Latest news with #Nobel-winning
Time of India
4 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
For Indian students, US dreams suddenly in doubt
For Indian students, US dreams suddenly in doubt India, the country that sends more students to the US than any other, young people who had hoped to pursue higher education in America this fall described feeling in a state of limbo after the Trump administration's decision to pause interviews with foreign nationals applying for student visas. Some are scrubbing their feeds, deleting comments and unfollowing accounts after the state department said that it would screen social media use. Others are exchanging news and information in newly formed encrypted group chats. And some have sought divine aid in "visa temples" - so called because Hindu devotees say prayers there provide a greater chance of getting a tourist, study or work visa. Career counsellors have become therapists, and the extended family networks that many Indians have in America, have set up war rooms online. Other students are revisiting their backup plans or rethinking their academic paths. "I have carefully built my profile to be able to get into the top policy programs in the US," said Kaushik Sharma, 28. He called it his "dream" to study in America but added that the current environment was making him nervous about applying. "I don't want to go there and be in a constant state of fear," he said. He is now considering similar public policy programs at universities in Britain and Singapore, he added. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like American Investor Warren Buffett Recommends: 5 Books For Turning Your Life Around Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo Karan Gupta, a career counsellor said he had been inundated by calls in the past few days. "There are students with admission letters who don't know if they will get visa appointments, and those in the US worried about their visa status. He tried to reassure clients that, statistically, it was unlikely that most students' plans would be upended," he added. A third of the foreign students in US schools, or around 330,000, are from India. The number has grown, surpassing China in the 2023-24 school year. The trouble began on May 22, when the Trump administration said it would ban Harvard University from enrolling international students. Five days later, the state department said it would pause interviews with foreign nationals applying for student visas as it expands scrutiny of their social media posts. Although a judge has blocked the administration's step against Harvard, and the state department has said that student interviews scheduled before its order would proceed. American universities have produced leaders like Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft; and Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Alphabet, both of whom grew up in India and attended US graduate programs. Gita Gopinath, the second in command at the IMF; and Abhijit Banerjee, a Nobel-winning economist and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, were also initially educated in India.
Time of India
5 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Trade wars and chocolate bars, what India of the 1970s can teach Trump
Cooking, and eating, are often on Abhijit Banerjee's mind. But for the Nobel-winning economist, what starts with planning the night's dinner usually ends up in questions about the consumption, production, distribution of food, and their intimate relation to the broader economic issues of our times. His new monthly column for The Sunday Times, is about eating and thinking, about pleasure and responsibility, about global food and the Indian palate. Illustrated by Cheyenne Olivier, it offers recipes for life and lunch LESS ... MORE One advantage/disadvantage of being old is that I lived through what is history to so many others. President Trump adores William McKinley, the 25th US president, for his tariffs, but at 78, he is way too young to have lived behind a properly high tariff wall. I, on the other hand, lived in the India of the 1970s, when we had managed to kill almost all international trade through a combination of tariffs and other rules for importing (non-tariff barriers in trade parlance). I mostly experienced trade barriers through the important lens of chocolate. India, for reasons I do not claim to understand, did not grow much cocoa in those days, despite having many areas that seem suitable for that crop based on where else it grows. So, all the cocoa was imported and the exorbitant duties made it expensive. To keep the chocolate affordable for ordinary middle-class kids like me, Cadbury's used minimal amounts of cocoa. Illustration credit: Cheyenne Olivier (France) The net result was something milky and intensely sweet, not unlike most Indian confections, but chocolate mostly only in name. The trouble was that I had tasted the real deal, courtesy some of my parents' kind friends who either lived abroad or had gone on a visit. And it tasted very different — there was a bitterness and depth to them that was unmistakable. On our occasional trip to Kolkata's crumbling 'New Market', or to movie theaters in its vicinity, I would notice men in tight pants who were clearly trying to attract my mother's attention (and failing). Fairly soon, I figured out that they were selling various smuggled items, mostly watches, perfumes and CHOCOLATE. I could see from the print on the wrapper that though it said Cadbury's, this was a different breed. My instincts told me that my mother would not take kindly to the idea of buying contraband Cadbury's, but it was hard to shake off the desire to try it out. As I grew into teenage, my understanding of the gains from trade became less one-dimensional. For one, I was more aware of how people around me dressed, and it became clear that there were jeans and jeans. Those that flopped a bit, like mine, and the ones exuded a steely foreign firmness. I remember admiring the new pair that a neighbour was wearing and his telling me, very proudly, 'impotted', which to me sounded like impotent. I started giggling, at which point he got very huffy and commented on my apparent tendency to be jealous, which to be fair, I was a bit. All that has changed now. According to some industry estimates, India is the third largest exporter of denim in the world. Unfortunately, we still don't have our global brand of jeans, but there is no doubt about the quality of the denim. For one, I am biased but I think my friend Suket Dhir makes some of the most stylish denim products I see anywhere. There are two more or less standard theories of what changed. One that we heard a lot in India before the opening of the economy in 1991 is that we need the pressure from imports to force our producers to get to global quality. My colleague David Atkins, with Amit Khandelwal from Columbia University and Adam Osman from the University of Illinois, participated in a randomised experiment in which some carpet manufacturers in Egypt that had previously produced only for the domestic market, were connected to potential importers abroad. It took some time for them to get going, but eventually, they started exporting and making more money, and perhaps more interestingly, weaving higher-quality carpets in the same amount of time. The authors called this learning-by-exporting. The alternative view is sometimes described, confusingly, as learning-by-doing. It is better described as learning-by-not-importing. The idea is that it takes some time to learn how to produce quality, and if you are new to the business, there is an apprenticeship period where the competition from abroad might make it impossible to sell profitably. Knowing that they are in for a prolonged period of loss before things turn around, firms may not take on certain products that would otherwise be natural for their country to produce. This argues for temporarily shielding domestic firms from foreign competition to allow them to find their feet. The idea goes back at least to Alexander Hamilton, author of the Federalist papers and now a subject of a great musical, and is often referred to as the 'infant industry argument'. A recent paper in the American Economic Review by Reka Juhasz finds support for this theory in France during the Napoleonic wars. Before the war, France was slow to adopt mechanised cotton spinning technology developed in Britain. Instead, they imported British cotton yarn. A war-time blockade of British manufacturers changed that, especially in the north of France. This was where trade was particularly effectively blocked, unlike in the south, where exports from Britain continued to seep in. Juhasz shows that this difference in access to British cotton leads to an interesting reversal. The south, the part of France which had more mechanised spinning before the war, fell behind the north during the blockade. After the war ended and trade resumed, the north kept its lead and managed to compete successfully with the cotton from across the Channel. The infant industry grew up. It didn't need protection anymore. The timing of take-off in the Indian denim industry is consistent with a learning-by-exporting view, since it mostly happened after liberalisation in 1991. However, given that the industry actually started in the 1980s behind the tariff wall, it is possible to argue that the trade barriers helped the infant industry to get prepared to meet global competition. The take-off still happened after the economy opened up, perhaps because importing the machines and other inputs for making denim became much easier after 1991. I remember working with locally available inputs in the 1970s, the goal in my case being to replicate the Black Forest cake that I had loved at the then-famous Kolkata restaurant called Skyroom. I had my prized can of Himachali cherries for the filling, but the chocolate batter made from several slabs of domestic chocolate refused to look anything like the rich brown viscous liquid that they showed in the photo, and I eventually gave up. Perhaps it was a bit the same for the denim-makers. Whether it is helping the exporters or stopping the imports, the intervention is meant to be temporary, just long enough that the industry can get going. The traditional position of economists is that if a country needs permanent refuge behind a high tariff wall to keep a particular sector going, it is probably better to shut down and focus on whatever the country is good at. Exports of successful products can pay for the imports of the ones that don't do well. Politicians, including President Trump, often have a very different view on this. The problem is that trade has winners and losers, and they are not the same people. In the US, the big winners are relatively well-educated people who live on the coast; the losers are less educated residents of the middle of the country. The winners win more than the losers lose, economists would say, so why not tax the former to compensate the latter? The catch is that the US, unlike many European countries, has no tradition of large-scale redistribution through taxes and transfers. Instead, Trump wants to permanently block the imports of a wide range of products in the hope that it 'reshores' the industries that were lost due to trade and brings back the associated jobs to the mid-Western workers. At one level, this is not very different from what we do in India to protect the livelihoods of farmers: we have essentially permanent tariffs of 35% or more on things like corn, which is what annoys the US. At another level, however, it is vastly more audacious. We are merely trying to keep the farmers in business: Trump wants firms to start new businesses, businesses that have been gone for a generation or more, and create jobs. They will need fresh, large investments and newly trained workers. Buyers will need to be willing to pay the premium and swallow the lowered quality, like we did in India in my youth. Retailers will need to not look for alternatives, if not from China, from Brazil or Rwanda. Managers will need to hire workers rather than deploy robots to do all the work. The investors will need to believe that this new regime will last, and they won't fall victim to some new deal that the President (or the next President) likes better. The reshoring probably won't happen. But in its name, the world economy is being upended; no one knows where it will land. In the meanwhile, I remain on the lookout for shifty men on Boston streets selling illicit bags of the wonderful Chinese black walnuts and sweet salty candied plums. This is part of a monthly column by Nobel-winning economist Abhijit Banerjee Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
News18
26-05-2025
- Business
- News18
Amid Trump's War On Harvard, Academia, China Steps In To Attract Global Talent: Report
Last Updated: As Trump freezes Harvard grants and targets foreign scholars, China steps up efforts to attract global talent, reshaping the battle for academic and research influence. As US President Donald Trump ramps up his attacks on elite universities like Harvard, the fallout may be helping China gain ground in a new battleground between the world's top powers — education and research. An example of this shift is former Harvard chemist Charles Lieber, who recently took up a post at Tsinghua University's Shenzhen campus. Lieber had been convicted in 2021 in the US for concealing ties to Chinese research funding. He is among a small but growing group of senior Western scholars now relocating to China, while others, like Nobel-winning physicist Gérard Mourou and celebrated mathematician Kenji Fukaya, have joined Chinese institutions by choice, according to a report by the Economist. Microsoft AI researcher Alex Lamb, for instance, confirmed he is leaving his New York lab to join Tsinghua's new AI college, citing the university's improving academic strength and student quality, the magazine said in a report. advetisement These names join a broader wave of top researchers of Chinese origin who have left US universities. Sun Song, a highly regarded mathematician from the University of California, Berkeley, is now at Zhejiang University, which is closely tied to Chinese AI firm DeepSeek. Beijing, under Xi Jinping, has made attracting global talent a national priority. A plan rolled out in 2021 set goals to make China a top global destination for talent by 2030 and the leading one by 2035. The recruitment focus has been two-fold: a small number of decorated senior researchers and a larger pool of rising young scientists. In 2024, top Chinese leadership pledged to make it easier for foreign scholars and skilled workers to relocate to China, while universities are now more aggressively promoting national scholarship funds aimed at foreign talent. This effort is playing out as the US research environment faces growing uncertainty. Trump, now in his second term, has revived and expanded his campaign against higher education. In a flurry of posts on Truth Social on Memorial Day, he accused Harvard of being 'very antisemitic" and said he was considering pulling $3 billion in grant money from the university and redirecting it to trade schools across the US. He has already frozen $2.2 billion in federal grants and $60 million in contracts linked to Harvard, and threatened to place $9 billion more under review. He also called for a list of Harvard's foreign students—who make up a sizable portion of the university's enrollment and revenue—suggesting some may not be allowed to re-enter the country. 'We want to determine… how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country," he wrote. The administration had recently moved to block Harvard from enrolling foreign students altogether, but a court has temporarily paused the order. Trump's broader message is clear: federal science funding is now a tool of control. Advertisement During his first term, the Justice Department had already launched investigations into researchers with links to China. Many of those cases failed in court, but the impact lingered. A Princeton researcher, Yu Xie, notes that over half of Chinese and Chinese-American scientists in the US considered leaving the country and several hundred likely did. Now, Trump is reportedly planning $23 billion in cuts to science spending in the next fiscal year. And while the US still leads in innovation, experts note the gap with China is shrinking. Beijing's approach remains top-down and lacks intellectual freedom, but at a time when American scientists face frozen grants, visa scrutiny and political backlash, some are still willing to take the trade-off, the Economist said. top videos View All The European Union, sensing the opening, announced on May 5 that it will spend over $560 million to attract researchers caught in the crossfire. As the US clamps down on its own research institutions, countries like China and blocs like the EU are seizing the chance to lure away disillusioned talent, reshaping the global research map in the process, the report indicated. Watch India Pakistan Breaking News on CNN-News18. Get breaking news, in-depth analysis, and expert perspectives on everything from geopolitics to diplomacy and global trends. Stay informed with the latest world news only on News18. Download the News18 App to stay updated! tags : donald trump Harvard University Xi Jinping Location : Washington/New Delhi First Published: May 26, 2025, 21:17 IST News world Amid Trump's War On Harvard, Academia, China Steps In To Attract Global Talent: Report
The Mainichi
19-05-2025
- The Mainichi
**********: Our 5 most-read stories from last week
We've listed our five most read stories on The Mainichi news site, from top to bottom, that were published between May 10 and 18. The first story was viewed by 24.3% of our regular readers. (The Mainichi) Buried history of sexual torture under now-defunct law in Japan recalled a century on OSAKA -- A century has passed since the promulgation in April 1925 of the Peace Preservation Law, which stripped away freedom of speech and thought in Japan. Before its abolition in 1945, over 100,000 people were apprehended under the law, and over 1,000 are believed to have died due to torture or illness. It was a dark period, during which many women were also oppressed and subjected to unimaginable sexual torture. Full story. Japan police tackle prostitution in Osaka nightlife area with Nobel-winning 'nudge theory' OSAKA -- In the bustling nightlife district near Osaka's Umeda area is a narrow street known for attracting women engaged in prostitution and men seeking their services. Locals whisper warnings such as, "Never go there," cautioning their children against setting foot in the notorious lane. Full story. 'If I enter a reformatory, I can leave home': 15-year-old murder suspect in Japan CHIBA -- A 15-year-old boy who was arrested May 12 on suspicion of murder in this eastern Japan city has told police that if he entered a juvenile detention center, he could leave home and that he thought killing someone with a knife would be the surest way to achieve that, the Mainichi Shimbun has learned from a source close to the investigation. Full story. Edging Toward Japan: Embracing the otherness of the gaijin existence By Damian Flanagan I have an old friend who tends to post slightly unusual material on social media. He is British guy living in Japan for many long years and always has himself wearing sunglasses in a kind of "gangster chic," quite often accompanied by young attractive Japanese women and sometimes accompanied by the night owls and bar flies of Osaka's night-time demi-monde. Full story. Outsiders' alleged attack on Japan school staffers reveals security challenges TOKYO -- Police recently arrested two men on suspicion of assault for allegedly entering a public elementary school in Japan's capital and injuring five staffers. The suspects, identified as acquaintances of a second grader's mother, apparently entered the school building through an unlocked gate and entrance after the woman contacted them. Full story.
The Hindu
15-05-2025
- Health
- The Hindu
An engaging medical memoir that sparks important questions
In 'Untold Tales from a Family Physician's Bag', B.C. Rao chronicles decades of clinical experiences with a mix of medical insight, personal anecdotes, and social observations. The book is part memoir, part casebook -- and while it attempts to unpack the human complexities behind diagnosis and treatment, it also opens up difficult, necessary conversations about the limitations of the system itself -- the broader social, ethical, and systemic issues -- sometimes insightfully, sometimes awkwardly. Dr. Rao writes with the confidence of someone who has seen much and thought deeply about it. His tone is often frank, occasionally humourous, and, at times, wryly critical -- especially of patients who 'google too much,' hop between doctors, or fail to disclose symptoms fully. The medical system -- diagnosis, privilege and pressure Some of the most layered reflections come in the chapters dealing with patriarchy and sexual health. In one, a patient embarrassed to speak of sexual issues is eventually found to have tuberculosis of the prostate --something that mirrors the importance of full disclosure, but also how cultural taboos keep patients silent. These stories open up space for medical education and awareness. There are genuinely useful takeaways-- like the evolving understanding of ulcers (from stress to H. pylori, and the Nobel-winning discovery by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren) and the complexity of diagnosing conditions like ischemic heart disease or transverse myelitis. However, the humour in some chapters -- particularly when dealing with 'difficult' or multi-symptom patients can feel like it stems from a place of privilege. What might be exhausting for the doctor is, for the patient, often the lived chaos of chronic illness. There's room here for a deeper reckoning: How can the medical community better hold space for suffering that doesn't fit a neat diagnostic box? Dr. Rao ambitiously tries to place medicine within broader societal contexts -- touching on patriarchy, caste, stigma, and sexual health. These are essential and relevant themes. But in doing so, the book sometimes risks overstretching its metaphors or tying social evils too directly to disease, as if culture and biology were interchangeable. Diseases don't have moral compasses. They aren't carriers of cultural baggage, even if social structures influence how we perceive or treat them. Some of the framing -- especially when discussing 'honour,' or drawing analogies between caste and illness -- may unintentionally blur that line. That said, Dr. Rao's willingness to address taboo topics on sexual health and embarrassment around symptoms is noteworthy. These are areas many clinicians still sidestep, and his candor does add value. Questions more than answers What binds the stories together is a quiet undercurrent of systemic critique -- of how questions of affordability pushes patients to drift between practitioners, how pharmaceutical pressures warp clinical judgment, and how even the best of intentions can get lost in hierarchy. The book raises important questions about ethics, education, and the future of healthcare, especially post the worst phases of COVID where telemedicine has become a new normal. But there's also a sense of unresolved tension: for all its wisdom, the book occasionally mirrors the weak spots it seeks to illuminate -- chief among them being the patient's voice. While we hear a great deal about what patients do 'wrong,' we hear less about how medical systems and mindsets can evolve to meet them where they are, and even less from patients themselves, whose voice is entirely missing. 'Untold Tales from a Family Physician's Bag' is not just a window into a doctor's career -- it's a mirror held up to the culture of medicine itself. It's insightful, wide-ranging, and often engaging. But it also leaves the reader with discomfort, sometimes, especially about how patient experiences are narrated and interpreted. Perhaps, that discomfort is useful. It prompts reflection. How can doctors listen better? How can patients be encouraged to share more openly? Can we forsee a justice-framed healthcare system? The book doesn't offer easy answers. But it invites readers—doctors, patients, and everyone in between-- to sit with these questions. And that, perhaps, is its greatest strength.
