THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Nobel Laureate and renowned bio-physicist Michael Levitte on Wednesday had a harrowing experience when the houseboat he was travelling in along with his family, was blocked by trade union strike supporters at R Block in Alappuzha backwaters.
The house boat which started journey from Kumarakom on Tuesday had anchored at the R Block at night. The strike supporters prevented the boats from starting off its day’s cruise on Wednesday.
Levitt was stranded in the boat for hours despite trade union strike sponsors exempting tourism sector from the strike. The boat was released only after tourism police’s intervened.
The Stanford University professor won the Nobel prize in Chemistry in 2013 for the development of multi-scale models for complex chemical systems. He shared the prize with Martin Karplus and Arieh Warshel.
Levitt who is state government’s guest, had arrived in Kerala to take part in a lecture series organised by Higher Education Council in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi.
