Anand Ranganathan

Anand Ranganathan, also referred to as Ranga Uncle is a columnist, author and scientist based in New Delhi. He is currently employed as an Associate Professor in the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has worked with the online news portal Newslaundry, and is currently a consulting Editor and columnist for Swarajya.
Anand is known for his contribution towards development of a vaccine, for Tuberculosis
Early life and education
Both of Anand's parents were scientists. His father, was an Indian bio-organic chemist, a professor, and head of the department of chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Subramania Ranganathan (born. 1936 - 2016). His mother, Darshan Ranganathan (born. 4 June 1941 - 4 June 2001), was an organic chemist from India who was known for her work in bio-organic chemistry, including "pioneering work, in protein folding".
Anand Ranganathan obtained his BSc (Hons) degree, in Chemistry from St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 1992, after which he obtained a Nehru Centenary Scholarship to study at the University of Cambridge, where he obtained his BA (Tripos) in Natural Sciences, his MA, and his PhD.
Career
Ranganathan started out as a post-doctoral fellow, Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, where he worked from 1998 to 1999. After a post-doctoral stint at Cambridge, Anand returned to India to join International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Delhi as a research scientist where he ran his lab for 16 years.
Ranganathan worked as a consulting editor for Newslaundry and made regular appearances in their weekly podcasts. He also hosted a few shows and interviews on their platform. He had a falling out with Newslaundry after a few people working their started publicly mocking him on twitter for his data driven analysis and opposing views. The controversy and divide was further fuelled when Newslaundry mocked Anand's Brahmin background in one of their videos. Newslaundry's representation of Ranganathan's views were an example of Argument from Authority. He considers himself an atheist and a free speech absolutist and has written several articles eulogising B. R. Ambedkar.
Ranganathan's tweets criticising the judiciary were withheld by Twitter.
Bibliography
Ranganathan has written three fiction books.
* The Land of the Wilted Rose
* For Love and Honour
* The Rat Eater (Juggernaut, 2017; co-authored with Chitra Subramaniam)
Awards and Honours
* Young Scientist, World Economic Forum, for the New Champions Summit, 2012<ref name=":4" />
* Young Scientist Medal of the Indian National Science Academy, 2007<ref name":1" /><ref name":3" />
* Young Scientist Medal of the UDCT, India, 2006<ref name":1" /><ref name":3" />
* Associate Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences, 2003-06<ref name":1" /><ref name":3" />
* Pembroke College Cambridge Scholarship, 1995<ref name":1" /><ref name":3" />
* Cambridge Nehru Centenary Fellowship, 1992<ref name":1" /><ref name":3" />
 
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