–HILLSIDE, Ill. More than 130 children competed in the final round of the National Dharma Bee held June 15 at the Best Western Expo and Conference Center here. Participants faced a panel of judges from the Chicago area in various sub-contests, including a speech contest, poster presentation, written exam and team activity in four age groups between grades K to eight. More than 3,000 contestants participated in earlier rounds at 156 testing centers across the country, according to a press release from Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh USA, organizers of the bee. The bee was held as part of events to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. “We wanted to provide an exciting avenue for children to learn about Swami Vivekananda and Shri Krishna,” Sreevidya Radhakrishna, a volunteer with HSS, was quoted in the release as saying. According to Radhakrishna, the bee enabled the participants to read stories and pursue a sewa activity in the local community.

Yashaswini Chittampalli is among eight New York City high school seniors selected as 2013 Milken Scholars based on their academic performance, community service, leadership and their ability to persevere in the face of challenges. Each scholar, chosen from eight high schools across four New York City boroughs, will receive a $10,000 scholarship plus mentoring, assistance with internships, opportunities for community service and access to a wide range of resources for their academic and professional careers, according to a press release from the Milken Family Foundation. “These remarkable students have already proven they have the capacity to change the world for the better,” Program Director Gregory Milken was quoted in the release as saying. “The Milken Scholars program provides them with the support to develop their potential and become tomorrow’s leaders.” Chittampalli, a senior at The Bronx High School of Science, will attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall, the release said.

Deepti Gopalakrishnan, a graduate student at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and her professor have developed a material that can easily detect explosive substances and offers the potential to detect the deadly bombs that have taken so many lives in Afghanistan and other conflicts. A chemical, RDX, that’s often the key ingredient in such bombs, or improvised explosive devices (IEDs),   can be quickly and safely detected in trace amounts by this new polymer created by Gopalakrishnan and William Dichtel, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell. Their work was published online in May in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The polymer could potentially be used in low-cost, handheld explosive detectors and could supplement or replace bomb-sniffing dogs, a release from Cornell said.

Jay Parker says that for the last 68 years that his family has owned Ben’s Best Kosher Deli in Rego Park,   Queens, they have had a running argument over how to spell "knaidel" – the Yiddish word for matzo balls, unleavened dough balls cooked in soups and a staple of every Jewish kitchen.  So when Arvind Mahankali, 13, spelt it right to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee on May 30, the Parker family controversy was put to rest. In fact, the Ben’s Best owner was so thankful, he decided to name a new dish after the champ, calling it “Arvind-Knaidel,” and inviting friends, neighbors, politicians, etc., to come taste it at its June 9 launch. “I thought what better way to thank a 13-year-old for spelling the word that we couldn’t spell for 68 years and therefore decided to call matzo balls,” Parker told Desi Talk. “Now that we know how to spell it we are calling it knaidel. No more matzo. And we are calling it Arvind-Knaidel to indicate it was his spelling.

  The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the global non-profit council of the world's leading graduate schools of business and management, on May 29 announced the appointment of Sangeet Chowfla as president. Chowfla succeeds David A. Wilson, who has served for the past 18 years as both president and CEO. A globally recognized and respected executive with experience in the technology, telecommunications and venture capital sectors, Chowfla will join GMAC as president in September and assume the CEO role on Jan. 1, 2014, according to a press release issued by GMAC, "I sought this opportunity because it has such great promise for leading a company with not only a great brand and a history of success, but also a company poised for greater success in the future,” the release quoted Chowfla as saying. “The Council – the work it does and the products it makes – has the potential every day to positively change someone's life," he added.

  Brown University, RI held a memorial May 25, for Sunil Tripathi, the student who disappeared March 16 and whose body was pulled out of a nearby river April 25. Volunteers who had spent weeks searching for him turned their energy to building a tent full of pictures that people had sent from around the world to the Facebook site helpusfindsuniltripathi. The tent was built on the College St Bridge and featured 600 of the thousands of images received by the family while their son was missing. The photos were sent when the family launched the “Lend Your Hand” project in their search for Tripathi. The Tripathi family lives in Radnor, PA, but for the whole month that Sunil Tripathi was missing, his mother Judy, father Akhil, and siblings Sangeeta and Ravi moved to Providence in search of him. They also planned to hold a memorial in Philadelphia June 1 at Center City. “On what began as a frigid, wet and windy Saturday evening, a beautiful thing happened.

  The streak continues. Arvind Mahankali, 13, won the 2013 national spelling bee with the German-Yiddish word "knaidel" on Thursday night, making him the sixth Indian-American winner in as many years.   When, in 2010, Anamika Veeramani correctly sounded out the letters to "stromuhr" (I hadn't heard the word before either) to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, she captured the hearts and minds of the Indian and U.S. media alike. This was partly thanks to her inspiring performance -- and also because she had become the third Indian-American in as many years to win the prestigious competition. "Spelling champ's victory hat-trick for Indian-Americans," gushed, the Hindu, an English-language daily in India.   Indian-Americans have maintained their Scripps dominance ever since, having now won the title of America's best speller for five consecutive years. In fact, 10 of the last 14 winners have been Indian-American.   With the competition's finals coming up Thursday at 8 p.m.

(Reuters) - Arvind Mahankali, a 13-year-old boy from Bayside Hills, New York, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday by correctly spelling "knaidel," a kind of dumpling. Mahankali, a student at Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School, had finished third in the contest twice before, each time stumbling on German words. This year, the packed auditorium erupted in a standing ovation when he nailed "knaidel," which comes from German-derived Yiddish. "I thought, 'The German curse had turned into a German blessing,'" he said of his victory. "It means I can retire on a good note." Mahankali, who wants to become a quantum physicist, defeated 10 other finalists. Asked what he planned to do during his summer vacation, he said he planned to study physics. He said he would use the $30,000 cash prize for college. The second-place finisher was Pranav Sivakumar, 13, of Tower Lakes, New York, who attends Barrington Middle School.

Eesha Khare, 18, of Saratoga, Calif., who created a high-speed charger for portable electronic devices, won the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award of $50,000 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, held in Phoenix, Ariz., on May 17. Intel ISEF is a program of the non-profit Society for Science & the Public, which also recognized Henry Lin, 17, of Shreveport, La., with the same $50,000 prize for simulating thousands of clusters of galaxies and providing scientists with valuable new data. The top $75,000 Gordon E. Moore Award went to Ionut Budisteanu of Romania, for using artificial intelligence to create a viable model for a low-cost, self-driving car. Khare’s invention recognizes the crucial need for energy-efficient storage devices as portable electronics become ubiquitous in daily life, the release said. Her tiny device that fits inside cellphone batteries, allows them to fully charge within 20-30 seconds.

Flashing a wide grin and giving a thumbs-up as he realized his correct answer to the final question was his ticket to the Galapagos Islands, 12-year-old Sathwik Karnik of Norfolk, Mass., nailed the National Geographic Bee held in Washington, D.C., on May 22. He also won a $25,000 college scholarship and a lifetime membership of the National Geographic Society.  Sathwik correctly responded “Chimborazo” when asked the name of the peak in Ecuador farthest from the earth’s center. He bested 13-year-old Conrad Oberhaus, of Lincolnshire, Ill., by answering all of the final five questions correctly. Conrad also got Chimborazo right, but he had already stumbled on the name of the largest city in China’s Inner Mongolia region. “Baotou,” Sathwik answered correctly. Just moments after winning, the seventh-grader from King Philip Regional Middle School in Norfolk blurted, “I’m just speechless. I didn't expect to win, and I have no idea what I'm going to do next," the National Geographic reported.

Six people of Indian origin are among 18 recipients of Rockefeller Foundation’s Global Fellowship on Social Innovation announced May 6. Dr. Kumanan Rasanathan, Manju Mary George, Megha Bhagat, Sandhya Rao, Sunandan Tiwari and Yogesh Rajkotia are among the inaugural fellows interested in addressing the root causes of problems affecting poor or vulnerable populations, according to the foundation website.  Rasanathan is a public health physician working for UNICEF in New York on improving the delivery of maternal and child health services in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, his bio data on the foundation website said. Prior to joining UNICEF, Rasanathan worked at WHO in Geneva on primary health care and the social determinants of health. He has also worked in New Zealand, Australia, China and the United Kingdom, as a clinician, researcher, policymaker and program manager.

Flashing a wide grin and giving a thumbs up as he realized his correct answer to the final question was his ticket to the Galapagos Islands, 12-year old Sathwik Karnik of Norfolk, Massachusetts, nailed his victory at the National Geographic Bee May 22, answering all 5 final questions correctly. He also won a $25,000 college scholarship and a lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society.  Sathwik correctly named “Chimborazo” - a mountain peak in Ecuador— when asked what was the name of the peak in Ecuador farthest from the earth’s center. He bested 13-year-old Conrad Oberhaus, of Lincolnshire, Illinois, by answering all of the final 5 questions correctly. Conrad also got Chimborazo right, but he had already stumbled on the name of the largest city in China’s Inner Mongolia region. “Baotou,” Sathwik answered correctly. Just moments after winning, the 7th grader from King Philip Regional Middle School in Norfolk, Mass., blurted, “I’m just speechless.

In these days of spiraling costs of higher education, 5 Indian-Americans and 1 Bangladeshi American can heave a sigh of relief having won a $90,000 Soros Fellowship. The 5 Indian- Americans who won included Amar Bakshi and Sejal Hathi of Yale University Nishant Batsha of Columbia University, New York and Amrapali Maitra and Vivek Viswanathan of Stanford University. Ryaan Ahmed, whose parents were from Bangladesh, is studying at Harvard. The Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans on May 17 announced 30 winners of its 2013 national competition drawn from more than 1,050 applicants. All of the scholars have extraordinary qualifications as well as life-changing experiences. Bakshi is studying law and business administration at Yale and showed leadership qualities even as a teenager. Following several visits to India, he founded a non-profit to improve education by linking under-resourced schools with local artisans, the Soros website says.

Indian-American students are making their mark in this year’s National Geographic Bee scheduled for May 20-23 in Washington D.C. They are going to represent 15 of the country’s 50 states and four territories. The top 10 winners will compete for $50,000 in scholarships. This year marks the Bee’s 25th anniversary and the last year that "Jeopardy!" show host Alex Trebek will host it at the historic National Theatre in downtown Washington, DC. The contest is organized by National Geographic and aims to encourage teachers to include geography in their classrooms, spark student interest in the subject and increase public awareness about the subject. Schools with students in grades four through eight are eligible and the final 54 students coming to D.C. have emerged winners in a series of contests starting from their schools up to the state level.

A Sterling man has been arrested by the FBI and charged with the federal felony of abusive sexual contact for allegedly fondling a fellow passenger on a flight last month into Reagan National Airport. Now, this was not a passing touch, as alleged in a federal affidavit by FBI Special Agent David Wiegand, and unwanted sexual contact is a serious matter. And in this age of federal air marshals, Saurabh Agarwal of Sterling was arrested before his flight from Miami even landed at National. He is now facing up to two years in federal prison. Agarwal, 40, reportedly sat next to a woman he did not know on an American Airlines flight on April 10. The woman told investigators that she fell asleep shortly after takeoff. When she awoke, she allegedly found the man’s hand beneath her blouse and inside her bra, fondling her breast, Wiegand’s affidavit states. The woman pretended to be asleep, and she reported that her seatmate kept squeezing her body and her hand tightly, with his other hand.

Ritankar Das, 18, a double major in bioengineering and chemical biology at the University of California at Berkeley has become the youngest student to receive the University Medal in more than a century. The medal is given to the year’s top graduating senior. Das, who began his freshman term when he was 15, will be graduating with more than 200 credits and a GPA of 3.99 in three years, according to information on the university website. After graduation, Das, who is fluent in Bengali and Hindi, and conversational in Spanish, will head to Oxford University to pursue a master’s degree in biomedical engineering with a fully funded Whitaker Fellowship.  He will then continue his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been admitted to the chemistry Ph.D. program, the website said. Das’ academic and community service achievements have earned him more than 40 awards totaling more than $300,000.

Two Indian-American students have won the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship which gives full support for graduate study at the University of Cambridge, U.K. They are among the 90 students worldwide to get the scholarship. Amrita Dani of Newtown, PA and Tara Suri of Scarsdale, N.Y., are among the 40 from the U.S. to get the scholarship. Dani was brought up in Newtown, Penn., and studied in the local public school system, she says on the scholarship website. As an undergraduate at Harvard, she decided to study the intersections between Arabic, French, and English literary traditions and focused on cross-cultural dialogue and education.  She has worked for the Pluralism Project on a multimedia exploration of religious diversity in America, taught English as a Second Language to the children of recent immigrants in Boston through the Boston Refugee Youth Enrichment (BRYE) Program, and volunteered as a peer counselor on issues of identity, gender, and relationships.

Two Indian-Americans from New York State are among 40 students named last month as Watson Fellows. Shilpa Darivemula of Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., and Srikar Gullapalli of Colgate University, Hamilton, N.Y., will each receive a stipend of $25,000 for the fellowship year. The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship offers college graduates of "unusual promise" a year of independent, purposeful exploration and travel in international settings new to them to enhance their capacity for resourcefulness, imagination, openness, and leadership and to foster their humane and effective participation in the world community, according to the fellowship website.  Describing Darivemula as both a scientist and an artist, the website said it was her fascination for science and a love for conversation that directed Darivemula towards medicine and her training in Kuchipudi drove her towards dance.

Aidan Nelson, 10, of Wayzata, Minn., was awarded the gold medal April 27 in the Elementary Division at the Minnesota Regional Science and Engineering Fair. He received the award in the Energy and Transportation category for his project on the effects that lights of different colors have in generating electricity in silicon-based solar panels The 10-year-old is a fifth-grade student at St. Bartholomew Catholic School in Wayzata. He is the son of Amalraj and Sungeetha Louisa Nelson. At the science fair   held April 27 at the Minnesota State University in Mankato, the judges called his project a "very unique idea" and a "great demonstration of how the experiment was conducted," according to an email message from his family.  Aidan’s project showed that light colors with higher wavelengths and, therefore, more energy are not able to generate an equivalent electricity output compared to lower wavelength light colors that have less energy because of the nature of silicon photovoltaic cells.

Raju Agarwal, a senior at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), is developing an inexpensive way to filter water for people in developing countries. He was recognized for his effort by the Society of American Military Engineers’ New York City chapter, which also gave him a token $1,000 as part of its goal to encourage scientific research.  At an April 26 ceremony, Cherry A. Murray, dean of SEAS, who nominated Agrawal, presented him the award, a release from Harvard announced April 29.   Agrawal told News India Times he hopes to be involved with the energy industry in India. His adviser, Chad Vecitis, is known for developing the carbon nanotube filter which is far more expensive and removes virtually 100 percent of viral and bacterial pathogens from water.

The family of Sunil Tripathi, the 22-year-old Brown University student whose body was recovered from a Providence river April 25, has set up a memorial fund named after him. His mother, Judy Tripathi, told News India Times the funds collected would go to mental health and environmental causes. An extremely emotional Judy Tripathi said the family was still coping with her son’s death having spent more than a month searching for him after he disappeared from his Providence, R.I., apartment March 16.   She said her son was interested in environmental issues and that the family wanted to channel the fund toward his interests as well as to aid people like him who may be reluctant to seek medical help in case of depression. “Sunil wanted to be independent in terms of dealing with his problems. A part of his depression prevented him from seeing that we need to get help,” Judy Tripathi said, her voice shaking with emotion.

Eight Indian-American physicians were felicitated for their contributions to cancer research by the Society of Asian American Scientists in Cancer Research at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research at Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., last month. Awards were presented by SAASCR President Dr. Rajvir Dahiya, a director of the Urology Research Center at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, at a ceremony held April 7.  The recipients were Dr. Sanjay Awasthi, Dr. Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, Dr. Danny Dhanasekaran, Dr. Rina Das, Dr. Sujay Singh, Dr. Ravi Salgia, Dr. Harikrishna Nakshatri and Dr. K.C. Balaji.    A professor of medical oncology, developmental therapeutics and diabetes at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope in Duarte, Calif.

An MBA student at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and his teammate have won the $30,000 Perlman Prize at the 2013 Wharton Business Plan Competition. Venkat Jonnala and Jean-Mathieu Chabas of the team ZenKars received the award at the school’s 15th annual Venture Finals, April 24.  ZenKars, which also received the competition’s “Committee’s Choice Award,” is an online retailer of used cars targeting a $600 billion market, according to a press release on the university website. Jonnala and Chabas, both second year MBA students, created an online model connecting used cars from corporates directly to consumers. Their “peaceful buying experience” for the buyer offers competitive prices, detailed vehicle information, convenience and warranties. According to the release, the ZenKars co-founders met last summer on Facebook while looking for roommates in Philadelphia. They eventually found themselves batting entrepreneurial ideas and landed on what has become ZenKars.

A 17-year-old girl from Oregon was among a select few to receive praise from President Barack Obama at the third annual White House Science Fair held April 23. Meghana Rao, a junior at Jesuit High School in Portland, Ore., worked with a class of charcoal known as biochar and studied how it stored carbon. "We're so proud of you. Keep up the good work," Obama told Rao, after she explained her project, according to a video posted on the White House website.    Rao also directs Portland Junior Scientists, a student-run nonprofit that connects high school students with underprivileged youths through collaborative hands-on science experiments, with the aim of inspiring all participants to pursue higher education, her bio data on the White House website says.  She started the group in 2011, after learning that severe budget cuts where forcing local elementary schools to cut back on science curricula.

At least 16 students of Indian origin from around the country were among the 271 national scholars announced by the Barry Goldwater Foundation in March.  This year’s Goldwater Scholars for Excellence in Education were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,107 mathematics, science, and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide.  Virtually all intend to study further to obtain a Ph.D. a release from the foundation said.  The one and two year scholarships cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.