Arvind Gupta

Arvind Gupta is an Indian toy inventor and popularizer of science.

As a student in the 1970s in Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Gupta became a socialist in belief but eschewed action-less discourse; he stated that instead he "placed more faith in small positive action than empty rhetoric." Gupta began his social service by teaching the children of the mess staff who had no opportunities for formal education.

Gandhian in outlook, Arvind Gupta participated in the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme (HSTP) in Madhya Pradesh in 1978. While he was there he developed his idea of creating simple toys and educational experiments using locally available materials as well as items usually thrown as trash. These simple toys, he found, fascinated children and Gupta went on to make these as the hallmark of his movement of popularising science. His first book, "Matchstick Models and other Science Experiments" was reprinted in 12 languages. Gupta's website holds instructions, including short video clips on YouTube, in a number of languages, for making hundreds of improvised toys, which he makes available freely without copyright restrictions. Gupta draws inspiration from a number of people, including Gautama Buddha, George Washington Carver and his mother.

Arvind Gupta (academic)

Arvind Gupta (b. circa 1961) is an Indo-Canadian computer scientist who was the 13th President of the University of British Columbia (UBC) and former CEO of Mitacs Canada.

Early life and education

Gupta was born in Jalandhar in the Indian state of Punjab. Both his parents were academics. His mother was one of the first women to teach mathematics at a college in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Gupta lived in India and spoke Punjabi for his first five years until his family moved to Detroit where his father, a chemistry professor, had started a fellowship at Wayne State University. He then learned to speak English. Within two years, they moved to Timmins, Ontario after his father earned a job as a pollution chemist with a mining company.

He obtained a bachelor's degree in mathematics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario before earning a master's and a PhD at the University of Toronto. His family knew some of the victims killed in the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182.

Arvind Gupta (administrator)

Dr. Arvind Gupta is the Indian Deputy National Security Advisor. He is also the ex officio Secretary, National Security Council Secretariat. He served as the Director General of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses from January 2012 till his appointment to the current post.

Career

Dr. Gupta belongs to the 1979 batch of the Indian Foreign Service. Over the course of his career, he has served in various capacities at Indian diplomatic missions in Moscow, London and Ankara. He joined the National Security Council Secretariat shortly after it was set up in 1998 and served there till 2007. Prior to taking charge as Director General, he held the Lal Bahadur Shastri Chair on National Security in the IDSA from 2008 to 2012.

He was a member of the informal group constituted by the Prime Minister of India to revive the action plan on nuclear disarmament presented by Rajiv Gandhi at the Third Special Session on Disarmament of the UN General Assembly in June 1998. He has also worked in the Ministry of External Affairs on different assignments.