The uneven ring of radio emission at the centre of the distantgalaxy,M87, has excited astronomers, physicists, and thegeneral public, as the first view of a black hole. Everythingabout the project, known as the EHT – Event Horizon Telescope

– is extreme. The observation combines signals fromradio telescopes distributed over an entire hemisphere, operatingat millimetre wavelengths on high mountains and atthe Earth’s poles. These telescopes are synchronised by thebest atomic clocks, and massive amounts of data recordingand number crunching were needed. To interpret the results,elaborate models of the energy source, based on Einstein’sgeneral theory of relativity (GTR) were constructed.The team had over three hundred scientists from more thana hundred institutions, some of whom worked for nearly adecade towards this goal.

A black hole is an object with an extreme gravitational tugfrom which no light can escape. The nature of their stronggravity causes any material coming within the influence of itsevent horizon to be lost forever. The radiation from the hotdisk of matter encircling the black hole opens the possibilityto image these elusive objects, as it is impossible otherwise.Here, the first-ever image of the shadow of the supermassiveblack hole in a nearby galaxy, M87, is reported based on theobservations by the Event Horizon Telescope.

The Belgian mathematician Jean Bourgain was born in Ostendein 1954. After a whirlwind career during which hesolved many deep problems and transformed several areas ofmathematics, he passed away in Bonheiden on 22nd December2018 (the birth anniversary of Ramanujan). Bourgainwas the modern-day equivalent of Leonhard Euler, makingprolific contributions to a wide variety of problems in mathematicsand physics. The Mathematical Reviews cite 511 publicationsunder his name. Such a wide spectrum of work cannotbe described in one article with any justice even if theauthors were to possess expertise in a number of these areas.The breadth and depth of Bourgain’s work can be fathomedfrom the following phrase used in a review by a renownedmathematician Ben Joseph Green; he said, “It is beyond thecapability of the reviewer to give anything like a meaningfuldescription of the argument here, save to repeat the authors’comments....” The review was of a paper that completelysolved Vinogradov’s mean value conjecture in analyticnumber theory. We choose a small assortment of the topics towhich he contributed so deeply and, describe some technicaldetails in rough terms. In the end, we make a brief mention ofhis results in a wide variety of areas (see [3–5], [7–14] for technicaldetails). The topics we dwell on in this write-up includethe so-called Kakeya problem and some striking applicationsto number theory.

Mutualism is a very special and rare kind of natural cooperativebehavior. A tradition practiced in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa is an interesting case of mutualism betweentwo very unlikely partners – birds and humans. Some speciesof honeyguides have developed a mutualistic relationshipwiththe African honey-hunters. Both species use a set of ritualisticcalls to communicate with each other. The birds guidethe men to honeybee nests and get rewarded in return as thehoney-hunters leave behind parts of the honeycombs for theirfriends. This mutualismhas been reported by several authorsand has recently been tested rigorously using robust scientificmethods. This article provides an overview of this interestingbehavior that has evolved and continues to be practicedin the forests of sub-Saharan Africa by tribes like the Hadza,Boran, and Yao.

The present article attempts to understand the interrelationshipbetween the processes of science and scientific creativityand its relevance to a science classroom. We explore howthese processes can be incorporated as pedagogical practicesin the classroom to foster students’ scientific creativity. Fewactivities based on these processes are also suggested that canoffer enabling experiences to students and may nurture theirscientific creativity.

The question of the origin of water on Earth has been a puzzlesince long. The standard scenario that comets have depositedwater here over eons has many loopholes, and some recentresults have put a question mark on this. Instead, asteroidshave become the favorite candidates for ferrying the water.At the same time, other discoveries seem to hint towards alarge reservoir of water inside Earth.

This article shares some insights and observations that wegained while exploring the world of discrete and computationalgeometry. It discusses several results related to polygonsand gives some historical remarks. Mathematical partsof our discussion support the view that in the land of polygons,convexity alone tells a lot, and quadrilaterals act as ourmain guides whenever we visit there.

The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) met inBrazil in August 2018 for its quadrennial conference. Duringthe ICM, the Fields Medals and some other awards are presented.In this report, we briefly recount the personages andthe significance of their work.