Latest news with #Lasker
Indian Express
17-05-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
A fund crunch in the US, an opportunity for India
Over the past few months, I have watched, with profound anguish, the foundations of the knowledge economy in the United States, the jewel in its crown and the envy of the world, being systematically dismantled. My own university, a symbol of excellence in transformational science, is engaged in a veritable battle for survival. While I am immensely proud of our position in standing up for our values and principles, the consequences of this resistance are painful, not least for young scientists whose careers are vaporising before their eyes. At the same time, I have been watching how other wealthy countries, especially in Europe, are announcing plans to feast on the rich pickings of scientists in the US who are looking to other countries to continue their work. France, for example, through the Aix-Marseille University's Safe Place for Science programme, is offering positions and support to US researchers. Former French President François Hollande has introduced a bill to recognise refugee status specifically for scientists. It dawned on me that this may be a once-in-a-lifetime moment for India to reap a rich harvest in pursuit of the country's ambition to become a world leader in science. To do so, India would need to recognise that high-quality science is the result of the confluence of a number of key factors, the most important being the scientists themselves, equipped with the right skills and driven by the hunger to generate knowledge. This scientist needs the right environment, typically in research institutions, where they can flourish, often collaborating with others and being mentored by more experienced scholars. And finally, we need the money to pay for the scientists, for creating the environment and for the actual research that will be conducted. In my reckoning, India has both the environment and the money, and the current moment offers the country a historic chance to replenish and enrich its knowledge economy. Some may be perturbed by the suggestion of using Indian funds to attract scientists from abroad rather than invest in scientists already in India. While that is certainly not my intent, the fact is that scientists in the US, many of whom have completed their foundational training in India, dominate the list of laureates of the most prestigious science prizes, such as the Nobel, Lasker, Brain and Breakthrough Prizes. Even if there is some truth to the gripe that these top prizes are rigged in favour of Western scientists, there is no denying that the dramatic scientific discoveries of the past five decades, which have transformed almost every aspect of our daily lives, have emerged from the laboratories of scientists in the US. Something special about the scientific environment in the US appears to facilitate the leapfrog opportunity for these young scientists to become stars, and recruiting them may bring some of that gold dust to Indian institutions. I identify at least two strategies for India to respond to this opportunity. The first is to fund the ongoing research being conducted in India that is funded by the US government institutions. The abrupt freeze on international research by the National Institutes of Health, for example, has grave implications for some of these projects, not only in relation to the scientific outputs but also healthcare. Let us not forget that while these studies are funded by the US, they involve patients in India and their implementation is being carried out by Indian scientists and field research teams in the country. Here is an opportunity for India to take full ownership of these studies by providing bridge funding to the institutions to complete this ongoing research, for the benefit not only of people in the country but also as a contribution to science. The second strategy is a dramatic expansion of the current Indian government's VAIBHAV and VAJRA fellowship programmes to attract diaspora and foreign scientists for collaborative research with Indian institutions and build strong international research networks. The first batch of VAIBHAV fellows was selected in early 2024, with a total of about 75 diaspora scientists expected to participate over three years, supported by an outlay of approximately Rs 80 crore. Now is the time to expand the scope of these programmes, going beyond short-term visits to India to relocating permanently to the country, increasing the amounts of start-up funding and resources to enhance the competitiveness of the offers, implementing actions to enable a transparent mechanism for awarding these fellowships and enabling complete freedom to pursue their research. All these actions would also greatly benefit the country's science ecosystem. None of this will happen without additional money, of course, and while the primary funder for these strategies will necessarily be the government (as is already the case in India and most other countries), there is obviously an opportunity for the several philanthropic foundations that operate in India, some of which have already been playing marquee roles in supporting science through substantive donations to leading Indian institutions. The Indian Philanthropy Report 2025 documents how private spending on the social sector reached Rs 131,000 crore in 2024, and is expected to accelerate to 10–12 per cent over the next five years, largely driven by family philanthropy. Time is short, especially for the research that is already in progress and is threatened with abrupt cessation as a result of Trump's policies. Those of us who believe that India's development is contingent on it realising its aspirations to become one of the leaders of the global knowledge economy must act now. The writer is the Paul Farmer Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School
CBS News
04-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
Steve Lasker, renowned photojournalist who worked for decades with CBS Chicago, dies at 94
Steve Lasker, an award-winning newspaper and television photojournalist who spent 25 years with CBS Chicago, died last week. Lasker passed away on Thursday, May 1. He was 94. Lasker was just 13 years old when he began photographing World War II aircraft at Midway Airport, according to a bio from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Lasker went on to shoot photos for the student newspaper at Hyde Park High School and for the Hyde Park Herald neighborhood paper. As a young man, he also hung out at Chicago firehouses and rode with fire crews on emergency calls, where he took photos and sometimes sold them to insurance companies, his bio noted. On May 25, 1950, Lasker was hanging around at a firehouse when a horrible accident happened on the city's South Side. A Green Hornet Streetcar collided with a gasoline truck at 63rd and State streets, causing a horrific fire that killed 34 people. Lasker was the first photographer on the scene of the accident, and he sold his photos to Life Magazine and WNBQ-TV (now WMAQ-TV), NBC 5, where he was hired to shoot still photos for television newscasts, his bio noted. After five years with NBC 5, Lasker was hired as a press photographer at the Chicago American newspaper. In this role, Lasker was the first photographer on the scene for the tragic fire at Our Lady of Angels Catholic School in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on Dec. 1, 1958. The fire claimed the lives of 92 students and three nuns. As noted in his bio, Lasker documented tragedy with several heartbreaking images — including one showing firefighter Richard Scheidt carrying the body of a 10-year-old boy, John Jajkowski, from the scene. Steve Lasker Scott Lasker In 1969, Lasker joined CBS Chicago, WBBM-TV, Channel 2, as a news and documentary cameraman. At Channel 2, Lasker worked in the field for many years on a two-man electronic news gathering team with sound man Bob Gadbois, and his assignments took him around the city, country, and beyond. Lasker spent 27 years at CBS Chicago. His assignments, to name just a very few, included a trip to Poland with Walter Jacobson in the late 70s, a trip to New York with reporter Phil Walters to cover the murder of John Lennon in 1980, and a variety of assignments with Bill Kurtis and covering organized crime and society's seedy underbelly with John Drummond. Lasker also worked at CBS Chicago with the late producer Scott Craig on several award-winning documentary projects. They included, "Oscar Brown is Back in Town," featuring singer and activist Oscar Brown; "No Place Like Home," which tracked the plight of the unhoused in Chicago; and "The Trial of Shoeless Joe Jackson," a dramatic reenactment that brought viewers to the courtroom after the 1919 scandal in which members of the White Sox conspired to throw the World Series. Lasker won several awards for his work with CBS Chicago. Steve Lasker National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences After retiring from CBS Chicago in 1995, Lasker shot photos part-time for the Chicago Tribune and later shot commercial photography. He was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle in 2012. Lasker is survived by his wife of 60 years, Frances; daughters Wendy and Stacy; sons David and Scott, who both followed him into photojournalism; and grandson Jack. A memorial service is planned for Monday.
Chicago Tribune
04-05-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Steve Lasker, pioneering photojournalist who captured iconic Our Lady of the Angels fire image, dies at 94
It is an image seared into the minds of generations of Chicagoans, the photo of firefighter Richard Scheidt, cradling the lifeless body of John Michael Jajkowski Jr., as he walked from the fiery devastation at Our Lady of the Angels School. That photo was taken on Dec. 1, 1958, by Steve Lasker, a young Chicago American photographer, and it would appear in that paper, in Life magazine, and in hundreds of publications across the globe. Lasker would have a pioneering, prolific and distinguished career, filling his 94 years of life with millions of compelling images. He died Wednesday, April 30, in home hospice care in Lincolnwood, where he and his wife, Fran, had lived since their marriage in 1965. It was the end of his long battle with bladder cancer. 'It wasn't the hardship one might imagine. He was a wonderful patient,' Fran said. 'And a wonderful man. He was such a mensch.' The two had met when Lasker arrived at Lincoln Park Zoo to photograph its president, Marlin Perkins. Perkins was not there so Lasker spent time with his assistant. 'That was me,' Fran said. 'It was brutally hot and so the two of us spent three hours in Mr, Perkins' office, the only place that was air-conditioned, just talking. He asked me out and we had drinks the next night.' They were married three months later and would have three children, daughter Stacey and sons Scott and David. 'He was a wonderful husband and a great dad. We always said that for him it was the job that came first, children second and me third,' said Fran, with a chuckle. Lasker came to photography early. His parents owned and operated a dry cleaning store on the North Side before relocating south. When he was 13 years old he was shooting photos of World War II aircraft at Midway Airport. As a student at Hyde Park High School he shot for the school paper and also for the neighborhood's Hyde Park Herald. He was a frequent visitor to local firehouses, and the firefighters grew fond of him. They taught him to play poker and would often let him ride along and take pictures on emergency calls, such as the one that occurred on May 25, 1950, when a gasoline truck crashed into a streetcar, bursting into flames and killing 34 people. Lasker was the first photographer on the scene and his photos were purchased by and displayed in Life Magazine and on television's Channel 5. So impressed were the bosses at the television station that they formally began Lasker's career by hiring him to shoot stills for newscasts. After five years with the WMAQ, he was hired as a photographer at the Chicago American, and only months later was the first photographer to arrive at the Our Lady of the Angels fire on the West Side. He had been on his way to an assignment that day when he heard a call come over a radio tuned to the police frequency: 'They're jumping out the windows!' He recalled what he saw at the school, talking to the Tribune in 2008: 'Mayhem was going on and they started pulling kids out of there left and right. To this day I still have dreams about that horrible scene.' Willaim Vendetta / Chicago Tribune Parents watch as firefighters battle a fire and pull victims out of the smoldering Our Lady of the Angels grade school building Dec. 1, 1958, in Chicago. But he and the photo would be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, launching a career that would earn him nearly 40 awards for his work. In 1970, he moved to WBBM-Channel 2 and became a news and documentary cameraman. Over the next quarter century, he would be known as 'the man with the golden eye' as he travelled the world and the city, working on hundreds of stories and documentaries, many in collaboration with esteemed producer Scott Craig. He also worked often with anchorman and reporter Bill Kurtis. ''He led our stellar stable of photo masters. Quiet. Respectful. A privilege to know. And he really did have a 'golden eye'' Kurtis said. 'But that's just part of what makes a great photographer. The eye is connected to the brain and an uncanny third eye that is able to anticipate what's going to happen before it happens. It's like Steve was waiting for the great shot. That always came.' Kurtis told a story: 'We were in Horicon Marsh north of Milwaukee to cover the migration of thousands of Canada geese. I saw some hunters in a nearby rowboat. I said to Steve, 'Wouldn't it be great to get a shot of them in action?' When I turned back to Steve he was pointing the camera to the sky above the hunters as if that was where the birds would fly over. Before I could say a thing, a shot went off and a bird was falling from the sky and Steve was following it all the way to the water. He won an Emmy for that one.' Lasker retired in 1995 but kept shooting. If there was an event — a block party or parade — in or around Lincolnwood, Lasker was there with his camera, later supplying photos to organizations or local publications. He also served as a member of the suburb's Fire and Police Commission. In addition to his wife and children he is survived by a grandchild.
BBC News
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'It was an escape into excellence': How music saved the life of a teenage Jewish cellist in Auschwitz
The Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet troops on 27 January 1945. Anita Lasker, a Jewish teenager, managed to survive there simply because the camp orchestra needed a cello player. Now aged 99, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch is the last remaining survivor of the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz. At the age of 19, she was interviewed by the BBC on 15 April 1945, the day of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen death camp where she had been transferred six months earlier. Interviewed in German, the language she grew up speaking, she said: "First, I would like to say a few words about Auschwitz. The few who have survived are afraid that the world will not believe what happened there." Warning: This article contains graphic details of the Holocaust She continued: "A doctor and a commander stood on the ramp when the transports arrived, and sorting was done right before our eyes. This means they asked for the age and health condition of the new arrivals. The unsuspecting newcomers tended to report any ailments, thereby signing their death sentences. They particularly targeted children and the elderly. Right, left, right, left. To the right was life; to the left, the chimney." When she first arrived at the Auschwitz unloading platform known as the ramp, her casual comment that she played the cello was enough to change the direction of her life. "Music was played to accompany the most terrible things," she said. The then Anita Lasker barely spoke German in public again for 50 years after World War Two, but when she was growing up, her hometown of Breslau was part of Germany. Now known as Wrocław, it has been part of Poland since the end of the war. Lasker's mother Edith was a talented violinist and her father Alfons was a successful lawyer. As the youngest of three daughters, she grew up in a happy home where music and other cultural pursuits were encouraged. She knew at an early age that she wanted to be a cellist, but outside the sanctuary of her family home, darker forces were stirring. She recalled on a BBC television documentary in 1996: "We were the typical assimilated German-Jewish family. We went to a little private school, and I suddenly heard, 'Don't give the Jew the sponge,' and I thought, 'What is all this?'" By 1938, as antisemitism took hold in Nazi Germany, Lasker's parents couldn't find a cello tutor in Breslau who would teach a Jewish child. She was sent to Berlin to study, but had to rush back to her parents after a night of murder and mayhem. On 9 November 1938, the insidious persecution of Jewish people turned violent as Nazis smashed the windows of homes, businesses and synagogues on Kristallnacht or "the night of broken glass". Back at home, Lasker's parents continued to instil a love of culture in their children, as "nobody can take that away from us". Her eldest sister Marianne escaped in 1939 on the Kindertransport, the mission which took thousands of children to safety in Britain just before the war. By 1942, even as "the world was falling to pieces", her father still had Anita and her sister Renate discussing sophisticated works such as Friedrich Schiller's tragic play Don Carlos. However, it was "obvious what was going to happen", she said. Arriving in hell In April 1942, the dreaded order came for her parents to report to a certain location within 24 hours. "We walked through Breslau, not just my parents but a whole column of people, to this particular point and said goodbye. That was the end. I only understood what my parents must have gone through when I became a parent myself. By then, one had already started to suppress the luxury of feelings." Anita and Renate were sent to a Jewish orphanage, but they soon hatched a plan to escape from Nazi Germany. Posing as women on their way home to unoccupied France, they set off with two friends for Breslau railway station clutching forged papers. The plan failed and they were arrested by officers of the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police force. Anita served about 18 months in jail on charges of forgery, aiding the enemy and attempted escape, but at least she was relatively safe there. "Prison is not a pleasant place to be in, but it's not a concentration camp," she said. "Nobody kills you in a prison." In 1943, because of overcrowding in Breslau prison, any remaining Jewish people were relocated to concentration camps. Anita was put on a train to be taken to Auschwitz, and Renate was sent two weeks later. Anita arrived in the camp at night to find a terrible scene: "I remember it was very noisy and totally bewildering. You had no idea where you were. Noisy with the dogs, people screaming, a horrible smell... You'd arrived in hell, really." Upon arrival, she was tattooed and shaved by Auschwitz prisoners who were eager for any news about the war. "I said, 'Look, I can't tell you too much because I've been in prison for a long time,' and casually mentioned that I played the cello. And this girl said, 'Oh, that is very good. You might be saved.' The situation was unbelievable, really. I was naked, I had no hair, I had a number on my arm, and I had this ridiculous conversation. She went and got Alma Rosé, who was the conductor of the orchestra, so I became a member of the famous Women's Orchestra." Alma Rosé was a niece of composer Gustav Mahler, while her father was leader of the Vienna Philharmonic. The violinist ran the camp orchestra with fearsome professionalism, according to Lasker: "She succeeded in making us so worried about what we were going to play and whether we were playing well that we temporarily didn't worry about what was going to happen to us." Using instruments stolen from other people who had been brought to the camp, the orchestra played its limited repertoire of military music. "Our job was to play marches for the columns that worked outside the camp when they marched out, and in the evening when they came back in," she said. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 1996, Lasker said that while Rosé set "enormously high standards", she did not think it was because of a fear of being murdered if they failed to play well. "It was an escape somehow into excellence," she said. "Somehow you come to terms with the fact that eventually they're going to get you, but whilst they haven't got you, you just carry on. I think one of the ingredients of survival was to be with other people. I think anybody on their own really didn't have a chance." From Auschwitz to Belsen Rosé did not survive the war, dying of suspected botulism in April 1944. Lasker said: "I think we owe our lives to Alma. She had a dignity which imposed itself even on the Germans. Even the Germans treated her as if she were a member of the human race." The music stopped in October 1944 when the women were transferred to Belsen, a concentration camp where there was no orchestra. Conditions there were unimaginably awful. Lasker said: "It wasn't actually an extermination camp – it was a camp where people perished. There were no gas chambers there, no need for gas chambers – you just died of disease, of starvation." The liberation of Belsen by British troops in April 1945 saved her life. "I think another week and we probably wouldn't have made it because there was no food and no water left," she said. More like this:• The man who saved 669 children from the Nazis• Anne Frank's father on his daughter's diary• How WW2's D-Day began with a death-defying mission After the war, Anita and Renate contacted their sister Marianne in the UK, and in 1946 they both settled in Britain. Renate went on to work as an author and journalist, moving to France with her husband in 1982. She died in 2021, 11 days shy of her 97th birthday. Marianne, the eldest sister who was brought to safety on the Kindertransport, died in childbirth soon after the war. "Such are the ironies of fate," she told the Guardian in 2005. Anita pursued a career as a successful musician, becoming a founder member of the English Chamber Orchestra. On a visit to Paris, she was put in touch with Peter Wallfisch, a piano student and fellow refugee whom she remembered from her school days in Breslau. They married in 1952 and had two children, cello player Raphael and psychotherapist Maya. While Lasker and her husband communicated with each other in "a total mixture of languages", she admitted that "it would have been totally impossible for me to speak German to my children". For decades, she vowed never again to set foot on German soil, fearing that anyone of a certain age could have been "the very person who murdered my parents". With the passage of time, she softened her stance, and by 2018 she was invited to Berlin to address politicians in the Bundestag, the German parliament. She said: "As you see, I broke my oath – many, many years ago – and I have no regrets. It's quite simple: hate is poison and, ultimately, you poison yourself." -- For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
