandchildren now work in and around Hawaii.

In the past few years, as the family business shifted focus to real estate, the last Watumull retail store closed in 2020. The company thanked its customers “for years of good business and good memories”.

Watumull Properties purchased a 19,045 sq m (205,000 sq ft) marketplace in Hawaii last year. JD Watumull, the president of the company, said, “The Hawaiian Islands continue to be our family’s focus today and in the future.”

source/content: bbc.com (headline edited)

Plate Cutting Ceremony for the first of the 14 Fast Patrol Vessels (FPV) and first of the six Next-Gen Offshore Patrol Vessels (NGOPV) being constructed by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd. (MDL) for the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) took place in Mumbai on Thursday, defence ministry said here.

Giving details, officials said MDL was awarded a Rs 2,684 crore contract under the ‘Buy (Indian-IDDM)’ category to build these vessels which will feature advanced technologies like drones for surveillance, AI for decision-making, an Integrated Bridge System for maneuverability, and an Integrated Machinery Control System for efficient operations.

These state-of-the-art vessels are being indigenously designed, developed and constructed and will be delivered over the next few years, reinforcing the Government’s vision of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ and enhancing the nation’s defence production capabilities.

source/content: dailypioneer.com (headline edited)

K-RIDE officials stated that the U-girder, cast at Gollahalli in January 2024, was launched between 9:45 pm and 10:00 pm on Tuesday at Yeshwantpur as part of the construction work for the Baiyappanahalli-Chikkabanavara line.

K-RIDE successfully installed the first 31-metre-long single-span precast U-girder — the longest in India — on the Mallige Line of the Bengaluru Suburban Railway Project (BSRP).

K-RIDE officials stated that the U-girder, cast at Gollahalli in January 2024, was launched between 9.45 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Tuesday at Yeshwantpur as part of the construction work for the Baiyappanahalli-Chikkabanavara line.

“U-girders are U-shaped, pre-tensioned, and precast structures commonly used in rail-based public transport projects. Their design enhances quality and expedites construction by reducing the need for multiple foundations and piers due to their extended length. The U-Girder is a critical structural component of the elevated track. It forms the base for laying the tracks and other systems component such as traction and signaling,” a official explained.

The installation was carried out using two high-capacity cranes, ensuring precision and safety throughout the process, according to officials. K-RIDE has stated that 450 U-girders will be installed on the 8 km elevated section of the Mallige Line between Hebbal and Yeshwantpur. To date, nearly 60 U-girders have been cast at Gollahalli.

Rail Infrastructure Development Company (Karnataka) Ltd. (K-RIDE) is the government agency responsible for executing the 149-km BSRP.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

The government on Wednesday said the ‘e-Daakhil portal’ — an inexpensive, speedy and hassle-free mechanism for filing consumer complaints — has been rolled out successfully in all states and union territories.

The government is also working for launch of e-Jagriti, which will further streamline case filing, tracking, and management, ensuring a hassle-free experience for consumers and other stakeholders, it said.

In a statement, the consumer affairs ministry said with the recent launch of e-Daakhil portal in Ladakh, the online platform is now accessible to consumers pan-India.

The e-Daakhil, launched on September 7, 2020, is an innovative online platform designed to streamline the consumer grievance redressal process, providing an efficient and convenient way for consumers to approach the relevant consumer forum, dispensing the need to travel and be physically present to file their grievances.

Currently, 2,81,024 users have registered on the e-Daakhil portal, and 1,98,725 cases have been filed. Out of this, 38,453 cases have been disposed of.

“With its nationwide reach, it is set to revolutionize the consumer rights landscape in India,” the ministry said.

Any consumer or advocate can sign up on the e-Daakhil platform with the required authentication by receiving an OTP on their registered mobile phone or an activation link on their registered e-mail address. They can then move on with filing a complaint.

Through the portal, aggrieved consumers can submit complaints to consumer commissions online, to pay the appropriate fees and track the progress of the case.

The government remains committed to continuously improving and expanding the platform to meet the evolving needs of consumers, it said.

source/content: dailypioneer.com (headline edited)

The device aims to transform point-of-care diagnostics by providing faster and more accessible TG level testing, which is linked to increased risks of heart attack, stroke, and atherosclerosis.

Researchers at MEMS, Microfluidics and Nanoelectronics (MMNE) Lab, BITS Pilani, Hyderabad campus, have announced the development of an innovative electrochemical biosensor for the rapid and cheaper detection of triglycerides (TGs), a crucial marker for heart disease risk assessment, on Monday.

The device aims to transform point-of-care diagnostics by providing faster and more accessible TG level testing, which is linked to increased risks of heart attack, stroke, and atherosclerosis, said stated principal investigator R.N. Ponnalagu.

It also offers promising potential for on-site TG monitoring, significantly enhancing heart disease management and preventive care worldwide, he said. The biosensor utilises screen-printed carbon electrodes made from commercially available overhead projector sheets.

It incorporates gold-cerium oxide nanoparticles to enhance sensitivity and speed up enzymatic reactions. Lipase, a digestive enzyme that breaks down fats in food for absorption in the intestines, is immobilised on the electrodes to speed up reactions with TG, producing an electrical current that is proportional to the concentration of TGs.

A standard test electrode is typically priced at approximately ₹10, providing an accessible option for effective health monitoring compared to commercially available one which cost around ₹300 to ₹500, Dr. Ponnalagu said. The device is suitable for real-time monitoring without sample pre-treatment and a portable read-out device, called ‘potentiostat’, adds to its practicality in various healthcare settings, according to research scholar Parvathy Nair.

“This platform could greatly assist in the rapid detection of TriGlyceride levels, and we are actively expanding its capabilities for multiplexed biomarker detection,” informed co-principal investigator Sanket Goel. “Our biosensor features advanced materials in a portable design, making it a game-changer for real-time TriGlyceride monitoring in point-of-care settings,” he said.

Prof. Goel said the research team is working to developing a turnkey prototype and planning to commercialise it through their start-up, Pyrome Innovation. The work is expected to be presented at the 2025 IEEE Applied Sensing Conference, scheduled to be held in Hyderabad in January 2025. The work was supported by Semiconductor Research Corporation, USA.

The work was also published in the peer-reviewed journal IEEE Sensors Letters, in its December 2024 issue.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

One of the greatest global ambassadors of Indian classical music, the maestro transformed the modest instrument into a robust voice for universal peace and brotherhood.

The tabla fell silent as Ustad Zakir Hussain (1951-2024), one of the greatest global ambassadors of Indian classical music, passed away on Monday (December 16, 2024) after a brief illness in San Francisco, California. A maestro who transformed the modest instrument into a robust voice for universal peace and humanity, Hussain’s incredible speed, dexterity, and creativity mesmerised audiences across cultures.

Having grown up singing odes to Mother Saraswati, verses of the holy Quran, and hymns of the Bible as a daily ritual, India’s syncretic soul echoed through Hussain’s rhythmic art. With a flair for carving stories out of percussive sound, his conversational music buzzed with a spark of spontaneity. Natural flow defined his music and personality. The Padma Vibhushan would impress the purists, enthrall the seekers of fusion, and handhold the fans of Bollywood music into his creative space with equal felicity. At the peak of his creativity genius, he bagged three Grammys in one night this February.

Like his carefully designed free-flowing style, the versatile artist would execute complex rhythms, intricate patterns, and nuanced dynamics and then move on to items like the sound of traffic signal and deer’s walk, without putting music into brackets. In tune with technology, over the years, he experimented with frequencies to highlight the subtle shades of the instrument to establish that tabla is not just a rhythmic instrument but also a melodic one. He emerged on the scene alongside eminent tabla artists like Anindo Chatterjee, Shafaat Ahmed Khan, Kumar Bose, and Swapan Chaudhuri, but Hussain’s role in popularising tabla and providing it a global platform remains unparalleled.

Born to Ustad Alla Rakha, the eminent accompanist of Pandit Ravi Shankar, credited with taking tabla to foreign shores, tabla chose Hussain. He grew up in Mumbai in an environment where his father believed that every instrument has its spirit. Hussain befriended the tabla at the age of three and by the time he hit teenage, the instrument had become his muse for life and perhaps an extension of his personality. After watching him play, one couldn’t see playing tabla as a chore in classical music.

His other two brothers, Taufiq and Fazal, are also noted percussionists but Hussain took his father’s legacy to the next level by adding a touch of showmanship and expanding the riches he inherited from the Punjab gharana. A keen learner and listener, Hussain was like a responsive satellite in orbit as an accompanist, shone like a star in his solos, and reserved the adventurous streak of a meteor for creating fusion music.

A child prodigy who gave his first professional performance at 12, Hussain was not regimented by his teacher-father. Rooted in Indian tradition, he was allowed to develop wings and explore new shores. His day would start with devotional music that would invoke Hindu deities followed by polishing Koranic verses in the neighbourhood madarsa before he would join the morning prayers at the Convent school. By 19, Hussain taught at the University of Washington before joining Ustad Ali Akbar Khan’s music college in San Francisco where he met his soulmate Antonia Minnecola.

Shakti

Another fortuitous meeting in New York led to a lifelong bond with the iconic English guitarist John McLaughlin. Their friendship led to the formation of the groundbreaking Shakti band in 1973 which included violinist L. Shankar and percussionist T. H. Vinayakram who blended Hindustani and Carnatic classical music with Western jazz influences. This year, the band where Hussain joined hands with a new set of distinguished musicians won the Grammy for Best Global Music.

Hussain’s desire to experiment led to rewarding collaborations with Irish singer Van Morrison, American percussionist Mickey Hart, Latin Jazz percussionist Giovanni Hidalgo, and Jerry Garcia, the lead vocalist and guitarist of the Grateful Dread. He joined the Asian Underground music’s electronic surge as well in the 1990s but retained the natural acoustic quality of tabla. He shared a special bond with Santoor maestro Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, flautist Hari Prasad Chaurasia, and sarangi stalwart Ustad Sultan Khan. Their jugalbandis would start as melodic banter and then turn meditative. In sync with the next generation, last year, he composed the Triple Concerto for Tabla, Sitar and Flute, with Niladri Kumar and Rakesh Chaurasia, and his collaboration with Carnatic musicians extended to violinist Kala Ramnath and veena exponent Jayanthi Kumaresh.

Fusion was never a novelty for Hussain as he had grown up listening to stories of how Amir Khusrau blended the Indian traditions of Dhrupad and Haveli sangeet with Sufi Qaul to create Khayal. As a young musician, he saw his father and colleagues contributing to Hindi film music that liberally drew from diverse musical streams. Hussain had his brush with cinema when he played tabla for Laxmikant Pyarelal’s maiden venture Parasmani. Later he composed music for Ismail Merchant’s films like Muhafiz, Aparna Sen’s Mr And Mrs Iyer, and Rahul Dholakia’s Parzania. The meaningful sound of his tabla lent layers to storytelling in international productions like Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and recently Dev Patel’s Monkey Man. 

Hussain also had a flair for acting from a young age. It is said Dilip Kumar recommended his name to K Asif for the role of young Salim in Mughal-e-Azam but Ustad Alla Rakha vetoed it. Later, he performed in Ismail Merchant’s Heat & Dust and Sai Paranjpye’s Saaz. However, he became a household figure when he brought classical music to the mainstream by promoting a tea brand in a commercial where he played tabla at the iconic Taj Mahal. As an article in The Hindu described, “The combination of “Wah Taj!” with the dashing young Hussain’s curly locks flying about his face as his fingers flew across the surface of his tabla — not to mention that charming smile accompanied by the resonance of his playing — ensured brand immortality.

Fame didn’t diminish his humility and age didn’t wilt his curiosity. Music was an endless journey for Hussain. Every time someone would toss the word perfection, he would say, “I haven’t played good enough to quit.”

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

The biobank will facilitate advanced research on the causes of diabetes, the variations of the Indian type of diabetes and related disorders.

The country’s first diabetes biobank, a repository of population-based biological samples aimed at supporting scientific research, has been established in Chennai by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in collaboration with the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF).

The biobank set up at the MDRF, Chennai aims to gather, process, store and distribute biospecimens to assist scientific studies with the permission of the ICMR.

The biobank will facilitate advanced research on the causes of diabetes, the variations of the Indian type of diabetes and related disorders, said Dr V Mohan, chairman of the MDRF and Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre.

The biobank has blood samples from two ICMR-funded studies — the ICMR-India Diabetes (ICMR-INDIAB) study conducted in all states and Union territories in phases from 2008 to 2020 and the “Registry of people with diabetes in India at a young age at the onset”, which was launched in 2006 and is still ongoing.

A plethora of blood samples of different types of diabetes in the young, such as Type 1, Type 2 and gestational diabetes, have been stored for future studies and research, Mohan said.

The process of setting up the biobank started around two years ago.

The details of the biobank and the purpose behind setting it up have been explained in detail in an article published in the “Indian Journal of Medical Research” last week.

Biobanks are critical in biomedical research, collecting, processing, storing and distributing biospecimens to support scientific research, the article said.

“This diabetes biobank could help in the identification of novel biomarkers for early diagnosis and the development of personalised treatment strategies,” it added.

Additionally, it would support longitudinal studies to track the progression of diabetes and its complications over time, leading to better management and prevention strategies.

“By fostering collaborative research efforts, a diabetes biobank in India could significantly advance our understanding of the disease and contribute to the global fight against the diabetes epidemic,” the article said.

Involving private agencies in developing biobanks and research is essential for translating research into practice. Adopting new technologies for specimen storage, preservation, data management and sharing is crucial for creating a cost-effective, long-lasting disease-specific biobank in India.

Of the various biobanks available globally, the most well-known is the UK Biobank, supported by the National Health Service (NHS), which is a vast biomedical database with genetic, lifestyle and health information from five lakh participants in the United Kingdom.

The collected information comprises phenotypic, genomic and imaging data derived from direct assessments, verbal interviews, online questionnaires and electronic health records.

This dataset continues to expand as new biomedical data are added through ongoing assessments and longitudinal follow up.

The ICMR-INDIAB study is one of the large epidemiological studies on diabetes with a sample size of 1.2 lakh nationally-representative individuals, covering every state of India.

This cross-sectional, community-based study was done in adults of either sex aged 20 years in phases from 2008 to 2020, and sampled 33,537 urban and 79,506 rural residents in 31 states and Union territories.

The study reported that the prevalence of diabetes and metabolic NCDs in India is greater than the earlier estimates, with 10.1 crore individuals diagnosed with diabetes and 13.6 crore with prediabetes.

Hypertension, generalised and abdominal obesity affected 31.5 crore, 25.4 crore and 35.1 crore people respectively. Additionally, 21.3 crore people had hypercholesterolemia and 18.5 crore had high LDL cholesterol. The study also indicated that the diabetes epidemic is stabilising in more socio-economically advanced states but rising in less-developed states.

The study found that less than 10 per cent of Indians engage in recreational physical activity, highlighting the need to promote physical activity.

Only 43.2 per cent of the population has heard of diabetes, emphasising the need for large-scale diabetes awareness and education programmes.

Rural-to-urban migration is associated with an increased risk of diabetes and cardiometabolic abnormalities.

As for the “Registry of people with diabetes in India with young age at onset” study, 5,546 participants with youth onset diabetes were enrolled (49.5 per cent males, 50.5 per cent females) from 205 centres linked to eight regional cancer centres (RCCs) across the country.

Type 1 and Type 2 were the most common forms of diabetes found. The mean age at diagnosis was 12.9 ± 6.5 years for T1D and 21.7 ± 3.7 years for T2D.

Half of the T1D cases were registered within six months of onset, while 47.3 per cent of the T2D cases were registered after three years and 56.1 per cent had already had at least one hospitalisation by the time of registration, the study found.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.

source/content: telegraphindia.com (headline edited)

For the first time this year, Gyaviira Nkurunungi from Africa has joined the network.

Five Indian biologists are among the 11 globally selected to join the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO)’s global investigator network.

Bhavana Muralidharan, Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine, Bengaluru, will work on her project – dissecting molecular mechanisms of neuro-developmental chromatinopathies. Rajender Motiani and Prem Kaushal from the Regional Centre for Biotechnology, Faridabad, will explore areas of skin pigmentation and tuberculosis. Works to understand lifespan regulations and host genetics will be performed by Jogender Singh from IISER, Mohali. Krishnapal Karmodiya from IISER, Pune, plans to study drug resistance and antigen variation in plasmodium falciparum.

They join over 700 biologists of this network. EMBO, which was constituted in 1964, supports young research groups based in India, Taiwan, Chile and Singapore through a four-year grant in addition to the opportunities to collaborate with European researchers. The international network aims at facilitating local exchange between researchers outside Europe and provide access to use core EMBO’s laboratories and facilities.

For the first time this year, Gyaviira Nkurunungi from Africa has joined the network.

source/content: indianexpress.com (headline edited)

At 18, Gukesh became the youngest world chess champion, fulfilling a dream that began at 11, supported by his family’s sacrifices and dedication.

There’s a now viral video of an 11-year-old Gukesh saying that he wants to become the youngest world champion.

A short seven years later, Gukesh is living the dream.

On Thursday, Gukesh became the youngest-ever world chess champion at 18. He sobbed and spoke of doing a bungee.

source/content: hindustantimes.com (headline edited)