Accident averted after wheel on Gorakhpur-Yeshwantpur Express breaks
Nagpur, May 29: In a freak incident, a wheel of the speeding Gorakhpur-Yeshwantpur Express broke into two pieces near here on Tuesday morning but alert railway staff averted any tragedy, officials said.
The incident came to light after some unusual sounds emanated from the wheels and the driver stopped the train, but by then, it had already run a few kilometres before coming to a safe halt, said Central Railway spokesperson Sunil Udasi.
There are no casualties in the incident, he said, adding that the alert rail staff have been felicitated for their work.
The affected coach was disconnected, the passengers deboarded and accommodated in an alternative coach before the train departed for its onward journey.
Top officials described the incident as "unheard of" in Indian Railways.
"This is the rarest cases of wheel defect. It's a matter of detailed investigation and laboratory test of materials has been ordered," said Railway Board's Director, Media, Ved Prakash.
Experts will now probe whether the wheel broke due to excessive use or due to some defective materials used in its making.
Presently, the wheels used in the modern Linke Hofmann Busch coaches are imported from Europe and tested rigorously before used in passenger trains.
While ruling out the possibility of more such incidents, the railway officials said random samples could be picked up from anywhere for further scrutiny.
Wheels are checked on various railway tracks across India under varying conditions and the entire process can take three years.
After the testing period, the wheels are used on regular basis before they need to be replaced after 100,000 km running.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Six scholars, including two women, win Infosys Prize 2024
Bengaluru: Two women scientists are among the six winners of the Infosys Prize 2024 for Economics, Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, and Physical Sciences, announced on Thursday by the Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) in Bengaluru.
The award was instituted by ISF in 2009.
The two women, who have been selected for the award this year, are Neena Gupta for Mathematical Sciences and Vedika Khemani for Physical Sciences.
Gupta, Professor in the Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, was awarded for her work on the Zariski Cancellation Problem, a fundamental problem in algebraic geometry first posed in 1949 by Oscar Zariski, one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry.
According to a statement released by ISF, she proved the striking result that Asanuma’s three-dimensional affine variety yields a negative answer to Zariski’s original Cancellation Problem in positive characteristic, in 2014.
Khemani, Associate Professor in the Physics Department at Stanford University, has been recognised for her wide-ranging and groundbreaking contributions to theoretical and experimental non-equilibrium quantum matter, most notably the discovery of time-crystals.
Arun Chandrasekhar, Professor, Department of Economics, Stanford University, won the Economics Prize for his contribution to the study of social and economic networks, using innovative data sets and drawing on theoretical methods from machine learning and computer science.
Engineering and Computer Science Prize is to be awarded to Shyam Gollakota, Professor, School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington for his research in societally relevant areas such as smartphone-based affordable healthcare tools for low- and middle-income countries, battery-free computing and communication, and augmentation of human auditory sensing with artificial intelligence.
The Infosys Prize 2024 in Humanities and Social Sciences goes to Mahmood Kooria, Lecturer, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, for his seminal contributions to the study of maritime Islam in a global perspective, with particular focus on Kerala in the pre-modern and early modern eras.
The Life Sciences Prize goes to Siddhesh Kamat, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, for his discoveries concerning bioactive lipids, their receptors, and their metabolic and signaling pathways.
Speaking at the event organised to announce the award, Kris Gopalakrishnan, President, Infosys Science Foundation said the Infosys Prize has played a pivotal role in recognising brilliant minds whose contributions are shaping the future of research and science.
“This year, we refocused on early career researchers under the age of 40, recognising their immense potential and the promise of paradigm-changing work,” he added.
The prize for each category comprises a gold medal, a citation, and a prize purse of $100,000 (or its equivalent in INR). Narayana Murthy was also present at the event that was hosted at ISF’s office in Bengaluru.
According to the press note issued by ISF, previous laureates of the Infosys Prize, one of the biggest prizes announced in India, have gone on to receive several prestigious international awards, including the Nobel Prize (Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo), the Fields medal (Manjul Bhargava and Akshay Venkatesh), the Dan David Prize (Sanjay Subrahmanyam), the MacArthur ‘genius’ Grant (Sunil Amrith), the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (Ashoke Sen), and the Marconi Prize (Hari Balakrishnan).
