The print and media coverage

News Coverage:

Link of original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41435-021-00150-8

Outlook

https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/india-news-covid-19-may-wipe-out-andaman-tribes-if-utmost-precaution-not-taken-scientists-warn/397560

https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/isolated-populations-of-india-at-higher-risk-of-covid19-study/2178023

https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/isolated-populations-in-india-are-vulnerable-to-covid19-researchers/2177834

The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/isolated-populations-vulnerable-to-covid-says-study/article36986732.ece

NDTV

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/andaman-tribes-at-high-risk-of-covid-19-scientists-urge-high-priority-protection-2574416

The Week

https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/national/2021/10/13/mes8-tl-virus-research.html

Times of India

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/indigenous-populations-are-at-higher-risk-of-covid-19-infection-says-ccmb-study/articleshow/86995681.cms

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/isolated-populations-ethnic-groups-at-high-risk-of-infection/articleshow/87004051.cms

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/isolated-andaman-tribes-at-highrisk-of-covid-19-infection-study/articleshow/87030804.cms

ANI news

https://www.aninews.in/news/national/general-news/small-isolated-populations-of-india-more-susceptible-to-covid-19-centre-for-cellular-and-molecular-biology20211013204521/

Financial Express

https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/health/isolated-populations-in-india-are-vulnerable-to-covid-19-researchers/2349403/

https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/health/isolated-populations-of-india-at-higher-risk-of-covid-19-study/2349759/

The Madras Tribune

https://madrastribune.com/2021/10/13/isolated-populations-in-india-are-vulnerable-to-covid-19-researchers-india-news/

The new Indian express

https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2021/oct/13/isolated-populations-in-india-are-vulnerable-to-covid-19-find-researchers-2371252.html

Dainik Bhaskar

https://www.bhaskar.com/local/uttar-pradesh/varanasi/news/in-the-study-of-bhu-and-ccmb-hyderabad-of-varanasi-the-onge-and-jarawa-tribes-have-the-highest-rate-of-mutation-in-the-genes-129019971.html

Amar Ujala 

https://www.amarujala.com/uttar-pradesh/varanasi/bhu-research-said-that-tribal-groups-of-andaman-are-more-prone-to-coronavirus-infection-11-scientists-studied

Hindustan 

https://www.livehindustan.com/uttar-pradesh/varanasi/story-13-institutions-including-bhu-claim-kovid-39-s-crisis-still-on-andaman-39-s-tribals-4817249.html

Lokmat Hindi

https://www.lokmatnews.in/india/isolated-population-in-india-vulnerable-to-kovid-19-researchers-b421/

NBT

https://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/state/other-states/hyderabad/isolated-population-in-india-vulnerable-to-kovid-19-researchers/articleshow/86995982.cms

United News of India

http://www.uniindia.com/indigenous-communities-reached-verge-of-extinction-due-to-covid-study/south/news/2532912.html

English Lokmat

https://english.lokmat.com/national/small-isolated-populations-of-india-more-susceptible-to-covid-19-centre-for-cellular-and-molecular/

Deccan Herald

https://www.deccanherald.com/national/isolated-populations-in-india-are-vulnerable-to-covid-19-researchers-1040337.html

Zee5 

https://www.zee5.com/articles/small-isolated-populations-of-india-more-susceptible-to-covid-19-centre-for-cellular-and-molecular-biology

Telangana Today

https://telanganatoday.com/ethnic-populations-more-vulnerable-to-covid-2

The Daily Guardian

https://thedailyguardian.com/small-isolated-populations-more-susceptible-to-covid-19/

Etv Bharat

https://www.etvbharat.com/amp/hindi/himachal-pradesh/bharat/isolated-populations-in-india-are-vulnerable-to-covid-19-find-researchers/na20211013213811115

The Times Bureau

https://thetimesbureau.com/indias-small-isolated-populations-are-more-vulnerable-to-covid-19-according-to-the-centre-for-cellular-and-molecular-biology-DFTRh/

Deccan Chronicle

TV9 Hindi

https://www.tv9hindi.com/india/danger-of-corona-hovering-over-the-population-living-in-isolation-in-india-and-tribes-of-andaman-867632.html

AAJ Express

https://aajexpress.com/recent-study-came-to-the-fore-corona-crisis-still-on-the-tribals-of-andaman-11-scientists-from-13-institutions-of-the-country-including-bhu-did-genomic-analysis-of-indian-population/

Dainik Jagran

https://www.jagran.com/uttar-pradesh/varanasi-city-protected-tribes-will-not-survive-if-corona-spread-in-andaman-and-nicobar-islands-22110399.html

News18

https://hindi.news18.com/news/nation/people-of-isolated-ethnic-community-more-vulnerable-to-covid-19-scientist-3795856.html

East Mojo

https://www.eastmojo.com/national-news/2021/10/14/isolated-populations-in-india-vulnerable-to-covid-19-researchers/

IANS LIve

https://ianslive.in/news/isolated_populations_in_india_vulnerable_to_covid_19_says_study-819945/NATION/1

The Hindu Business Line

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/national/ethnic-populations-more-vulnerable-to-covid/article36997495.ece

News Karnataka

https://newskarnataka.com/india/delhi/isolated-populations-in-india-vulnerable-to-covid-19-says-study/

ETV Bharat (Hindi)

https://www.etvbharat.com/hindi/uttar-pradesh/state/varanasi/bhu-research-andamans-tribal-groups-more-at-risk-than-covid-19/up20211014085839870

NewsOnAir (All India Radio)

https://newsonair.com/2021/10/14/sars-cov-2-impacted-various-ethnic-groups-all-over-the-world-csir-ccmb-hyderabad/

https://newsonair.com/hindi/2021/10/14/ccmb-scientists-have-found-that-sars-cov-2-has-had-a-significant-impact-on-people-belonging-to-a-particular-community-in-the-world/

The Bridge Chronicle

https://www.thebridgechronicle.com/news/nation/is-the-isolated-population-in-india-vulnerable-to-covid-19

Business Standard

https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/isolated-populations-of-india-at-higher-risk-of-covid-19-says-study-121101400566_1.html

TechiLive

https://techilive.in/isolated-tribal-populations-of-india-at-higher-risk-of-covid-19-study/

The Week

https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/national/2021/10/14/lst1-virus-india-tribes.html

The Weather Channel

https://weather.com/en-IN/india/coronavirus/news/2021-10-14-isolated-populations-in-india-vulnerable-to-covid19

The Nav Hind Times

https://www.navhindtimes.in/2021/10/14/nationalnews/isolated-population-vulnerable-to-covid-19-researchers/

National Herald

https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/health/isolated-populations-of-india-at-higher-risk-of-covid-19-study

Hindustan Times

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/isolated-populations-of-india-are-at-higher-risk-of-covid-19-study-finds-101634201424692.html

First Post

https://www.firstpost.com/india/indias-isolated-population-more-vulnerable-to-covid-19-finds-study-in-genes-and-immunity-journal-10055161.html

WION

https://www.wionews.com/india-news/isolated-populations-in-india-vulnerable-to-covid-19-says-study-420734

The Free Media Maharashtra

https://www.thefreemedia.in/nation/2021/10/14/isolated-populations-in-india-vulnerable-to-covid-19-says-study/

Go News India

https://www.gonewsindia.com/latest-headlines/isolated-communities-at-greater-risk-of-covid-19-study-finds-10738

NDTV Hindi

https://ndtv.in/india-news/covid-19-threatens-isolated-communities-including-onge-jarawa-tribes-says-studies-2575579

News18

https://hindi.news18.com/news/uttar-pradesh/varanasi-corona-will-end-existence-of-65-thousand-years-old-tribals-scientists-expressed-concern-3796839.html

Mid Day Mumbai

https://www.mid-day.com/news/india-news/article/covid-19-daily-cases-on-the-rise-in-india-again-23196706

Maharashtra Majha News

https://maharashtramazanews.com/%e0%a4%b0%e0%a4%be%e0%a4%b7%e0%a5%8d%e0%a4%9f%e0%a5%8d%e0%a4%b0%e0%a5%80%e0%a4%af/41200/%e0%a4%ad%e0%a4%be%e0%a4%b0%e0%a4%a4%e0%a4%be%e0%a4%a4%e0%a5%80%e0%a4%b2-%e0%a4%b5%e0%a5%87%e0%a4%97%e0%a4%b3%e0%a5%80-%e0%a4%b2%e0%a5%8b%e0%a4%95%e0%a4%b8%e0%a4%82%e0%a4%96%e0%a5%8d%e0%a4%af%e0%a4%be/

Indonesian News

https://www.pikiran-rakyat.com/internasional/pr-012804225/studi-baru-kelompok-etnis-pulau-andaman-di-india-berisiko-tinggi-terpapar-covid-19-meski-terisolasi

IdSathu NEws Indonesian

https://idsatunews.com/berita-internasional/15281/kelompok-etnis-pulau-andaman-di-india-berisiko-tinggi-terpapar-covid-19-meski-terisolasi/

BIotecnika

https://www.biotecnika.org/2021/10/ethnic-populations-more-susceptible-to-covid-19-ccmb/

Republic Bharat

https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/education/isolated-populations-of-india-at-higher-risk-of-covid-19-study.html

Pioneer

https://pynr.in/article/isolated-populations-in-india-more-vulnerable-to-covid-finds-ccmb

Central Chronicle

https://www.centralchronicle.in/isolated-populations-of-india-at-higher-risk-of-covid-19/

Manorama 

Here are some of the major coverage of our work.

Though we are late to summarise our scientific work in 2020 here is a recap of the last year! As for all of you, 2020 was also challenging for us. No grant, no chemicals and no lab access for many days. Though we took it as a challange and shifted our focus to the COVID genomics and contributed a bit to the society.

An article in #TheHindu has also mentioned it. 

This year we have published #18 research papers. This is due to our dedicated students and collaborators (most importantly Pankaj Sir).

Publication list (2020)

Selected Press Coverage:

Outreach 2020_Episode 1

Approximately 10 years back when I was in Cambridge, a very influential #Archaeologist was trying to explain me the incredible diversity of #Gangetic_Plain. He was very much sure that we are missing something big in this region, and it has been inhabited by #Humans (including archaic) since #Upper_Palaeolithis or even earlier! Now a very important paper is out from #MikePetraglia’s lab which suggest the same.

So, my take is if people are diverse and get enough amount of food, they would think about arts and other non-routine activities and we should observe an increased frequency of people contributing more to the society! Though this is true for #Gangetic_Plain societies (in terms of arts, literature, poetry, music, dance, politics etc we could count several names), however, we can count on fingers, numbers of Scientists from this region who contributed globally. The first and prominent name comes of Dr Lalji Singh , the ‘Father of Indian DNA fingerprinting’ who is known globally. Few Scientists from BHU are also notable but they just studied there (not native of Gangetic_plain). Prof DD Dubey is another well known scientist from this region worked on replication of fission yeast. He is now retired, but is very active for social cause. Being his student we used to meet him and during one of the meetings, he suggeated us to do the science communication in various school colleges. The first of that was here.

We were surprised to see the enthusiasm of the students and decided to do whenever time permits. It was a great initiative, students liked it, and we were quite sucessful to ignite the passion for science among students.

Recently we visited to Kutir PG College, Chakkey Jaunpur to meet students. We presented some part of our work and also displayed our posters to them. This time we had a big team of Masters and PhD students. They explained to students very well and also realised their association and contribution to the society. We are grateful to our PhD students Mr Prajjval Pratap Singh, Miss Debashruti Das, Miss Audditiya Bandopadhyay, Miss Nargis Khanum and Master’s student Mr Nikhil Shrivastava for their super contributions. They not only answered all the questions of students but also engazed them with the Science by adding fun facts.

And as we said earlier, this is our passion which we will continue.

Jai Hind!

One more year moved-on in life with all its good and bad impressions! Personally, for me, I would not like to keep this year in memory. My biggest loss of the life is that I lost my father this year :(. As with everybody’s father, I grown up seeing him as my ‘hero of life’. Professionally, he was a lecturer of Biology, and his knowledge and teaching of the subject was par-exceelence. However, he had a similar deep interest in spirituality. He maintained his clean and strict image in the society. He was loved by many and has done several great work for the society. He has left his strong magnificent impression on people, equally on me. Whenever, I meet his acquaintances (friends or students), I always receive good words about him. Recently, an influential person told me that ‘whenever, I introduce you to the people, you get respect after telling that he is a ‘Professor in BHU’ and the same respect gets doubled whenever they know that you are his (my father’s) son! I learned from him a culture of honesty and high ethics, and that will be always reflected in my life! Papa I miss you :(

Professionally, our team has published 10 high class research papers this year, out of those two were among significant researches of India. We are grateful to all our collaborators, without them, it was impossible to achieve this quality. More importantly, from this year we extended our strong collaboration with Dr Pankaj Shrivastava (Forensic Scientist), to develop AIM (Ancestry informative markers) for forensic use.

This year three more PhD students joined our lab (Ms Debashruti Das, Ms Audditiya Bandopadhyay and Mr Rudra Kumar Pandey). Also, this year we finally have a place to sit i.e. 10x15 feet lab-cum-sitting place in #BHU. At the end of the year, we had a fruitful expedition to Bangladesh which is going to bring some good research papers in future. We visited Estonia for the most awaited defence of our very good friend Erwan. 

I also presented in Delhi University on the question of association of R1a haplogroup and Aryan migration. 

In year 2020, we will apply for couple of projects, recruit more PhD students and most importantly would visit various school and colleges to popularise Science.

Our first major paper on peopling of Himalaya is now published in journal Human Genetics.  Thanks to all of the collaborators and students. This paper was a major work of Dr Rakesh Tamang’s PhD work. 

I wrote here about his dedication for this work-

Now we are working in a more precise way to explore this extremely interesting geography of the world, which would bring several publications and some very exciting results! Stay tuned :)

Media Coverage:

The Hindu

Nearly 2 months ago, our collaborative work on Parsis was out in Genome Biology. It was a grand effort of several institutions. Estonian Biocentre, Estonia; Sanger Institute, UK; CCMB, Hyderabad, India; University of Cambridge UK; Deccan College, India and couple of Institutes from Pakistan. 

Unfortunately, during this work the father of Pakistani genome project Prof Syed Q Mehdi passed away :(. His demise was a big loss of not only to Pakistan but also to the South Asia. In his memory, we dedicated this paper to him. 

In this paper, we merged genetic data together with the Archaeological data. The work of Dr Veena Mushrif was immense in this project. Dr Niraj Rai, the brilliant aDNA expert from India managed to bag out the mtDNA data from the ancient samples which was quite crucial to draw the conclusion on maternal geneflow.

On the modern DNA, Dr Qasim Ayub, Dr Massimo Mezzavila, Dr Toomas Kivisild and me performed several analyses rigorously. I have summarised the results in an invited blog to Genome Biology. During the whole work, Dr Shernaz Cama was extremely helpful. Each and every community in India needs a dedicated person like her. 

After the publication, for the follow-up work, in addition to the above-mentioned institutions, we are now collaborating with the Parzor Foundation and AVESTHAGEN. Niraj will be working further to generate high-quality sequence data from ancient samples. 

Below are the coverage from press and blogposts on this article-

The Hindu Business Line: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/variety/how-parsis-with-persian-roots-flowered-in-indian-soil/article9730657.ece First Post: http://www.firstpost.com/india/genetic-study-conducted-in-india-pakistan-confirms-parsis-migrated-to-india-from-persia-3659417.html Daily Pioneer: http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/parsis-face-existential-crisis-as-population-dwindles-to-57000.html Deccan Chronicle: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/science/science/090617/dna-proves-parsis-link-to-iran.html Times of India: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/study-shows-parsis-migrated-to-india-from-iran/articleshow/59148462.cms Nature Asia: http://www.natureasia.com/en/nindia/article/10.1038/nindia.2017.67 Biovoice News: http://www.biovoicenews.com/genetic-study-confirms-parsi-migration/ News Room 24: https://newsroom24x7.com/2017/06/16/genetic-study-confirms-parsi-migration/ Dainik Jagran: http://minextlive.jagran.com/why-parsi-community-is-deceased-day-by-day-in-india-201706280009 Genome Biology Blog: http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/on-biology/2017/06/21/piecing-together-genetic-histories-of-isolated-populations/ Sanger Institute Blog: https://sangerinstitute.blog/2017/06/29/like-sugar-in-milk-parsi-populations-from-india-and-pakistan/ Deccan Herald: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/620950/tracing-origin-subcontinents-parsi-population.html The Telegraph: https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170616/jsp/nation/story_157125.jsp

Our data had very little overlap (~70K SNPs) with the data published in Broushaki 2016 paper, which was actually containing the Zoroastrian from the Iran. Below are the PCA and fineSTRUCTURE analyses which show the expected results.

Inspirational lyrics... 

For the majority of Indian, in daily life (or even a specific time period of life), the lyrics of Bollywood songs usually touches the soul and also played a vital role in controlling our emotions. In my list, there are many songs but an antra (for me it is a mantra) of a song I love to listen whenever I feel weaker or require some extra energy for some bigger tasks! The song details are here and you can listen following clip with those beautiful lines :)

The largest journal PLOS ONE has featured me along with others as 'People of PLOS ONE’! Thanks to my mentors and collaborators!

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X16326483 Mishra et al. 2017

The choice of fare skin partner among higher caste people might have created this pattern.

Media coverage

CCMB: Caste system impacts skin colour

Genetics decide the skin colour of Indians, say CCMB scientists

This paper alongwith two others secured the cover page of the Nature.

The awesome cover page is designed by Markus Kasemaa- a Well known Estonian artist.

Main News link

BBC

New York Times

New Scientist

Science Daily

UPDATE:

Science magazine has included this research among top 10 breakthrough of the year!