P W Anderson was a theoretical physicist. He won the NobelPrize in 1977. He catalysed Nobel Prizes for several others.His career spanned 72 years of relentless research, filledwith path-breaking contributions. He focussed on ‘here andnow’ phenomena of inanimate materials and built theoreticalquantum models of lasting value. He communed with natureby contemplation and study of experimental results. As afounding father, he set agenda for the field of condensedmatterphysics, for half a century. It is a growing fertile field now,with a web of connection to different corners of science, technology,and sometimes beyond. As a person, Anderson wasremarkable. He was my long time collaborator since 1984. Ihad a wonderful opportunity to join hands with him when heinitiated the resonating valence bond (RVB) theory of hightemperaturesuperconductivity in cuprates in early 1987.

I outline in this article, the work of the theoretical physicistPWAnderson. He was perhaps the most influential figure incondensed matter physics in the second half of the 20th Century,the ‘Gruff Guru’. His epochal contributions and impresson the field saw it emerge from obscurity as the largestsubfield of contemporary physics.

The present outbreak of the novel coronavirus initially calledas “2019 novel coronavirus” or “2019-nCoV” by the WorldHealth Organization (WHO), is also known as “Wuhan coronavirus”or “Wuhan pneumonia”, as it started in the Wuhancity of China in early December of 2019. This new coronavirusassociatedacute respiratory deadly disease is now officiallynamed as Corona Virus Disease-19 (COVID-19) by theWHO.From China, this epidemic has now spread to all over theworld. On 11 March 2020, the WHO recognised COVID-19as a pandemic. A pandemic refers to a disease that has spreadto several countries, continents, if not worldwide. While theinformation available on this newly identified virus is limitedand evolving, here is a quick run-down of what has been figuredout so far.

The article illustrates the efficacy of proper social distancingmethods during disease outbreaks. We inspect the outbreakby counting the number of ways n individuals are infected,given an initially infected patient introduced in a lattice(cn).Using self-avoiding walks on lattices where the infection spreadsaccording to the SIR (Susceptible, Infected, Removed)model,we were able to show an exponential decay of the ratio of initialand final values of cn after the distancing methods wereemployed.

Humans have caused immense disturbances to the Earth’swild ecosystems. Here, I explain how these disturbances areimpacting and altering the essential roles or functions of animalsin these ecosystems. Population declines, as well asbehavioural and morphological changes in animals as a responseto disturbance, alters how organisms interact with eachother. Since these interactions define an animal’s role in itshabitat, such changes can have devastating impacts on thefuture of these ecosystems.

This article gives an overview of the new SI and a few detailsas to how it was set up. Those interested in the storyof how the kilogram was fixed by tying it to the Planck constantcan go straight to Section 5. Otherwise, apart from theintroduction given as Section 1 which also presents excerptsfrom the relevant official documents on the key aspects of thenew system, Section 2 gives a brief timeline of the history ofthe decimal metric system, Section 3 gives a few details of theprocedural steps—from the setting up of a standard of measurementto its percolation to the public, taking the time standardas an example, and Section 4 attempts to give a flavourof the actual process of the setting up of a standard.

In a recent election campaign, Prime Minister Modi claimedthat if one works hard in a correct political climate, one canmake 1 + 1 = 11. In a similar speech, Mr Sitaram Yachurimentioned that if we all work together then our combinedstrength will make 2 + 2 = 22. Here, we address the question:Is there a field k with a polynomially defined binary law ofcomposition + such that the two equations 1 + 1 = 11 and2 + 2 = 22 are both valid in k. In this note, we show that thereare infinitely many such fields and characterize them all.