Obituary Aug-2023

Former Australia wicketkeeper Brian Taber dies aged 83

Former Australia and New South Wales wicketkeeper Brian Taber, aged 83, passed away. He played 16 Test matches for Australia between 1966 and 1970. Taber made his Test debut in Johannesburg against South Africa, where he took seven catches and a stumping. He also played against England, India, and West Indies. His highest Test score of 48 was achieved against West Indies at Sydney in 1969, in a match won by Australia with a 382-run margin

The legendary New York pop and jazz singer passed away aged 96. Bennett was known for songs such as The Way You Look Tonight, Body and Soul and (I Left My Heart) In San Francisco. During a career that spanned eight decades, Bennett won 20 Grammys, including a lifetime achievement award (2002). He was named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree and founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York. He sold more than 50 million records worldwide and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Grammy Awards:

The Grammy Awards or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize “outstanding” achievements in the music industry.They were originally called the Gramophone Awards. The Grammys are the first of the Big Three networks’ major music awards held annually, and are considered one of the four major annual American entertainment awards with the Academy Awards (for films), the Emmy Awards (for television), and the Tony Awards (for theater). First awarded: May 4, 1959

Oommen Chandy, ex-Kerala CM and Congress leader, passes away

Former Kerala chief minister and senior Congress leader Oommen Chandy passed away in Bengaluru. He was 79. He was the chief minister twice for a total of seven years (2004–2006 and again from 2011– 2016). Chandy had also served as Minister of Labour, Home, and Finance in various governments headed by K Karunakaran and AK Antony. He also served as the Leader of Opposition in the Kerala Assembly. Representing Puthuppally constituency, Chandy served as the MLA for more than half a century setting the record for the longest tenure. Note: Oommen Chandy received the 2013 United Nations Public Service Award from the Asia-Pacific region, for the category “Preventing and Combating Corruption in the Public Service. “

Eminent mathematician Dr Mangala Narlikar dies at 80

Dr Mangala Narlikar, an eminent mathematician and the wife of Dr Jayant Narlikar who is the founder director of Pune-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), passes away She was 80. Dr Mangala Narlikar carried out research in pure mathematics. She initially worked at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai before joining as a lecturer at Bombay and Pune universities. Her core fields of interest were real and complex analysis, analytic geometry, number theory, algebra and topology. Dr Narlikar has authored several books in English and Marathi. Some of the books she wrote include A Cosmic Adventure, An easy Access to Basic Mathematics (book for school students), Ganit Gappa (Part 1, 2), Easy access to mathematics (book for school students), Nabhat Hasre Taare (Co-Authors – Dr. Ajit Kembhavi and Dr. Jayant Narlikar), Astronomy Related Book – Pahalale Desh, Bhetleli Manasam.

Milan Kundera, Czech writer, dies aged 94

An author of the novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, Milan Kundera passed away at 94. He won accolades for his style depicting themes and characters that floated between the mundane reality of everyday life and the lofty world of ideas. The writings of Kundera, whose first novel “The Joke’ opens with a young man who is dispatched to the mines after making light of communist slogans. He had been writing novels and plays since 1953.

Honors: Jerusalem Prize (1985), Austrian State Prize for European Literature (1987), Vilenica International Literary Festival (1992), Herder Prize (2000)

Former Punjab deputy speaker Bir Devinder Singh passes away

Former Punjab Assembly deputy speaker Bir Devinder Singh passed away following a brief illness. Bir Devinder Singh, who was an All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) activist, fought the assembly elections from Sirhind for the first time in 1980 on a Congress ticket. He represented the Kharar constituency in the Vidhan Sabha in 2002. He was the deputy speaker of the assembly between 2003 and 2004 during the Capt Amarinder Singh-led regime. He joined the Shiromani Akali Dal (Taksali) in 2019 after being expelled from the Congress in 2016. Disillusioned, he quit the SAD (Sanyukt) as well in 2021.

Nobel laureate and co-inventor of Li-ion batteries, John Bannister Goodenough, passed away

Co-inventor of lithium-ion batteries and co-winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, John Bannister Goodenough passed away at 101. He shared the 2019 Nobel Prize with Stan Whittingham, a BritishAmerican scientist, for discovering that lithium may be held within sheets of titanium sulphide. He was also instrumental in the invention of computer RAM (Random Access Memory). He also worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Oxford University. He had been a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2008, Goodenough wrote his autobiography, Witness to Grace, which he called “my personal history”.