Indian-origin physician wins award for COVID-19 work in UK
London: An Indian-origin physician is among 19 winners of the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering President's Special Awards for Pandemic Service for exceptional engineering achievements in tackling COVID-19 throughout the UK.
Ravi Solanki, a physician working on neurodegenerative diseases, along with Raymond Siems, an engineer working in machine learning, were awarded for their volunteer work to help build a secure and fully functioning website for a new National Health Service (NHS) charity HEROES.
The duo were praised for working in record time to make the platform sophisticated and efficient, ensuring it could enable funding, provide counselling and wellbeing services, childcare support and sustainable personal protective equipment (PPE) to NHS workers.
Ravi and Raymond's round-the-clock contributions allowed the new charity to tap into public sentiment and collect donations quickly so that NHS workers could receive the support they needed when the COVID-19 crisis was at its peak in the UK, notes the Academy in its citation.
Their technical know-how allowed HEROES to support 90,000 NHS workers in three months. The team's work to expand the digital platform and support provided to healthcare workers is ongoing, it adds.
In less than two days, the team including Evan Martin and Wilson Griffiths turned an idea into a "genuine impact" secure website through which more than 543,000 items of much-needed support have been provided to NHS workers, from sustainable PPE to counselling services and child care.
The honours announced on Monday have been awarded to teams, organisations, individuals, collaborations and projects across all technical specialities, disciplines and career stages within the UK engineering community who have contributed to addressing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and specially commissioned silver medals will be presented to all 19 winners later this year.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest public health crisis of our time and has presented society with multiple challenges. Engineering expertise and innovation has been central to the global fight to save lives and protect livelihoods, said Professor Sir Jim McDonald, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
I am also incredibly proud of engineers everywhere who have worked round the clock to maintain essential services, critical supply chains and infrastructure in unprecedented circumstances, using their training and skills to find innovative solutions to a host of problems and to help mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on our daily lives, he said.
The other awards covered innovative ventilator devices, breathing aids, respirators and face shields as essential equipment required in the fight against the deadly virus. The President's Special Awards for Pandemic Service were overseen by the Academy's Awards Committee.
Professor Raffaella Ocone, Chair of the Academy's Awards Committee, added: Engineering skills including innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration have proved to be of vital importance during the current pandemic.
While I am delighted that we are able to recognise some of these outstanding achievements with these awards I am mindful that the important work of the vast majority of engineers will remain largely outside the public's consciousness. They are all deserving of our thanks and admiration for their continuing positive contribution to society.
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MP boat tragedy: Death toll rises to 10 with recovery of one more body; 3 tourists still missing
Jabalpur (PTI): The body of a child was retrieved on Saturday evening from Bargi Dam in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh, raising the death toll in the cruise boat tragedy that took place two days ago to ten, while search continued for three missing tourists.
The boat, operated by the state tourism department, capsized during a storm on Thursday evening with some of the survivors alleging negligence and safety lapses such as life jackets not being distributed in time.
The body recovered on Saturday evening was possibly that of six-year-old Viraj Soni, said Sub-Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) Anjul Ayank Mishra.
"The identity will be confirmed after family members identify the body," he told PTI.
Kamraj, an employee of the Ordnance Factory at Khamaria, his five-year-old son Tamil, and another child Mayuram (5) who had come from southern India were still missing.
Authorities have arranged equipment to search deep waters of the dam and are getting a generator to facilitate diving operations, Mishra added.
Divers and disaster response teams have expanded the search radius to five km, he said.
Of the 41 identified passengers on board the ill-fated vessel, 28 were rescued, police said.
More than 200 rescuers, including around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, joined the search operation that resumed at 5 on Saturday morning. The operation, involving the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force and local divers, was briefly affected at around 9 am due to strong winds, officials said.
Post-mortem examinations of nine deceased persons have been completed, Mishra said.
"Our priority is to search for the missing persons. We will also register a First Information Report in the case soon," he said.
Police said CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the boat while the identities of 41 passengers have been confirmed so far.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the tragedy and dismissed three crew members. It also banned operation of similar vessels in the state.
