Current Science

Partha P. Majumder ¹

Affiliations
1 National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani 741 251, IN

Abstract

A long-standing debate on whether ‘Aryans’ (central Asians) had entered India has recently gained momentum. The debate is polarized. In the recent set of articles, some authors have strongly criticized inferences drawn using genomic data and population genetic methods. Some criticisms are flawed. These criticisms stem from lack of clear understanding of population genetic concepts and frameworks. Such inappropriate criticisms have led to unnecessary confusion and further polarization among readers. This article attempts to place the ongoing ‘Aryan debate’ in the perspective of population genetic frameworks.

Keywords

Ancestry, Admixture, Central Asia, Haplogroup, Lineage.

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Partha P. Majumder ¹

Affiliations
1 National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani 741 251, IN

Abstract

Luca (as many o f us called him), went to medical school in Pavia (Italy) and graduated in 1944. He disliked medical practice. He joined the group o f Sir Ronald A. Fisher in Cambridge in 1949, as an Assistant in Research. In Cambridge, he worked on the genetics o f E. coli, which at the time was a new field. He isolated a mutant strain o f E. coli that he and others would later use to discover and clarify the nature o f ‘bacterial sex’ (conjugation). While in Cambridge, he had established collaboration with Joshua and Esther Lederberg. Over the next eight years, Luca and the Lederbergs published definitive results on conjugation. He returned to Italy in 1950 initially to a Milan pharmaceutical company and soon after joined the University o f Parma. The topography o f the region around Parma was mountainous. The villages in the mountain valleys were small and isolated. In these villages, people mostly married their relatives within the villages. The villages in the plains were relatively larger and connected. Outbreeding was common in these villages. R. A. Fisher had theoretically worked out that the main consequence o f small size o f a population was that variation in the frequency o f a gene variant will fluctuate unpredictably from one generation to another; a phenomenon not observed in large populations. Luca empirically demonstrated that this was true through his systematic studies on blood group frequencies in the villages o f the mountain valleys and plains o f Parma. He made a name for himself as a teacher and a geneticist. He joined (I have heard that he was invited to join) Stanford University in 1970 as a Professor and worked there until 1992.

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Partha P. Majumder ¹

Affiliations
1 National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata 700 108, IN

Abstract

Ranajit Chakraborty, an internationally renowned population and human geneticist, passed away on 23 September 2018 in Texas, USA. He was 72. He was an illustrious alumnus of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI). He did his Bachelor of Statistics (Hons), Master of Statistics (with specialization in advanced probability and mathematical genetics) and Ph D on statistical genetics (under C. R. Rao) from ISI. Then he served on the faculty of the Center for Demographic and Population Genetics, The University of Texas, Houston, USA for 28 years. He became the Allen King Professor of Population Genetics and Biological Sciences in the School of Public Health, The University of Texas. In 2001, he was recruited to establish the Center of Genome Information at the University of Cincinnati, USA, where he was the first recipient of the Robert A. Kehoe Professorship. He spent his final years in the Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, USA.

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