Millions of farmers and agricultural laborers across India are at the mercy of whimsical monsoon which affects their livelihoods every year resulting in suicides and a huge setback to the economy. Precise forecasting of monsoon is a pressing need of the hour to improve livelihoods of Indian farmers and save the economy.

Indian scientists have joined hands with a team of scientists from Britain to come up with a reliable solution to predict the status of Indian monsoon. As per the $11.3 million Indo-British project, seven underwater robots will be released into the Bay of Bengal along the east coast of India. The robots will study the changes in the aquatic environment and ecosystem of the ocean, which is supposed to be largely responsible for uncertainty and delay of monsoon.

Both Indian and British scientists opine that the data collected from the studies by those robots in the Bay of Bengal will help to frame a better picture of monsoon for farmers and agricultural laborers who mostly depend on monsoon rains for cultivation in India. Indian monsoon is a focus of international studies across the globe. Monsoon rains are vital for economic growth of six South Asian nations including India.

The team of scientists from the University of East Anglia, the University of Reading and the National Oceanography Centre in the UK along with a team of climate experts in India will set sail on a special research ship, Sindhu Sadhana, from Chennai into the Bay of Bengal on June 24.

This collaboration between India and Britain is a groundbreaking project, which is the first of its kind because such high-level studies on the temperature, salinity, currents and ecosystem of the Bay of Bengal has not been done before. – Adrian Matthews, a leading scientist

The underwater robots resemble miniature submarines and have computers on board. The robots will be studying different aspects in the southern section of the Bay of Bengal for a month. Moreover, a plane with a group of researchers and scientific equipment will be deployed over the ocean to measure the on-surface atmosphere. It is a part of the multimillion-dollar study on Indian monsoon.

More accurate monsoon predictions can help over 200 million Indian farmers better prepare for droughts and floods, which incurs a loss of multi-billion dollars to the nation every year.

Also Read How India Fights against Water Crisis

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There is no dearth of excellence and quality in India! It has been proven once again. The 2016 Gates Cambridge Scholarship winners include three Indian students. 55 students from 68 universities across 30 countries have won the Gates Cambridge Scholarship this year for their academic excellence and social commitment. Sagnik Dutta, Sampurna Chakrabarti and Malavika Nair are the Indians among the scholars.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship winners including three Indian students will study in 39 departments across 24 colleges under the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. This new batch of scholars will join the batch of 35 students selected from across the US in January this year. The scholarship will commence in October this year.

Of the three Indian students among the 2016 Gates Cambridge Scholarship winners, Sagnik Dutta represents the University of Calcutta in Kolkata. He has been a journalist for six years in India. The scholarship has made him eligible a PhD in politics and international studies at Corpus Christi College affiliated to the University of Cambridge.

In his PhD thesis, Sagnik Dutta has proposed to study on the relationship between religion and constitutionalism with regards to Muslim personal law reform in India. “I propose to combine a discourse analysis of the judgments of the Supreme Court with an ethnographic study of sharia courts run by women in Mumbai to examine the discursive constitution of religion and a liberal ‘rights’ regime,” he says.

Sampurna Chakrabarti has chosen to do PhD in Pharmacology at Corpus Christi College. Currently she is an undergraduate student. She is studying Bachelor of Science in Biological Science and Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the State University of New York in Buffalo.

Studying drugs and pathologies for arthritis, which affect millions of people across the world, is her interest. She will do the research in the lab of Dr Ewan St John Smith at Corpus Christi College’s Department of Pharmacology. Sampurna Chakrabarti is equally passionate about educational equality which, she thinks, needs to be improved in developing countries like India. She wishes to work with global organizations to level the field in education for all.

Among the 2016 Gates Cambridge Scholarship winners, Malavika Nair is a graduate and post graduate in Material Science and Metallurgy from the University of Cambridge itself. With the scholarship, she will pursue PhD in the same discipline at Churchill College. A self-confessed coffee and music enthusiast, Malavika Nair is looking to do research on tissue regeneration through experimental and computational techniques. Hiking is one of her hobbies.

The Gates Cambridge Foundation selected 55 scholars from a pool of 3730 applicants on the basis of their intelligence quotient, academic excellence, leadership traits, and commitment to serving others for bigger interests. Various departments of Cambridge University shortlisted 242 applicants, out of which 101 were interviewed for the Gates Cambridge Scholarship 2016.

Travel Beats is a fast-growing news portal for Indians and NRIs by IndianEagle, a leading international travel organization. It publishes the latest news about travel, aviation, culture, humanity and entertainment from India and USA.

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Though the Indian entries including the Marathi film Court for the 88^th Academy Awards are out of the Oscar nominations 2016, India does still have a reason to rejoice. Two NRIs – one Indian-American animator and one Indo-British filmmaker – made their way to the shortlist of entries for Oscar 2016.

Sanjay’s Super Team, animated short film by Indian American Sanjay Patel, and Amy, a documentary by Indo-British director Asif Kapadia, are among the Oscar nominations 2016 in the Best Animated Short Film and the Best Documentary Feature categories respectively.

Sanjay’s Super Team is one of the stories of East vs West, India vs America, and tradition vs modernism, which Sanjay Patel tells through the portrayal of a young Indian American boy of the present generation. The story of Sanjay’s Super Team is weaved around Sanjay Patel’s personal experience of how his love for western pop culture clashed with his father’s adherence to traditions. The cast of Sanjay’s Super Team features non-white characters in the lead. It is the first short film to talk about the Hindu religion in an animated fashion.

To say precisely, Sanjay’s Super Team among the Oscar nominations 2016 is a universal story of intergenerational differences, experienced by many Indian American teens in the communities of immigrants from India. Sanjay as a young boy is fond of cartoons, while his father tries to pique his interest in age-old Hindu traditions. This conflict puts Sanjay on a voyage into a world of comics where he comes across mythological characters with superhero qualities. He brings them alive through comic illustrations which his father also connects with.

“I am glad to be on the list of nominations for 88^th Academy Awards in the Best Animated Short Film category. My story is not only mine. It resonates with many immigrants in the United States. Sanjay’s Super Team has a universal message under the surface,” says Sanjay Patel with a beaming face.

Among the Oscar nominations 2016 in the Best Documentary category, Asif Kapadia’s Amy depicts the life and death of British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse. Released across the UK and the USA, Amy-The Girl Behind the Name has been acclaimed as the best documentary of the year and described as a tragic masterpiece. The film depicts Amy Winehouse’s struggle both before and after her career reached its zenith in the entertainment industry.

Amy earned Asif Kapadia a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 and won the Best Documentary title at BAFTA Awards 2016. It became the second highest grossing documentary of all time in the UK. Amy will compete with Cartel Land, What Happened, The Look of Silence, and Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom among the nominations for 88^th Academy Awards.

Of all NRI filmmakers, Asif Kapadia is a favorite of the Indian diaspora in the United Kingdom. His directorial debut The Warrior was filmed in the vast Himalayas and the arid desserts of Rajasthan. His documentary films including The Warrior, Far North and Senna have won awards at several international film festivals across the globe. Asif Kapadia is hopeful about Amy’s success in Oscars 2016.

When Indians rejoiced in the success of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire at Oscars 2009, the nomination of ‘Sanjay’s Super Team’ and ‘Amy’ among the finalists for Oscars 2016 should be a thing of joy for Indians. – IndianEagle

Travel Beats is a culture and entertainment portal for Indian diaspora by IndianEagle, a leading international US-India travel organization. It publishes interesting stories of India, USA, Canada, NRIs, aviation and tourist places.

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You will not be complaining anymore that there is no Madame Tussauds wax museum in India. You will soon pose for photographs with lively wax statues of your favorite celebrities, starts and historical figures in New Delhi. Yes, Madame Tussauds is going to open a wax museum in the capital of India early in 2017. The London based museum house will honor not only the legends of India but also eminent personas from across the world by installing their life-size wax effigies at its New Delhi branch. You will be able to spend some quality time with Bollywood celebs as well as Hollywood stars at the upcoming Madame Tussauds wax museum in New Delhi.

Among the offbeat things to see in Delhi, Madame Tussauds wax museum will be next to the famous Toilet Museum. The news came during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UK. Thanks to PM Modi and British Prime Minister David Cameron who announced to celebrate 2017 as the India-UK Year of Culture. If Kohinoor Diamond will travel back to India is a question, but Delhi will get a wax museum for sure.

Expected to be an altogether different tourist attraction of Delhi, the wax museum is a part of the India-UK cultural exchange programs. Madame Tussauds wax museum in New Delhi will house wax figures of eminent personalities from different walks of life: entertainment, history, sports and politics.

There is a lot more in the offing when it comes to celebrating the cultural exchange between India and Britain. William Shakespeare’s First Folio and a copy of the Magna Carta will travel from Britain to India for a nationwide display as part of the cultural exchange. Also, some of the rare treasures from the British Museum will be brought to India for the same purpose.

The First Folio refers to a collection of 36 plays by William Shakespeare, which was published in 1623. The plays in the First Folio include As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra as well. Shakespeare is one of the most revered and read figure in India. Some of his best comedies and tragedies are in the curriculum of English literature taught in colleges and universities across the country. – Indian Eagle

The United Kingdom will host an Indian festival when the culture of Britain will be celebrated in India in 2017. According to British PM David Cameron, the India-UK partnership would go beyond business relations to the boards of the Bard and the beaches of Bollywood. “It’s the time to get together for celebration,” said Cameron exuberantly.

PM Narendra Modi announced one year-long program to celebrate the 70^th Independence Day of India in 2017. On this occasion, the British Library will pay a tribute to India by digitizing 200,000 pages of rare Indian books (from 1714 to 1914) in its South Asian archives to make those books available online for a global audience. Prime institutions in the UK will collaborate with top Indian institutions to showcase the best of both nations on the global stage in 2017.

Merlin Entertainments, which acquired the Tussauds Group in 2007 and owns all Madame Tussauds wax museums across the globe, will reportedly invest a whopping 50 million pounds to give Indian cities Sea Life aquariums and Legoland Discovery Centers among the UK favorites, in the next 10 years. The CSMVS Museum in Mumbai (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya) will visually showcase the stories of Indian Civilization by means of some artifacts from the British Museum in 2017, the Year of Culture.

Apart from the upcoming Madame Tussauds wax museum in New Delhi, there is already a wax museum in Kolkata. Known as Mother’s Wax Museum, it was built on the lines of the Madame Tussauds of London and inaugurated in 2014.

Travel Beats is a cultural wing of Indian Eagle, US-based international travel organization. Travel Beats publishes stories of India, news about Indian events in the US, and news about airlines operating flights to India from USA.

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Britain owes its taste of Chicken Tikka to Lord Ghulam Noon or Ghulam Kadebhoy Noon, a food baron of Indian origin. Famous as “Curry King” in the culinary world, he made his fortune by catering Indian food to the British taste buds. Lord Ghulam Noon’s journey from a small sweet shop in Mumbai (then Bombay) to a multibillion dollar food empire in the United Kingdom is an eventful one full of inspiration despite an honors scandal for his whopping donation to the Labour Party.

Noon Baron was born into a Muslim family in Bombay in 1936. His father owned a small sweet shop, and he died when Ghulam Noon was only 7 years old. A relative was trusted with the family business until he joined it at the age of 17. He got his first entrepreneurial lesson in food business when he renamed the shop “Royal Sweets.” He stepped into the shoes of an ambitious entrepreneur and expanded the family business by exporting Indian sweets to international markets.

Lord Ghulam Noon traveled to London in 1964 when he realized the popularity of Indian food outside the country. He started with a sweet shop in Southall, London, in order to cash in on the demand for Indian food by the Brits. He founded and ran several food product manufacturing companies in London. The backbone of his entrepreneurship in the UK was the business of Noon Products, which he set up in 1987 after his permanent settlement there with only £50 in 1972.

One of the most popular Noon Products is Bombay Mix, a traditional Indian snack. What is known as Chanachur in India is called Bombay Mix in the UK and Ireland. Named after Bombay, the previous name of Mumbai, it is a mixture of dried, spicy ingredients. His confectionery company was known as Bombay Halwa. However, it is Indian chicken tikka masala, which added to his fame and fortune.

One of the units of his food business in the UK was that of packaged meals, which he started with 11 employees in a small setup. With orders for packaged meals from Birds Eye, Sainsbury’s and others pouring in, it became an ultra-modern factory and the workforce touched nearly 1000 people by 2006. His business was the largest for packaged Indian food in the supermarkets of London. Thus the chicken tikka masala dish became a favorite of Britain.

His business suffered a serious setback due to fire breakout in the factory in 1994, and one of his entrepreneurial initiatives bit the dust in the USA. He was not just a businessman but a fighter. On strength of his vision and optimism, the company was up in 10 weeks of the disaster. Surprisingly, he did not lay off a single employee. Diversification of the business into such areas like aviation catering, dietary supplements and luxury cruise liners is a proof of his entrepreneurial acumen.

Lord Ghulam Noon was a dedicated Indian-British citizen. He was a diehard supporter of the English Cricket team. He flew to London in 1966 to celebrate England’s victory in the Football World Cup. He was a member of Surrey County Cricket Club, too, and proudly possessed 30 autographed bats.

His love for Britain was out of question. Reacting to the July 7 blasts in London, he stated, “These (terrorists) are monkeys who tie bombs to their chests and pull the strings. They are kids. They have been brainwashed. The Muslim community has a responsibility to make sure that those in the business of brainwashing people should be brought to book.”

The food baron was a social entrepreneur as well. He was a member of several charitable trusts including the Prince’s Trust, Care International, and Cancer Research UK. He used to make monetary contributions to a trust for the education of girls in rural India and a Jewish-Muslim interfaith organization. In 1995, he established the Noon Foundation with four million pounds to promote education of girls and fund health projects. He was once elected President of the London Chamber of Commerce.

Lord Ghulam Noon was one of those trapped in Taj Hotel Mumbai during terrorist attacks in November 2008. He was lucky enough to have a narrow escape from it. The then Prime Minister Gordon Brown was first to check whereabouts in Mumbai. He published his memoirs of the infamous 26/11 terrorist attack in “Noon with a View: Courage and Integrity.”

He presented a collection of letters written and received by Mahatma Gandhi, and a piece of khadi cloth spun by Gandhiji, to Pratibha Patil, former President of India, at a function organized by the Indian High Commission in London in 2009. He along with an NRI entrepreneur had bought those memorabilia of Mahatma Gandhi at an auction in London.

There are several feathers in the cap of Lord Ghulam Noon. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1996. He was honored with Knight Bachelor in 2002 and awarded an Honorary Degree by the University of East London in 2009. He was appointed the Chancellor of the University of East London in 2013. Even he was introduced in the House of Lords in 2011.

The Curry King of the UK, as the food baron Lord Ghulam Noon was popularly known, breathed his last yesterday. We at Indian Eagle pay our regards to the food baron, who made Indian food popular beyond India.

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