7 May : Six Indian students including Anjali Bhardwai Datta, a lecturer at the University of Delhi, have won prestigious Bill and Melinda Gates scholarships to study at the University of Cambridge.The six are among 90 students selected from 32 countries around the world.
The Indian scholars, selected after interviews in India in April, will begin their studies in September this year.
Datta, who has already published research papers in leading international journals, will pursue a PhD in History under which she will be doing a comparative study of partition in West and East India through case studies of Delhi and Kolkata.
She said: "After completing my studies I wish to get back to college teaching as I feel very strongly about it."
The other Indian scholars are: Yama Dixit, an environmental scientist from Jawaharlal Nehru University, who will do a PhD in Earth Sciences at Cambridge.
Yama will be looking at whether environmental change was behind the collapse of the Harappan Civilisation and whether her findings can shed light on links between climate and civilization.
Mathew Madhavacheril from the University of Delhi will complete his Physics degree at Cambridge, doing research at the Cambridge Centre for Quantum Computation. She is a trained Kathak dancer and has organised basic education classes to street children.
While, Kiran Rachuri, a masters student from the Indian Institute of Technology Chennai, will do a PhD in computer science, focusing on wireless sensor networks used in health monitoring, home and industry automation, military systems and environmental monitoring.
A student from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Pritika Pradhan, will complete her undergraduate studies in English at Cambridge. While, Anish Vanaik from Jawaharlal Nehru University will study for a PhD in history in the same institute.
The other 84 new Gates scholars include the first to be selected from Bangladesh, Belarus, Mongolia, Montenegro, Slovakia and Venezuela.