For the first-of-its-kind photographic collaboration for The Cal, Avani Rai, Sølve Sandsbø, and Raghu Rai seek out India and its women.

I am standing on the bank of Somsagar Lake in Alwar, Rajasthan. In front of me, photographer-turned-muse Avani Rai poses on a boat in a canary yellow Roberto Cavalli dress with someone waist-deep in the waters working a fogging machine to diffuse the world around her.

Norwegian photographer Sølve Sandsbø, having only recently concluded photographing model and Chanel house ambassador Bhavitha Mandava against the weathered walls of Jaigarh fort, holds on to a mammoth camera setup and clicks away with the Ajabgarh Fort behind him. We, an odd mix of city-dwelling Indians and a partly Italian crew, in our matching Pirelli sun hats are a sight for the locals as the 2027 edition of the Pirelli Calendar, dubbed ‘India, Beyond a Single Gaze’, comes to fruition.

It has been 62 years since the Italian tire manufacturer Pirelli got British photographer Robert Freeman (famous for his portraits of The Beatles) to produce the first edition of The Cal. And 18 years since French photographer Patrick Demarchelier shot an Asian country, Shanghai, for its pages for the first time. The 2027 edition is an ode to India, being shot entirely in the country.

Each of the three photographers who have taken on this project has completely different reasons for it — given that it is the first time that The Cal has allowed itself to become a collaborative endeavour. “It is like being asked to exhibit at a museum or gallery that has a history that you really want to be a part of,” says Sandsbø, who is photographing the calendar for the second year in a row.

Avani credits her father, Indian photographer and photojournalist Raghu Rai, for bestowing this project upon her after his passing in April. “It is as if my father is like, ‘Here you go; you better do this well’,” she says. Most, if not all, of the photographs by Avani for The Cal use massive prints of her father’s work as their backdrop.

For Raghu Rai, it was a project he wouldn’t have traditionally done, but “every time someone interpreted India, he wanted to grab it”. To him, the idea of someone paying tribute to the country felt like “watching a person write a romantic letter to your lover — and then being asked if you wanted to join in”, she explains. The answer was an undoubted yes.

It is perhaps this idea, of a beloved land being chronicled by those who love it and strangers all at once, that forms the premise of the 2027 Pirelli Calendar. It is certainly why The Cal featuring India for the very first time feels authentically vivacious and inadvertently hackneyed in equal measure.

Embracing the clichés

Sandsbø, right out of the gate, admits he has no right to photograph India or represent it. “I can’t try to capture India in any way, shape, or form. I’m not qualified,” he tells me. “I’m a tourist; I’m a guest. But what I can do is portraits of people from India.”

And that is what he does. I watch host and model Padma Lakshmi float ethereally in an artificial pond at Amanbagh, with lotus flowers all around her, and musician Anoushka Shankar joyously drench herself against the Rajasthani sky in a lawn dotted with peacocks. Elsewhere, model Lakshmi Menon is splashed with multicoloured powdered pigments typically used for Holi, and Bollywood actor Aditi Rao Hydari lies on a bed of sun-soaked chrysanthemums. Mean Girls (2024) star Avantika Vandanapu wears a bejewelled ferronnière (headband) like a long-lost Indian princess from a Disney adaptation, and Frieda Pinto loses herself among bunches of pink bougainvillea against palatial wall frescos. The flowers, the clothes, and the colours — all read as trying to be emphatically exotic.

As a long-time fan of the country and of Raghu Rai himself, Sandsbø isn’t interested in competing to depict the complexities of India. “[Avani] has the right to do it, even if she doesn’t feel qualified,” he asserts. “I’m doing my thing.” The resulting photographs attempt to reinvent the sensual appeal of India and its women.

Padma Lakshmi, for one, is excited about India being in focus and getting its dues lately, on every front. It is impossible to tell a unifaceted story, she says: “We have gay couples living together in Mumbai. We also still have child marriages and bride burnings. You can’t say that there’s one story coming out of India,” she says. Anoushka Shankar, on the other hand, sees an evolution in how Indian beauty is perceived today. “We weren’t thought of as beautiful people,” she shares. Now that, thankfully, seems to be a dated idea. She also concedes: “It’s really hard with a country like India that has such strong imagery associated with it, not to fall into cliché — where the cliché is also true.”

Photographing the chaos

Avani’s street-smart photography, juxtaposed against her father’s work of similar, out-of-place environments and people, offers a contrasting vision to Sandsbø’s. “The imagery that he [Raghu Rai] has captured over the last six decades can only be photographed in the streets. That’s where he belonged,” she says, explaining that her father’s photos have always centred the common people engaged in magically mundane things that make the world go round, and not much of it cared about a curated wardrobe or an elaborate crew.

And just like that, Indian bandsmen play Bollywood numbers alongside Bella Ciao, a protest folk song of female rice-paddy workers in northern Italy, in the middle of Old Delhi’s Kinari Bazaar gali as she looks through her viewfinder. The otherwise poised Italian executives from Pirelli can’t help but dance along. In the archaic single-screen Delite Cinema, a cast of regulars is gathered to throw popcorn in the air and gawk and shriek at the screen. After a point, Avani invites the journalists and some of the crew to join in as she keeps photographing the chaos that ensues.

In a colony near Jama Masjid, with the mosque in full view, a group of local natak performers prance around on a terrace. A boy flies a kite over a mint-green rooftop — he doesn’t escape Avani’s lens. Women dressed in matching yellow saris, with gajras in their hair, giggle together, as do trans and intersex people from the hijra community. Through it all, her father’s black-and-white photographs loom and watch, because even though Avani is a photographer in her own right, Raghu Rai is still a creative voice sitting at a corner in her head, as she tells me later on.

Can you frame India in its entirety?

Within these many Indias that Pirelli tries to put forth, hides the real one — whatever that is to you and me. That India is unapologetically complicated. As Padma puts it, “Is my experience of being an Indian person in the world any more valid than that woman selling flowers outside my old temple? No, it’s not. Both are true; both are valid. Both exist.”

Within these exists a conversation that The Cal attempts at having, an institution that has built up a genuinely staggering roster of subjects shot by photographers of massive stature — from Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington by Richard Avedon to Adriana Lima by Steve McCurry, and Serena Williams, Yoko Ono and Patti Smith by Annie Leibovitz. It is clear that this discourse, albeit enchanting, especially with India at its centre, cannot have a definite benchmark for success in demonstrating the country’s plurality. Perhaps only a few India editions down the line will a semi-complete vision begin to take form.

Until then, India will keep doing what it has always done to those who try to frame it in its entirety — slip the frame ever so slightly and dare them to catch up.

The Mumbai-based writer, artist and editor reports on fashion and culture.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

Oschadbank claims that it lost assets and operations in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia after Russian military actions in Ukraine.

Russia has reportedly appointed former Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud as its arbitrator in an investment treaty dispute with Ukraine’s state-owned bank, Oschadbank.

Cost Rican arbitrator and former trade minister Dyalá Jiménez has been chosen to preside over the three-member tribunal, Global Arbitration Review reported.

Jiménez was jointly selected as President by both Russia and Ukraine.

Stavros Brekoulakis, a Greek arbitrator and professor at the National University of Singapore, has been appointed as the third arbitrator by Ukraine’s Oschadbank.

What the Ukraine bank claims

Oschadbank claims that it lost assets and operations in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia after Russian military actions in Ukraine, especially after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Kyiv in February 2022.

Oschadbank’s claim is reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Ukrainian bank initiated the arbitration proceedings after a notice of dispute served to Russia in July 2025 allegedly went unanswered.

The arbitration has been initiated in accordance with the 1998 bilateral investment treaty between Ukraine and Russia, the report said.

Russia is represented by Pinna Goldberg partner Andrea Pinna, counsel Pratyush Panjwani and senior associate Dimitrios Papageorgiou.

On the other hand, Ukraine’s Oschadbank is represented by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partners, Epaminontas Triantafilou and Alex Gerbi, along with Asters partners Oleksiy Didkovskiy, Andrii Pozhidayev and Oksana Legka.

Russia-Ukraine investment treaty dispute

Oschadbank had earlier pursued Russia for losses in Crimea after Moscow annexed the territory in 2014.

The Ukrainian bank was awarded approximately US$1.1 billion by a Paris-seated tribunal, formed under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, in 2018.

However, the award has been the subject of prolonged proceedings before the courts in France.

In 2021, the award was set aside after a French court accepted Russia’s argument that the treaty’s offer to arbitrate applied only to investments made after the opening of Oschadbank’s Crimean branch, reported LiveLaw Business.

The very next year, the French Court of Cassation reinstated the award, stating that the French courts could not review the relevant provision.

In 2023 and 2024, the Paris-seated tribunal issued two further decisions, rejecting Russia’s request to revise the award on the basis of new evidence. The tribunal reportedly directed Moscow to bear the costs of the revision proceedings.

Recently, the Paris Court of Appeal annulled the tribunal’s decision on Russia’s request to revise the award, and the cost order. This is because the court found that an amicus curiae brief, co-signed by arbitrator Charles Brower, created reasonable doubts about his fairness.

Therefore, Russia’s revision request remains undecided, with the need for a fresh arbitral.

Russia approached Chandrachud earlier as well

Notably, Justice Chandrachud was previously approached by Russia to serve as its arbitrator in treaty claims brought by German energy company, Wintershall Dea.

The German company had initiated the arbitration proceedings against Russia under the Energy Charter Treaty, Bar and Bench previously reported.

However, Chandrachud had declined the approaches, as they were made on the same day that the Permanent Court of Arbitration designated him as the appointing authority in the Wintershall proceedings.

Chandrachud later stepped down from the appointing authority role after disclosing the communications with Russia.

source/content: hindustantimes.com (headline edited)

The Dirac Medal is awarded to physicists who have made outstanding contributions to theoretical physics but who have not already received the very top honours, especially the Nobel Prizes.

The story so far: Theoretical physicist Deepak Dhar has been awarded the Dirac Medal for his contributions to statistical physics — an honour he is sharing with three other physicists, Bernard Derrida, Marc Mézard, and Haim Sompolinsky. The Dirac Medal is awarded by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, on the birthday of the late British physicist Paul A.M. Dirac, for significant contributions to theoretical physics.

Dhar has spent most of his career in India. He is also the second Indian winner of the Dirac Medal; the first was string theorist Ashoke Sen in 2012.

In physics circles, Dhar is known for his work on a concept called Abelian sandpiles.

What is an Abelian sandpile?

Imagine dropping grains of sand, one at a time, on a flat surface. The pile slowly grows until it gets steep enough. Then, sometimes new grains on the pile will shift it, maybe cause a modest slide, sometimes even trigger an avalanche. And it is hard to predict in advance which grain will trigger which size of event.

In the late 1980s, physicists Per Bak, Chao Tang, and Kurt Wiesenfeld proposed that this behaviour could be a general principle underlying many phenomena in nature, from earthquakes to forest fires to the extinction of species. They called it self-organised criticality. The term refers to a system that sometimes organises itself into a delicately balanced critical state where even small nudges can produce effects of any size, from trivial to significant.

Dhar and his collaborators then developed the so-called Abelian sandpile model as a mathematical version of the sandpile idea. ‘Abelian’ means no matter in which sequence grains topple and cascade, the pile always settles into the same final shape. This was Dhar’s important insight — a property that lets physicists calculate exact answers and thus predict the final shape.

The Abelian sandpile model has numerous applications fundamentally because it captures a very general kind of behaviour: of systems that build up some kind of instability until they can release it in unpredictable ways. Scientists have used it to model earthquakes, the spread of forest fires, bursts of activity in neural networks in the brain, and fluctuations in financial markets.

Biographical sketch

Dhar was born in 1951 in Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh. He studied at Allahabad University, got his master’s degree from IIT-Kanpur, and then went to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for his PhD, which he completed in 1978. While at Caltech, he was a teaching assistant to Richard Feynman.

After finishing his doctorate, Dhar returned to India rather than stay in the U.S., and spent most of his career at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, before moving to the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, in 2016.

Since 2024, he has been the INSA Distinguished Professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Bengaluru.

The Abelian sandpile is Dhar’s most well-known work but not his only one. Across nearly five decades, Dhar has made important contributions to statistical mechanics — the branch of physics concerned with how the collective behaviour of vast numbers of particles, like grains or neurons, gives rise to large-scale patterns.

He won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 1991, the TWAS Prize from the World Academy of Sciences in 2002, the Padma Bhushan in 2023, and the Boltzmann Medal in 2022, together with John Hopfield, who shared the physics Nobel Prize 2024 for laying the foundations of neural networks. In fact, the Boltzmann Medal, awarded once every three years, is often considered the single most prestigious prize in statistical physics.

What is the Dirac Medal?

The ICTP Dirac Medal was established in 1985 to honor Paul Dirac, the British physicist whose equations helped lay the foundations of quantum mechanics. It is announced each year on Dirac’s birthday and awarded to physicists who have made outstanding contributions to theoretical physics but who have not already received the very top honours.

In fact, the medal is explicitly not given to Nobel laureates, Fields Medallists, or Wolf Prize laureates. Past recipients include Edward Witten, Stephen Hawking, and Leonard Susskind. Notably, several past Dirac Medallists have gone on to win a Nobel Prize.

All four of this year’s winners have been feted for pioneering work that applied the tools of statistical mechanics in distinct fields like non-equilibrium systems, optimisation problems, theoretical neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. He is only the second scientist based in India, after string theorist Ashoke Sen, to receive the Dirac Medal.

The ICTP itself was founded in 1964 by the Pakistani physicist and Nobel laureate Abdus Salam, together with the Italian government and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Salam had envisioned it as a place where physicists from the Global South could work together and exchange ideas with colleagues from around the world.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

India won one gold, three bronze medals and an honourable mention at the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) 2026 in Romania.

Shrilakshmi Venkatraman won the gold medal, and Aarav Anil Rao, Nishanth Shankar Lakshmanan and Advay Misra bagged bronze medals. Soham Amit Pednekar received an honourable mention.

The IOL brings together school students from more than 40 countries and tests their ability to decode patterns in unfamiliar languages through logic, analytical reasoning and pattern recognition.

India has participated in the IOL since 2009 and has now won 37 medals at a tally of six gold, nine silver and 22 bronze, besides other honours.

IIIT Hyderabad has played a key role in India’s participation since taking over mentoring of the Panini Linguistics Olympiad in 2015. Its Language Technologies Research Centre supports student training, mentoring and selection through camps, problem-solving sessions and mock Olympiads.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

Robotic-assisted surgeries helps reduce postoperative pain and blood loss, shorten hospital stays and facilitate faster recovery among patient.

The Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), Hyderabad, has completed 1,000 robotic-assisted surgeries in less than three years, with more than 90% of the procedures performed free of cost under government-supported healthcare schemes including Aarogyasri and the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF).

Advantages of robotic-assisted surgery

Robotic-assisted surgery allows surgeons to perform complex procedures through smaller incisions with greater precision. The technology has helped reduce postoperative pain and blood loss, shorten hospital stays and facilitate faster recovery among patients. 

Of the 1,000 procedures, the Department of Urology accounted for the largest share with 590 surgeries, followed by Surgical Gastroenterology with 248 and Surgical Oncology with 162 procedures, the institute said.

The 590 urology procedures included complex cancer surgeries such as radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer and radical cystectomy for bladder cancer, besides robotic renal transplantation, uro-gynaecological and reconstructive procedures.

Surgical Gastroenterology surgeries

The 248 robotic procedures performed by Department of Surgical Gastroenterology included hepatobiliary, pancreatic, colorectal, intestinal and upper gastrointestinal surgeries.

Surgical Oncology surgeries

Another 162 procedures were carried out by the Department of Surgical Oncology for ovarian, uterine, colorectal and other cancers. These included procedures involving organ-preservation and nerve-sparing techniques, the institute said.

NIMS Director Rahul Devraj, who is also Senior Professor of Urology and Renal Transplantation and Robotic Surgery Coordinator, congratulated all the three departments along with nurses, operation theatre personnel and other supporting departments, for reaching the milestone.

Dr. Devraj also thanked Telangana Health Minister C. Damodar Raja Narasimha for his support in strengthening advanced healthcare services at the institute and Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy for the government’s efforts towards upgrading healthcare infrastructure.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

The newly developed catalyst integrates multiple functions enabling chemical reactions to proceed more effectively while improving access to active sites within the material.

Researchers at the Central University of Kerala (CUK) have secured an Indian patent for a novel multifunctional catalyst preparation technology that could help convert biomass and petrochemical feedstocks into cleaner fuels and other value added chemicals more efficiently.

The patent was granted for ‘Method for the Preparation of ITQ-2 Metal Oxy-Hydroxide Composite Material Thereof’ (Indian Patent No. 596368). The innovation was developed by Prof. A. Sakthivel along with researchers Soumya B.N. and Nimisha N.P.

Prof. Sakthivel said the team had developed a multifunctional catalyst, a specially engineered synthetic material known as zeolite, that can speed up chemical reactions required to convert biomass and petroleum-based raw materials into useful products.

“The main innovation is the preparation of the material itself. It is a multifunctional catalyst that combines acidic and redox (reduction-oxidation) properties in a single material, making it more efficient than conventional catalysts,” he said.

According to the researchers, conventional catalysts generally perform only one function, limiting their efficiency. The newly developed catalyst integrates multiple functions enabling chemical reactions to proceed more effectively while improving access to active sites within the material.

The technology is expected to find future applications in the petroleum and petrochemical industries, particularly in the production of cleaner fuels, fuel additives, polymers and other value-added chemicals. Prof. Sakthivel said the research had so far focused on developing and patenting the catalyst material, and commercial fuel production using the technology was yet to begin.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

.

ZSI scientists Navneet Singh and Rahul Joshi took almost 12 years to complete the monumental work of cataloguing, field exploration, museum curation, and rigorous literature verification.

India is home to 13,703 species of lepidoptera — butterflies and moths — which is about 8.25% of the total lepidoptera found across the globe.

Scientists of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have come out with a detailed Catalogue of Lepidoptera (Butterflies & Moths) of India which has been published in peer reviewed journal Zootaxa.

ZSI scientists Navneet Singh and Rahul Joshi took almost 12 years to complete the monumental work of cataloguing, field exploration, museum curation, and rigorous literature verification.

“There have been attempts to classify and catalogue lepidoptera for over 100 years. There are 13,703 species of butterflies and moths across 3,705 genera, 240 subfamilies, 102 families, and 31 superfamilies,” Mr. Singh said.

Of the 13,703 species of lepidoptera 1,417 species are butterflies, and the remaining 12,286 are moths, Mr. Singh said.

The scientific work bridges critical taxonomic gaps that have persisted for more than 100 years, since the first historical attempts to document the region’s insect fauna, a Press Information Bureau release stated.

“It firmly positions India among a select group of megadiverse nations possessing a fully updated, centralized, and authoritative baseline inventory of its butterfly and moth diversity,” the release said.

Butterflies and moths play crucial roles in maintaining ecological equilibrium, serving as essential herbivores, detritivores, and pollinators, while acting as vital food resources for birds, bats, and other insectivores, the ZSI scientists said.

“These catalogue volumes will serve as a vital national asset for biodiversity research, ecological monitoring, and global conservation strategies. Such comprehensive catalogues ensure these species are given an authoritative voice, a clear legal identity, and a permanent place in scientific history,” Dhriti Banerjee, Director, ZSI, said.

Among the 13,703 species of lepidoptera, the scientists have identified and catalogued 2,205 species of Geometroidea, nocturnal pollinators taking over the ‘night shift’ when daytime butterflies rest. These 2,205 species of Geometroidea have been found across 479 genera, 13 subfamilies, and four families — accounting for 8.80% of the world’s known species in this superfamily.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

People hope that such efforts would help promote the region’s age-old handloom traditions and preserve them for future generations.

Ahead of National Handloom Day slated for August 7, Sircilla district-based handloom weaver Veldi Hariprasad showcased his skill and precision by weaving a saree — that could fit into a matchbox — in just 170 minutes, in Telangana’s textile town on Monday (August 3, 2026).

The unique feat was performed on a traditional handloom in the presence of local residents and several members of the weaving community. It drew appreciation for Mr. Hariprasad’s skill and perseverance while highlighting Sircilla’s rich handloom heritage.

Mr. Hariprasad said he had woven the 5.5-metre-long and 45-inch-wide saree weighing 175 grams using traditional weaving techniques.

Those who witnessed the feat described it as incredible and expressed hope that such efforts would help promote the region’s age-old handloom traditions and preserve them for future generations.

Mr. Hariprasad has earlier earned wide appreciation for weaving special sarees based on themes such as ‘Nari Shakti’ and ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

Mallika Spine Centre, Guntur, Chief Spine Surgeon Dr. J. Naresh Babu has won the Best Paper Award at the Combined Meeting of SMISS-A.P., ASEAN-MIST, and the Singapore Spine Society held in Singapore from July 16 to 19, 2026. He shared details of this achievement at a press conference in Guntur on Monday (August 3).

His award-winning research, titled “Ligamentous Instability in Structurally Stable Cervical Myelopathy – A New Paradigm Shift in Understanding Disease Worsening,” presents a new explanation for the progression of cervical spondylotic myelopathy.

The study found that routine activities such as sitting and normal neck movements can change the ligamentum flavum and cause spinal cord compression, even in patients whose cervical spine appears stable on conventional scans. Using weight-bearing Sitting MRI, the research identified “ligamentous instability” as a possible reason for disease progression.

Dr. Naresh Babu said the findings could help doctors diagnose patients earlier, assess risks more accurately and prevent permanent spinal cord damage through timely treatment. The study also highlights the value of Sitting MRI in examining cervical spine disorders under normal physiological conditions.

Dr. Naresh Babu said receiving the award was a special moment, recalling that he had received the Young Orthopaedic Investigator Award from the Singapore Orthopaedic Association in 2007. He added that the latest recognition reflects Mallika Spine Centre’s continued contribution to spine surgery, innovation, and clinical research at the international level.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

N. R. Krishnaswamy, a senior orthodontist from Chennai, has become the first orthodontist from India to qualify as a Diplomate of the European Board of Orthodontics (EBO), an advanced clinical certification awarded by the European Orthodontic Society.

The examination is considered as one of the most rigorous assessments in orthodontics. He completed the examination during the European Orthodontic Society Congress held in Dublin, Ireland.

A clinician with nearly four decades of experience, Dr. Krishnaswamy recently retired as Professor and Head of the Department of Orthodontics at Ragas Dental College and Hospital. He has also served as Chairman of the Indian Board of Orthodontics, a press release said.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)