Indigenus

Nature India is now on nature.com. It is a return to where it all began for this regional portal of Nature Portfolio serving the scientific community of the world’s largest democracy, and bringing India’s research to a global audience. To mark the website’s relaunch, our designers created this image representing India’s thriving science and research ecosystem, its aspiration for a young and diver…

A doctorate — the highest level of education — is generally thought of as a launchpad for great career opportunities. Yet, a PhD hardly prepares one for jobs, says Pragati Agnihotri, a scientist in the American biotech corporation Advanced Bioscience Laboratories, Rockville, Maryland. Here are a few things she learnt first-hand that might offer guidance to future PhDs and postdocs in their career…

2020 was defined by the global pandemic. Throughout the long, difficult year, disease and death came in tragic waves, testing the limits of healthcare systems, especially in countries with limited resources. In India, one of the worst affected countries, significant outbreaks continue in 2021. A positive outcome, however, has been the triumph of science. In record time, scientists rushed to seque…

Science stories are equal to success stories. Right? Wrong. In thinking of scientists as successful people, we often assume that their career paths are straightforward, meticulously planned, and yield positive outcomes. However, things don’t always go as planned. Behind every small success, there’s probably a string of failures — work that did not make it to the curriculum vitae, rejected papers,…

Indian-born British chemist Shankar Balasubramanian recently won the Millennium Technology Prize, instituted by the Technology Academy Finland, for development of revolutionary DNA sequencing techniques. Vanita Srivastava caught up with him to understand the award winning genetic sequencing work that has widely impacted the fields of genomics, medicine and biology. [Shankar Balasubramanian is a H…

Karishma S Kaushik, an Assistant Professor and Ramalingaswami Fellow at the Institute of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology in Savitribai Phule Pune University turned the pandemic into an opportune time to spur children’s interest in science, including her own son’s. My phone pinged in the middle of the session. It was a message from my almost 10-year-old son. “Spelling mistake in slide 36. Instead…

After a week of open voting for favourites, and selection by a global jury of Nature Research editors and designers, we are ready to roll out the verdict of the Nature India Photo Contest 2020. The photographs have been judged for their adherence to this year’s theme ‘pandemic’, for their creative thinking, quality and print worthiness. The winner of the Nature India photo contest 2020 is: for hi…

Marking the end of the shortlist, we unveil finalist #10 in the Nature India Photo Contest 2020 themed ‘pandemic’: Kaushik Dutta, Kolkata, West Bengal Photo Caption: Migrant trouble “Sending millions of migrant workers from across Indian cities back to their hometowns became a herculean task for the Indian government during the COVID-19 lockdown. This little girl boarded a train of migrant worker…

Here’s finalist #9 in the Nature India Photo Contest 2020 themed ‘pandemic’: Nila Nandi, Kolkata, West Bengal Photo Caption: Sole congregation “A man offers namaz alone at the famous Lodhi Gardens in Delhi following restrictions on religious congregations under the COVID-19 social distancing protocol.” — Nila Nandi Congratulations Nila for making top 10 shortlist of Nature India Photo Contest! Th…

And now it’s time for the finalist #8 in the Nature India Photo Contest 2020 themed ‘pandemic’: Sandip Sarkar, Kolkata, West Bengal Photo Caption: Safety is in fashion “As the World Health Organisation deemed cloth masks fit for use, apparel designers across the world made masks that would appeal to youngsters and encourage them to wear the simple protective gear to check the spread of SARS-CoV-2…

And it’s time for finalist #7 in the Nature India Photo Contest 2020 themed ‘pandemic’: … Read more Continue reading →

H-index is an author-level metric that measures both productivity and citation impact of an author’s publications across the global scientific community. It is calculated by counting the number of publications in which an author has been cited by other authors. H-index 100 means each of the latest 100 of the author’s papers have been cited at least 100 times. Read more Continue reading →

Here is finalist #6 in the Nature India Photo Contest 2020 themed ‘pandemic’: … Read more Continue reading →

Rolling out finalist #5 in the Nature India Photo Contest 2020 themed ‘pandemic’: … Read more Continue reading →

Unveiling finalist #4 in the Nature India Photo Contest 2020 themed ‘pandemic’: … Read more Continue reading →

“Newly married couple Avishek Bachhar (25) and Puspa Jana (22) leave the Siddeshwari temple in north Kolkata after seeking the goddess’s blessings. They tied the knot with only a handful of relatives due to strict restrictions on assembly of people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Marriages in India are generally grand events with hundreds of people participating. Despite the measures, West Bengal r…

“The annual Durga Puja festivities end with the immersion of the gods’ idols in river Hooghly, a tributary of the Ganges. Every year thousands of people take part in the idol immersion processions. Following COVID-19 restrictions, the West Bengal government created temporary water bodies to ‘immerse’ the clay-made idols by dissolving them with high power water jets, like in this picture taken at …

It’s time to roll out the shortlist of the Nature India Photo Contest 2020. Read more Continue reading →

Another ‘ahead of print’ issue was out. I was anxiously scanning it for my article. There it was! The next obvious thing to do would be to announce this exciting news on all possible social media channels, ‘humbly’ displaying my scientific and literary skills, proud of my name leading the decorated list of authors. Read more Continue reading →

A state known for its heritage, culture and disaster management, and as an emerging hub of scholarship and research, Odisha is making its mark. This special issue captures the aspirations of and challenges for the eastern Indian state in becoming the next national science hub. Read more Continue reading →