DASNR
International
Student of the Week
Home Country:
India
The South Asian country of India includes a peninsula extending into the Indian Ocean, and it is a land of great contrasts in geography. The barren, snow-capped Himalaya, the world's tallest mountain system, rises along its northern border. South of the Himalaya, the low, fertile Ganges Plain is India's most populous region. The Great Indian Desert lies in the west, but eastern India receives some of the highest rainfall in the world during the monsoon season (June to October). India is second only to China in country population but India is growing faster (some 16 million a year) and may surpass China by 2030. Although 81 percent of the people are Hindu, India also has 126 million Muslims—one of the world's largest Muslim populations.
Hindu culture evolved out of the mingling of indigenous Dravidian peoples and Aryan-speaking nomads who arrived from Central Asia in 1500 B.C. Islam spread across the subcontinent starting in the eighth century A.D. From the 17th century to the mid-20th century India was the pride of the British Empire. Guided by Mahatma Gandhi, Indians won nationhood in 1947. From British rule they inherited deep poverty but also parliamentary government, the English language, and a far-flung rail system, which helped knit the multiethnic country into a secular democracy often called the world's largest democracy.
Source: National Geographic
Philip Verghese
January 2007
|
|
From the Department of Biochemistry.... This weeks International Student of the Week is Philip Benjamin Verghese from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He is working on his Ph.D. in Biochemistry, with an emphasis in Mammalian Cholesterol Metabolism. He is from India and lives in the state of Kerala and in the town of Adoor. He speaks English, Hindi and Malayalam. Philip came to the United States to earn his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from a well respected university. He picked Oklahoma State University because it happened to be a good value pick in 2001 when he was looking for places to go. He is married to Dr. Sarita Elizabeth, who got her Ph.D. from the Plant Pathology Department here at OSU. Philip has kept him self very busy and two of his first author research manuscripts are ready for publication. He has also been judged as the second best oral talk in the research symposium conducted by the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Graduate Student Association in 2005. He is also very active in the Stillwater community and if he were to give any advice to other International Students it would be to “be active in the community”. His advisor is Dr. Jose L. Soulages Interview by Taryn Fast
|
Golden Temple, Amritsar, India
The spectacular story of Indian agriculture is known throughout the world for its multi-functional success in generating employment, livelihood, food, nutritional and ecological security. Agriculture and allied activities contribute about 30% to the gross domestic product of India. With arable land area at 168 million hectares, India ranks second only to the U.S. in sheer size of agriculture. A well-developed agricultural research system, a significant area of almost 60 million hectares under irrigation and an increasing productivity in major crops enable Indian agriculture to become a globally competitive player. With the application of modern technologies, food production increased from 50 million tonnes in 1950 to over 220 million tonnes today. The United Nations estimates that with assured irrigation, India's food grains output can increase SIX times within five years- enough to feed two planet Earths!
The Taj Mahal in India
