Who was stealing data from Facebook, Instagram?

 Who was stealing data from Facebook, Instagram?

Meta has reportedly sued Octopus, a US subsidiary of a Chinese high-tech enterprise, and a Turkish individual for scraping data from Instagram, Facebook and other big tech platforms from the company.

Octopus has claimed to have over a million customer base and it offers scraping services and access to the software which is being used by the customers who can further use it to scrape any website.

For a fee, Octopus customers can launch scraping attacks from its cloud-based platform or hire Octopus to scrape websites directly.

"Octopus offers to scrape data from Amazon, eBay, Twitter, Yelp, Google, Target, Walmart, Indeed, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram," Meta said in a statement late on Tuesday.

Octopus designed the software to scrape data accessible to the user when logged into their accounts.

It included data about their Facebook Friends such as email address, phone number, gender and date of birth, as well as Instagram followers and engagement information such as name, user profile URL, location and number of likes and comments per post.

The social network also filed an action against a Turkish-based individual, Ekrem Ates, for using automated Instagram accounts to scrape data from the profiles of over 3,50,000 Instagram users.

Ates then published the scraped data on his own websites or "ceclone sites".

In the first half of 2021, Meta tracked over 100 different Instagram clone sites.

"By mid-year, through our disruption efforts, the known clone site ecosystem was reduced by approximately 90 per cent," the company informed.

A clone site is a third-party site that duplicates, in whole or in part, the content of an existing site.

Among other things, clone sites can be used to display people's scraped data, scam people, and damage the credibility of the original site.

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Foodie: These five places in Mumbai are heaven for foodies

 Foodie: These five places in Mumbai are heaven for foodies

The food culture of Mumbai is defined by its street food. People from all economic classes eat from the roadside food stalls in Mumbai, which serve some of the best local food, even better than many restaurants. Mumbai's most famous street food includes Vada Pav, bhelpuri, panipuri, sevpuri, Bombay sandwich, ragda-pattice, pav bhaji, omlette pav and kebabs. Among the popular desserts of Mumbai are Kulfi and Ice Gola. 

1. Kheema Pav at Gulshan-e-Iran, Crawford Market

Known best for its extremely delicious Mughlai specialties at maddeningly low prices, the best food items to try at Gulshan-e-Iran range from their Kheema pav to the chicken tikka masala, Garlic Naan, Rabdi Kulfi and Firni for dessert. It's beautiful how you can ask for the bill after a full stomach and wonder how it's not crossing the thousand unit mark. Not even close. Gulshan-e-Iran is one of the best street food places in Mumbai and is a must-visit.

Where: 15, Corner Of MRA Marg, Musafir Khana Road, Crawford Market, Mumbai CST Area, Mumbai

Price: INR 450 for two

What you must try: Chicken tikka masala, Garlic naan, Firni, Rabdi Kulfi

2. White Biryani at Noor Mohmaddi, Bhendi Bazaar

Bhendi Bazaar is home to some of Mumbai's best street food places. The best time to visit Mohammad Ali road (where Noor Mohmaddi is, along with many other great restaurants and roadside Kabab joints) is during Ramadan. This is when you can actually spot Bollywood stars roaming the streets and tasting the yumminess beside you. But you're going to be too busy with your face in the plate to notice them.

Where: 179, Wazir Building, Abdul Hakim Chowk, Bhendi Bazar, Near Girgaum, Mumbai

Price: INR 300 for two

What you must try: Chicken Hakimi, White biryani

3. Bun Maska and Mava Samosa of Mervan's, Grant Road - The Ultimate Mumbai Famous Food

Bun Maska, Street Food in Mumbai Run into Merwan's for some mouth-watering pastries, tea cakes and cookies to soothe your sweet tooth! A big name on this side of town, Merwans is frequently visited by people who come here just to collect a package of baked goods for the home and also is a place people come to after work for an Irani chai and some freshly baked cookies.

Where: Ali Bhai Remji Road, Opposite Station, Grant Road East, Mumbai

Price: INR 150 for two

What you must try: Pastries, Irani chai, Bun Maska pav

4. Samosa with Chola at Guru Kripa, Sion

Guru Kripa, guide to Mumbai street food

Known as Mumbai's most famous samosa, this dish is served with a gravy of chickpea and is tamarind-y in taste. Onion and coriander bits are sprinkled to garnish. A must-try for those who love to experiment with Mumbai street food.

Where: 40, Guru Kripa Building, Road 24, Near SIES College, Sion, Mumbai

Price: INR 300 for two

What you must try: Gulab Jamun, Sweet Lassi, Chole – Bhature, Samosa Chole, Chole tikki

5. Tandoori Delicacies at Jai Jawan

Jai Jawan, Mumbai street food

After a long day shopping on Hill road, people stop at Jai Jawan, a crowd favorite for non-veg snacks. It has the best non-veg dishes on that side and is hardly ever forgotten. Once you eat here, you become a loyal customer!

Where: Opposite National College, Next to Chappal Market, Linking Road, Bandra West, Mumbai

Price: INR 600 for two

What you must try: Tandoori Chicken, Punjabi Prawns Masala, Punjabi Prawn Fry

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Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List: GautamAdani becomes fourth richest person in the world, overtakes Bill Gates

 Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List: Gautam Adani becomes fourth richest person in the world, overtakes Bill Gates

New Omicron COVID Symptoms: A study noted that those who have been vaccinated and tested positive for COVID-19 are more likely to report sneezing as a symptom as compared to those who are not vaccinated. Check all new Covid symptoms here. 

New Omicron Covid Symptoms: The new highly-contagious Omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, are reportedly causing the latest spike in infections across the globe including the United Kingdom, as per experts. The number of new COVID-19 infections in the UK has jumped by almost 400,000.

With the spike in new COVID infection cases, the number of hospitalizations is also increasing with an increase in intensive care admissions among older age groups. 

According to Office for National Statistics (ONS), a total of 2.7 million people are estimated to have had COVID-19 in the last week of June and there were about 2.3 million COVID cases in the UK in the previous week.

While the total number of COVID-19 cases are way below the record high of 4.9 million that was reported in the UK during the peak of Omicron BA.2 variant towards the end of March, it is still the highest number since late April. 

The latest reports also show new Omicron COVID symptoms, which are different from the COVID-19 symptoms reported during earlier waves. The analysis of the latest new wave of infections reveals that sore throat is the most common symptom. 

New Omicron COVID Symptoms

As per a recent study conducted by the UK-based ZOE COVID tracker, the following are some of the new COVID symptoms that are being reported by people who are catching the Omicron subvariant-

-Headache

-Sore Throat

Sneezing

-Runny Nose

-Persistent cough

-Intense night sweats

-Gastrointestinal problems

-Muscle cramps 

-Body aches

Note: Sneezing COVID symptom: The ZOE Covid study noted that those who have been vaccinated and tested positive for COVID-19 are more likely to report sneezing as a symptom as compared to the people who are not vaccinated. The study also noted that sore throat has now become the most reported symptom.

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Yogi Adityanath Share Uttar Pradesh Highway Policy

 Yogi Adityanath Share Uttar Pradesh Highway Policy

Three successive regimes in the UP Yogi Adityanath have focused heavily on building roads, but they have also faced delays, political domination, and public outcry. As a result, politics and planning have evolved.

In Uttar Pradesh, the toll road project is so closely intertwined with politics that it has remained a significant achievement for three successive regimes.

UP’s road network now stands at 800 km, with the latest addition being the 341 km Purvanchal Highway. Which was opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week. The network traverses the state from Greater Noida in the west to Gazipur near the border with Bihar in the east and has been built for 50,000 rupees over the past 15 years.

Another 900 km stretches out in front of us – much longer if we include the proposed extension. A freeway is a toll road project that represents “controlled access” for high-speed traffic. The entry and exit points are marked, and the combination of underpasses, bridges, crossings ensures high speed but an unimpeded movement.

Early delay, busy at the moment

The first toll road, the Taj Toll Road Project (later renamed the Yamuna Toll Road). Went through several modes before seeing the light of day. Created in 2001 during the BJP regime under Rajnat Singh, it was planned and executed during the 2007-2012 BSP regime. Under Mayavati who gave it a new name and finally opened in 2012. from then-CM Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party.

The project sparked more protests than any other, including 2011 violent clashes between protesting farmers and police in Bhatta Parsaul village in Gautam Bud Nagar.

After trying the Yamuna Highway, Achilles Yadav rushed to the following two highways. First, he opened the Luknau-Agra highway just before the 2017 parliamentary elections. At a time when roadside facilities were still to be expanded; they finished then.

Then, he quickly laid the foundation stone for the Samajwadi Purvanchal Highway. Although 90% of the land had not been acquired. Subsequently, the BJP government, led by Yogi Adityanath, canceled its previous bid and renamed the Purvanchal Toll Road project. Which his government had completed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched last week.

The current government is vying for time to complete the Bundelkhand Autobahn ahead of the announcement of the 2022 elections. It was wholly designed and built during the current regime.

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Ancient Rome’s religion | 9 strange Gods in the mythology

 Ancient Rome’s religion | 9 strange Gods in the mythology

Introduction

Like many contemporary cultures, the ancient Romans tended to view their mythological tradition as being borne by history rather than legends, with the central themes related to politics, morality, and heroism. And since we are talking about history, while a perceptible scope of the ancient Roman gods and religion had its roots in native Italic traditions, a significant part of the institution (before Christianity) was inspired by the Greek mythology, partially fueled by the proximity of the Greek colonies in both Italy and Sicily (and later absorption of mainland Greece into the Roman Republic).

Contents

Saturn – The God of Time (Equivalent of Greek Kronos)

Jupiter – The God of Sky and Thunder (Equivalent of Greek Zeus)

Juno – The Queen of Gods (Equivalent of Greek Hera)

Neptune – The God of Seas (Equivalent of Greek Poseidon)

Minerva – The Goddess of Wisdom and Arts (Equivalent of Greek Athena)

Mars – The God of War (Equivalent of Greek Ares)

Venus – The Goddess of Beauty and Love (Equivalent of Greek Aphrodite)

Apollo – The God of Light and Prophecy (Similar to Greek Apollo)

Diana – The Goddess of Hunt and The Moon (Equivalent of Greek Artemis)

Vulcan – The God of Fire and Metallurgy (Equivalent of Greek Hephaistos) 

Vesta – The Goddess of Domesticity (Equivalent of Greek Hestia)

Mercury – The God of Wealth (Equivalent of Greek Hermes)

Ceres – The Goddess of Agriculture (Equivalent of Greek Demeter)

Bacchus – The God of Wine and Revelry (Equivalent of Greek Dionysus)

Honorable Mention – Mithras: The ‘Syncretic’ God

Family Tree of Roman Gods and Goddesses –

Saturn – The God of Time (Equivalent of Greek Kronos)

Alluding to a primeval deity among the ancient Roman gods, Saturn (Saturnus in Latin) was regarded as the ruler of the earth during the ‘lost’ Golden Age that epitomized the balance between peace, harmony, stability, and prosperity. Essentially, Saturn’s story replicates the lore of Cronus in Greek mythology, thus making Saturn the god of time, who in turn proceeds to create the genealogy of other Roman gods, including being the father of Jupiter – the most important ancient Roman deity (discussed in the next entry). According to 1st century BC Stoic philosopher Quintus Lucilius Balbus (as noted by Cicero in his book De Natura Deorum or ‘On the Nature of the Gods’) 

Jupiter – The God of Sky and Thunder (Equivalent of Greek Zeus)

Interestingly enough, when it comes to history, Jupiter was one of the personalized deities of the Etruscan kings, who later made way into the triad of gods (consisting of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus – the deified Romulus) worshipped by the ‘first’ citizens of the Roman state. And by the time of the Roman Republic, Jupiter was regarded as the highest of the divine entities who watched over the Romans – and thus was venerated as Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the Best and Greatest.

Juno – The Queen of Gods (Equivalent of Greek Hera)

Regarded as the wife of Jupiter – the chief among the Roman gods, Juno was thus the queen of the ancient Roman deities, who was given the title of Regina. In the mythological genealogy, she was also the daughter of Saturn (which in turn also made her the sister of Jupiter) and the mother of various other Roman gods like Mars, Vulcan, and Juventas. More importantly, she was also considered as an esteemed member of the Capitoline Triad (Juno Capitolina) that replaced the earlier so-named Archaic Triad, and her place of worship was possibly centered on the Quirinal Hill in Rome.

Neptune – The God of Seas (Equivalent of Greek Poseidon)

Regarded as the brother of Jupiter, Neptune (Neptunus in Latin) was the god of both freshwater and the sea in the ancient Roman pantheon. Interestingly enough, while Neptune was long considered as one of the major Roman gods (along with his female counterpart, Salacia) of freshwater springs and inland water bodies – possibly by virtue of the entity’s Indo-European origins, his specific association with the sea was probably the result of the deity’s identification with the Greek mythological counterpart of Poseidon, by circa 399 BC.

Minerva – The Goddess of Wisdom and Arts (Equivalent of Greek Athena)

A Roman deity of varying avenues – ranging from wisdom, poetry, medicine to art, crafts and commerce, Minerva was aptly called the ‘goddess of thousand works’ by Ovid. When it comes to the genealogy of Roman gods, Minerva was said to come out from Jupiter’s forehead after the supreme god swallowed her mother Metis. Interestingly enough, according to the mythic narrative, Jupiter committed such a bizarre act in the first place out of fear of a prophecy that Metis‘ child would one day challenge his order in the pantheon.

Mars – The God of War (Equivalent of Greek Ares)

Considered as the second in importance after Jupiter in the pantheon of Roman gods, Mars was the deity of war (and possibly agriculture). And while the aspect of military conflict often brings out the inevitable comparison with his ancient Greek equivalent Ares, Mars was arguably far more complex when it came to his martial attributes.

In essence, as opposed to the sheer impulsiveness and chaotic nature of warfare, Mars was perceived as a more composed and judicious entity who took up the role of the protector of Rome and its way of life. He was also venerated as the defender of the city and state borders, and all these aspects suggest how the embodiment of warfare was central to the collective consciousness of the Romans.

Venus – The Goddess of Beauty and Love (Equivalent of Greek Aphrodite)

The ancient Roman deity of beauty, love, desire, and sex, Venus is often perceived as the equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. However, like in the case of some of the earlier mentioned Roman gods, Venus as a divine entity possibly epitomized more aspects than her Greek counterpart – since she was also regarded as the goddess of victory and fertility (and possibly even prostitution).

In any case, it was the embodiment of the concepts of beauty, sex, and desire that formed the core of her attributes, so much so that the Latin noun venus also meant ‘sexual love’ or sexual desire.

Apollo – The God of Light and Prophecy (Similar to Greek Apollo)

Hailed as one of the most important of Olympian deities when it came to the pantheons of both ancient Greek and Roman gods, Apollo, the archetype of the beardless, youthful being (kouros), was considered as the divine entity of light, music, prophecy, poetry, medicine and even archery. Now interestingly enough, Apollo can be counted among the rare Roman gods who had directly originated from the Greek mythology (thus having no Roman equivalent), with the cult centers of the entity in Delphi and Delos being in existence since 8th century BC.

Diana – The Goddess of Hunt and The Moon (Equivalent of Greek Artemis)

A female deity characterizing the hunt, wildlands, nature, and the moon among the ancient Roman gods, Diana was also regarded as an entity who was antithetically the virgin goddess of childbirth and women. In essence, she belonged to the triad of female Roman goddesses (along with Minerva and Vesta) who were maidens; and the mythical narrative often portrayed her as the twin sister of Apollo and daughter of Jupiter. 

And while she is often equated to her Greek counterpart Artemis, the origins of Diana probably harked back to an indigenous Italic (or older Indo-European) entity. Ist century BC Stoic philosopher Quintus Lucilius Balbus (noted by Cicero in his book De Natura Deorum or ‘On the Nature of the Gods’), discussed –

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This Expert is Looking to Solve the Technology Ethics Equation

 This Expert is Looking to Solve the Technology Ethics Equation

Life or death decisions don’t come around very often — unless you’re a doctor. Even the routine choice of whether or not to order another test could mean the difference between detecting a cancerous tumor early or letting it spread. During the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors were forced to decide which patients should get access to ventilators in short supply. Big or small, decisions like these require ethical considerations that are rarely simple. Now, with the rapid ascent of AI in medicine, an urgent question has emerged: Can AI systems make ethical medical decisions? And even if they can, should they?

Today, most AI systems are powered by machine learning, where data-hungry algorithms automatically learn patterns from the information they’re trained on. When new data is input into the algorithms, they output a decision based on what they’ve gleaned. But knowing how they arrived at their decision can be challenging when all that lies between their input and output is a dizzying array of opaque, uninterpretable computations.

To find out the current state of AI’s ethical decision-making in medicine, Discover spoke with Brent Mittelstadt, a philosopher specializing in AI and data ethics at the Oxford Internet Institute, U.K.

Q: First of all, is it possible to know exactly how an algorithm makes a medical decision?

BM: Yes, but it depends on the type of algorithm and its complexity. For very simple algorithms, we can know the entire logic of the decision-making process. For the more complex ones, you could potentially be working with … hundreds of thousands or millions of decision-making rules. So, can you map how the decision is made? Absolutely. That’s one of the great things about algorithms: You [often] can see how these things are making decisions. The problem, of course, is how do you then turn that into something that makes sense to a human? Because we can typically hold between five to nine things in our mind at any given time when we’re making a decision, whereas the algorithm can have millions and can have interdependencies between them. … It’s a very difficult challenge. And you tend to have a tradeoff between how much of the algorithm you can explain and how true that explanation actually is, in terms of capturing the actual behavior of the system.

Q: Is that an ethical problem in itself — that we may not understand so much of how they’re making these decisions?

BM: Yeah, I think it can be. I have a belief that if a life-changing decision is being made about you, then you should have access to an explanation of that decision, or at least, some justification, some reasons for why that decision was taken. Otherwise, you risk having a Kafka-esque system where you have no idea why things are happening to you. … You can’t question it, and you can’t get more information about it.

Maybe you have a system that is helping the physician reach a diagnosis, and it’s giving you a recommendation, saying, “I have 86 percent confidence that it’s COVID-19.” In that case, if the physician cannot have a meaningful dialogue with the system to understand how it came to that recommendation, then you run into a problem. The physician is trusted by the patient to act in their best interest, but the doctor would be making decisions on the basis of trust that the system is as accurate or as safe as is claimed by the manufacturer.

Q: Can you give an example of a type of ethical decision that an AI system could make for a doctor?

BM: I would hesitate to say that there would be an AI system that is directly making an ethical decision of any sort, for a number of reasons. One is that to talk of an automated system engaging in ethical reasoning is strange. And I don’t think it’s possible. Also, doctors would be very hesitant to turn over their decision-making power to a system entirely. Taking a recommendation from a system is one thing; following that recommendation blindly is something completely different.

Q: Why do you think it’s impossible for AI to engage in ethical reasoning?

BM: I suppose the easiest way to put it is that, at the end of the day, these are automated systems that follow a set of rules. And those can be rules about how they learn about things, or they can be decision-making rules that are preprogrammed into them. So, let’s say that you and I have agreed through discussion that … in your actions, you should produce the greatest possible benefit for the greatest number of people. What we can then do is design a system that follows that theory. So [that system] is, through all of its learning, through all of its decision-making, trying to produce the greatest possible benefit for the greatest number of people. You wouldn’t say that that system, in applying that rule, is engaging in any sort of ethical reasoning, or creating ethical theory, or doing the thing that we would call ethical decision-making in humans — where you’re able to offer reasons and evidence and have a discussion over what is normatively right.

But you can make a system that looks like it’s making ethical decisions. There was a good example recently. It was essentially a system where it had a bunch of decision-making rules that were defined by the wisdom of the crowd. And people immediately started testing it, trying to break it and figure out what its internal rules were. And they figured out that, as long as you end the sentence with [a phrase like] “produces the greatest possible happiness for all people,” then the system would tell you whatever you’re proposing is completely ethical. It could be genocide, and as long as [it was worded to suggest that] genocide creates the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people the system would say, yes, that’s ethical, go ahead and do it. So, these systems are, at least when it comes to ethical reasoning, incapable of it. They’re ethically stupid. It’s not something that they can actually engage in, because you’re not talking about just objective facts. You’re talking about norms and subjectivity.

Q: If AI systems can’t engage in authentic ethical reasoning on their own, are there other approaches being used to teach them what to do with an ethical component of a decision?

BM: There was the Moral Machine experiment. So that was a very large global study out of MIT, where they built this website and a data-collection tool that was based around the Trolley Problem thought experiment. And the idea was that you’d get people from all over the world to go through several scenarios about which lane an autonomous car should pick. In one lane, you might have an elderly woman and a baby. In the other lane, you’d have a dog.… You could collect a bunch of data that told you something about the moral preferences or the ethics of people in general.

But the key thing here is the approach taken was essentially [creating] moral decision-making rules for robots or for autonomous cars through the wisdom of the crowd, through a majority-rules approach. And that, to me, is perverse when it comes to ethics. Because ethics is not just whatever the majority thinks is right. You are supposed to justify your reasons with evidence or rationality or just reasoning. There’s lots of different things that can make you accept an ethical argument. But the point is, it’s about the argumentation and the evidence — not just the number of people that believe something.

Q: What other ethical concerns do you have about AI being used in medical decision-making?

BM: In medicine, it’s a well-known fact that there are very significant data gaps, in the sense that much of medicine historically has been developed around the idea of a white male body. And you have worse or less data for other people — for women, for people of color, for any sort of ethnic minority or minority group in society. …   at is a problem that has faced medical research and medical decision-making for a long time. And if we’re training our medical [AI] systems with historical data from medicine — which of course we’re going to do, because that’s the data we have — the systems will pick up those biases and can exacerbate those biases or create new biases. So that is very, very clearly an ethical problem. But that is not about the system engaging in ethical reasoning and saying, “You know what, I want to perform worse for women than I do for men.” It’s more that we have bias in society, and the system is picking it up, inevitably replicating and exacerbating it.

If we engage in this sort of thinking, where we think of these systems as magic or as objective, because they’re expensive, or they’re trained on the best data, [or] they don’t have that human bias built into them — all of that is nonsense. They’re learning from us. And we have created a biased world and an inequal world.

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Top 20 Most Popular NRI’s (Non-Resident of India) in the world

 Top 20 Most Popular NRI s (Non-Resident of India) in the world

These  Indians have gone places and brought great glory to the country they were born in. From science to arts, business to literature, here is a list of 25 exceptionally talented Non Resident Indians (NRIs) who have given us several more reasons to be proud of –

1. Narinder Singh Kapany

This Punjab-born genius is known for his contribution to the field of fibre optics. He was included in the list of seven ‘Unsung Heroes’ by Fortune magazine in their ‘Businessmen of the Century’ issue. He is considered as one of the founders of fibre optics and revolutionized the way information is transmitted today. Kapany has played many roles in his life including that of an entrepreneur, philanthropist and scholar, which won him major international acclaim.

2. Salman Rushdie

Born in Mumbai, this 67-year-old Kashmiri Indian author is best known for his contribution to English Literature. His second novel, Midnight’s Children, won the Booker Prize in 1981. He also won the ‘Booker of Bookers’ prize in 1993 for the same novel. In 2008, The Times ranked him 13th on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. He started his career as a copywriter with the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather. He is also known for the controversy due to his book Satanic Verses. He has authored eleven novels so far and written several short stories. His books have been translated in over 40 languages. He was appointed Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in January 1999 and was also knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to literature. More than one reason to be proud of this amazing scholar, right?

3. S. Chandrasekhar

Born in Lahore, British India, he is famous for his mathematical theory of black holes for which he won a Nobel Prize in 1983. The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him. His most celebrated work concerns the radiation of energy from stars, particularly white dwarf stars, which are the dying fragments of stars. R. J. Tayler in the Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society of London wrote, “Chandrasekhar was a classical applied mathematician whose research was primarily applied in astronomy and whose like will probably never be seen again.”

4. Amartya Sen

Born in Santiniketan, West Bengal, this Indian economist and philosopher is best known for his amazing contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, economic and social justice, economic theories of famines, and indices of the measure of well-being of citizens of developing countries. His extraordinary work in welfare economics won him the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998. He is the chancellor at Nalanda University and also a Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. He is also internationally acclaimed for his writing. The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity is one of his best works.

5. Vinod Khosla

Listed as a billionaire by Forbes Magazine, Khosla is one of the co-founders of Sun Micro systems, a company which created the Java programming language and Network File System. He later formed his own company, Khosla Ventures. He was born in Delhi and attended Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He was a keyplayer in the founding of Daisy Systems and TiE. He has also played an important role as an investor in environmental startups. Khosla has committed around $450 million of his personal wealth to various “green” initiatives like ethanol factories, solar-power parks, etc. His green investing has made him immensely popular in the media globally.

6. Har Gobind Khorana

This Indian American biochemist won a nobel prize in 1968 for Physiology or Medicine for cracking the genetic code along with Robert Holley and Marshall Nirenberg. Born in Raipur, Punjab, Khorana was the first scientist to chemically synthesize oligonucleotides. His contribution to science is tremendous and has won him immense international acclaim.

7. Rohinton Mistry

This internationally acclaimed writer was born in Mumbai and did his BA from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. He later on shifted to Canada in 1975 with his wife. He published his first book, 11 connected short stories titled Swimming Lessons and Other Stories from the Firozsha Bag in 1987. His second book Such a Long Journey, was published in 1991 and achieved huge national and international acclaim. His other works received similar popularity. His third book A Fine Balance is considered to be one of his finest works and was a finalist for the Booker Prize.

8. Pan Nalin

This award winning film director, screenwriter and documentary maker was born in Gujarat and is best known for his amazing and award winning films like Samsara, Valley of Flowers and Ayurveda: Art of Being. He received international acclaim just after the release of his first film Samsara which made him win over 30 international awards. His other feature film Valley of Flowers was pre-sold in 35 countries and is considered a major underground hit. He was invited to be on the panel for the France-India Co-production forum at Salon du Cinema in Paris along with the delegation headed by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan. Nalin says that Indians are “hungry for good documentaries”. And we think his amazing work is satiating that hunger.

9. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

Born in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, this structural biologist won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath, “for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome”. He is an elite member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He was awarded with the Louis-Jeantet Prize for his contribution to Medicine in 2007. His great contribution to science also won him India’s second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2010.

10. Mira Nair

This amazing film maker was born in Rourkela, Orissa and started her career as an independent short-film maker, going on to win the Best Documentary prize at the American Film Festival for India Cabaret, an investigative documentary of Bombay’s strippers. She runs a production company called Mirabai. Her debut feature film Salaam Bombay! (1988), won the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival and was also a nominee for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Her most popular works include The Namesake and Monsoon Wedding. She was also awarded India’s third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan, in 2012. Her work is globally acclaimed and she even got an offer to direct Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, which she rejected.

11. Anita Desai and Kiran Desai

This mother-daughter duo is famous for exceptional writing skills. Kiran Desai’s novel The Inheritance of Loss won the Man Booker Prize in 2006 and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award. The exceptional writing comes as an inheritance, as Kiran’s mother Anita Desai has also been short-listed for the Booker Prize thrice. Kiran has been winning accolades from various notable figures ever since she published her first book. Anita won the Sahitya Academy Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain and has also won the British Guardian Prize for The Village by the Sea. Anita is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the American Academy of Arts and Letters and also writes for the New York Review of Books. Her novel In Custody is one of her finest works.

12. Manu Prakash

Manu was born in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh and completed his BTech in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur before moving to the United States for his masters and PhD. Currently An assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, Manu is famous for his super cool inventions. The inventons include a foldable microsope, The Foldscope, that is easy to use and fold from a single sheet of A4 size paper! The cost of this microscope is 50 cents (or Rs. 30) only. He also recently invented a computer that runs on water. He used the unique Physics of moving water droplets to design a clock that is required in a computer.

13. Kalpana Chawla

This lady needs no introduction. Born in Karnal, India, she was the first Indian-American astronaut and also the first Indian woman in space. She began working at NASA’s Ames Research Center in 1988. In her career span and two space missions, she spent 30 days, 14 hours, and 54 minutes in space. She was killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster along with six other crew members in 2003. India’s first weather satellite was renamed ‘Kalpana-1’ in her honor. She was a role model for many young women internationally and inspired many people to pursue a career in Aerospace Engineering.

14. Lakshmi Mittal

This business tycoon is the chairman and CEO of Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel-making company. Born in Sadulpur, Rajathan, he completed his B.com from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. He was the richest man of Asian descent in the United Kingdom in 2007 and was ranked as the sixth richest person in the world by Forbes in 2011. He is also 47th “most powerful person” in the Forbes list of 2012 and one of the “100 most influential persons in the world” by TIME in 2007. He holds a 34 percent share in Queens Park Rangers F.C. He has set up the Mittal Champions Trust with $9 million to support 10 promising Indian athletes.

15. Pranav Mistry

Hailing from Palanpur, Gujarat, this 33-year-old computer scientist and inventor is currently Vice President of Research at Samsung and is the head of Think Tank Team. He has contributed in Wearable Computing, Augmented reality, Ubiquitous computing, Gestural interaction, AI, Machine vision, Collective intelligence and Robotics. He was also honored as the Young Global Leader 2013 by World Economic Forum. His groundbreaking technology ‘SixthSense’ won him international acclaim. Sixth Sense is a device that interprets human gestures and has both a data projector and a camera.

16. Indra Nooyi

She is the Chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo, the second largest food and beverage business in the world by net revenue. This Chennai born girl has been included in the list of  “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” on a regular basis. In spite of this, Nooyi is still fighting to “have it all” and maintain work and personal life balance. As per Bussiness Week, the company’s annual revenues have risen 72 percent and net profit has doubled since she became CFO in 2000. She was also included in Wall Street Journal’s list of 50 women to watch in 2007 and 2008.

17. Lakshmi Pratury

This strong lady was co-host of TED India 2009, host and curator of The INK Conference and founder of Ixoraa Media. She aims at strengthening the relations between India and America through sponsored corporate, cultural, and media events. She was part of the “100 Most Powerful Women” list by Forbes Asia in 2010. She also played a key role in American India Foundation, an organization that raised over 30 million dollars in five years towards development activities in India.

18. Sabeer Bhatia

This Indian-American entrepreneur born in Chandigarh founded the Hotmail email services and Jaxtr. He grew up in Bangalore and went to BITS Pilani for his bachelor’s degree. Later on he was transferred to California Institute of Technology from BITS where he completed his graduation. Hotmail was the world’s second largest e-mail provider with over 369 million registered users in 2011. He sold Hotmail to Microsoft in 1997 for $400 million and it was then called MSN Hotmail. He also started a free messaging service called JaxtrSMS. The venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson named him ‘Entrepreneur of the Year 1997’, MIT chose him as one of 100 young innovators who are expected to have the greatest impact on technology and awarded him the ‘TR100’.

19. Zubin Mehta

Born in Mumbai, he is one of the world’s leading conductors. This amazing orchestral conductor and musical director is best known for his expressiveness on the stage. He is Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Main Conductor for Valencia’s opera house. His conducting is considered as flamboyant, vigorous and forceful. His name has been mentioned in the song “Billy the Mountain” on the 1972 album Just Another Band from L.A. by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. He also received a special prize in Israel for his extraordinary contribution to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He also received the 2,434th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, putting India on the international map.

20. Raghava KK

This Bangalore born contemporary artist was named by CNN as one of the 10 most fascinating people the world is yet to know of. The genres he dabbles in vary from painting, film, installation, multimedia, performance, and even his own wedding. He began as a cartoonist in Indian publications. He has lectured at New York University and several other art institutions across the globe. He was invited as a guest of the French city of Nîmes to exhibit his work at the Carre d’Art Musee d’Art Contemporain.

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