Grapevine 09-10 (3)

The 35th year Reunion of the Class-of-77 was held from 2nd to 5th February, 2012. More than 78 alumni participated in the reunion along with their family members. Alumni started arriving on 2nd February and that night a dinner was arranged at the Visitors’ Hostel Lawns for them. This was followed by bulla sessions. On the 3rd of February, after an early morning walk around the campus the alumni attended the inaugural function. There were addressed by the Acting Director Prof. S. C. Srivastava who stressed upon the need for maintaining a relationship with the institute for the benefit of the current students. He urged the alumni to interact with the students and guide them regarding their career opportunities in the global scenario. Prof. Srivastava also released a book “The Primates of IITK” written by Dr. M. S. Madhukar of the University of Tennessee of USA and Mr. Mohan Arora of Dabur India Limited. The book narrates funny incidents that happened with students during their stay at IITK. The alumni were then taken on a guided tour of the campus and shown the new constructions like the new hostels, academic buildings and sports complex. Some ex-students chose to cycle around the campus. On 4th February the alumni interacted with the Dean of Resource Planning and Generation and the Dean of Research and Development. Later they played a phatta cricket match at the stadium and their family members were taken to Bithoor. This was followed by lunch at the Director's Residence. Afterwards the alumni interacted with the current students and spoke about their present jobs and the location of their work while their families were taken to a flower show at the institute nursery. In the evening there was a cultural programme followed by a group discussion on methods to improve the academic standards at IITK. Dr. Madhukar suggested that community service be included in the syllabus so that students can think of the welfare of the community. On 5th February there was another interaction session for the alumni with the various student groups. The reunion came to an end with a felicitation ceremony.

Bogineni Chenchu Rama Naidu Merit Award: Dr. Bogineni Chenchu Rama Naidu (M.Tech/MSP/1982), currently President and CEO of the Bogineni Corporation, has instituted the Bogineni Chenchu Rama Naidu Merit Award which will be awarded every year at the Convocation to the First Ranker of the graduating M.Tech batch in the Materials Science Program. In case of a tie the youngest student will be given this award. Dr. Naidu founded the Bogineni Corporation (www.bogineni.com) in 1997 to provide integrated computer solutions to the hitech industry.

Smt. Padma Kapoor Memorial Scholarship: The family members of Smt. Padma Kapoor have set up a scholarship through a Canada Based charity organization named "AIM FOR SEWA". The scholarship will be awarded to a B.Tech student of any department on a merit-cum-means basis, with preference given to a student inclined towards community service. Smt. Kapoor is the grand mother of Mr. Vimit Kapoor (BT/EE/2000) and the mother of Late Shri Vinay Kapoor (BT/ME/68) and Mr. Arun Kapoor (BT/ME/67).

Pandit Girish Ranjan and Sushama Rani Pathak Chair has been instituted by Mrs. Rita Dwivedi and Mr. Kamalesh Dwivedi (BT/EE/79) to honor her father, Pandit Girish Ranjan Pathak, and in memory of her mother, Mrs. Sushama Rani Pathak. This chair is open to a faculty member in the Science and Engineering departments. Pandit Girish Ranjan Pathak was born in Bargaon village, Bihar and served in the Indian government's Intelligence and Vigilance departments. Mrs. Sushama Rani Pathak was born in Multan, Punjab and moved with her family to Delhi after the partition of India in 1947. She worked as a nurse at Lady Elgin Hospital in Gaya.

Faculty Honours and Awards

Prof. R. P. Chhabra, Department of Chemical Engineering, has been elected to the Fellowship of the Indian Academy of Sciences.

Prof. S. Ganesh, Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, has been selected for the CDRI award for excellence in Drug Research, under the Biological Sciences category.

Dr. Yogesh M. Joshi, Department of Chemical Engineering, has been awarded the DAE-SRC Outstanding Investigator award.

Prof. Faiz Ahmed Khan, Department of Chemistry, has been elected to the Fellowship of the Indian Academy of Sciences.

Prof. Ashok K. Mittal, Industrial and Management Engineering Department, has been conferred the M.C. Puri Memorial award by the Operational Research Society of India.

Prof. R. N. Mukherjee, Department of Chemistry has been appointed as the Director of IISER Kolkata.

Prof. Sandeep Verma, Department of Chemistry, has been awarded the DAE-SRC Outstanding Investigator award.

Prof. Sanjeev K. Aggarwal, Department of Computer Science and Engineering was selected for the Poonam and Prabhu Goel Chair Professorship. Homepage: http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/ska/

Prof. Somenath Biswas, Department of Computer Science and Engineering was selected for the Sanjay and Rachna Pradhan Chair Professorship. Homepage: http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/sb/

Prof. Peeyush Chandra, Department of Mathematics and Statistics was selected for the Sanjay Mittal Chair Professorship. Homepage: http://home.iitk.ac.in/~peeyush/

Prof. Aloke Dutta, Department of Electrical Engineering was selected for the Ranjit Singh Chair Professorship. Homepage: http://home.iitk.ac.in/~aloke/

Prof. Debasis Kundu, Department of Mathematics and Statistics was selected for the Arun Kumar Chair Professorship. Homepage: http://www.iitk.ac.in/math/faculty/kundu/

Prof. Sanjay Mittal, Department of Aerospace Engineering was selected for the Champa Devi Gangwal Chair Professorship. Homepage: http://home.iitk.ac.in/~smittal/

Prof. G. Neelakantan, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences was selected for the Rahul and Namita Gautam Chair Professorship. Homepage: http://home.iitk.ac.in/~gn/

Prof. R. Sankararamakrishnan, Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering was selected for the USV Chair Professorship. Homepage: http://www.iitk.ac.in/bsbe/Sankar.html

Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, Department of Chemical Engineering was selected for the C. V. Seshadri Chair Professorship. Homepage: http://www.iitk.ac.in/che/as.htm

Prof. Nishith Verma, Department of Chemical Engineering was selected for the Raj and Neera Singh Chair Professorship. Homepage: http://www.iitk.ac.in/che/nv.htm

To know more about past and present Chair Professors of IIT Kanpur please visit the link below: http://www.iitk.ac.in/drpg/facultychair.htm

Dr. Dattatraya H. Dethe joined the Department of Chemistry. He obtained his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore.

Dr. Rakesh Kumar joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering. He obtained his PhD from Pennsylvania State University USA.

Dr. Shashi Shekhar Mishra joined the Department of Industrial Management and Engineering. He obtained his PhD from IIM Lucknow.

Dr. Soumik Mukhopadhyay joined the Department of Physics. He obtained his PhD from the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata.

Dr. Raghunath Tewari joined the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. He obtained his PhD from the University of Nebraska Lincoln, USA.

Dr. V. Vanamala joined the Department of Industrial Management and Engineering. She obtained her PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Prof. Ramachandra Rao Dasari Distinguished Lecture: Prof. Paras N. Prasad, Departments of Chemistry, Physics, Electrical Engineering and Medicine, Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics, University at Buffalo and the State University of New York, Buffalo, USA gave two lectures titled Nanophotonics: Controlling the Excitation Dynamics at Nanoscale to Impact on World Energy and Healthcare and Metaphotonics: A new Multidisciplinary Frontier on 15th March 2012.

The first lecture was titled Nanophotonics: Controlling the Excitation Dynamics at Nanoscale to Impact on World Energy and Healthcare. Prof. Prasad said that Nanophotonics deals with the interaction between light and matter on a nanoscale. Its coverage includes size dependence of optical properties in quantum-confined structures, local field enhancement due to plasmonics that leads to enhanced linear and nonlinear optical responses, as well as nano control of excitation dynamics. The development of inorganic, organic and hybrid materials was discussed. In these systems photon-induced excitation dynamics, energy transfer and nonlinear optical interactions can be controlled and photon localization can be manifested. Several applications of these materials were discussed including solar energy conversion, efficient use of UV photons by carrier multiplication derived from multi-excitation generation as well as the harvest of IR photons efficiently by quantum dots and multipods of a narrow band-gap semiconductor. Application of Nanophotonics in biological systems including in nano medicine was discussed. Examples included photodynamic therapy and gene therapy and their impact on a broad range of healthcare challenges covering cancer, neurological diseases, infectious diseases, addictions, obesity and depression was discussed.

His second lecture was on Metaphotonics: A new Multidisciplinary Frontier. Prof. Prasad said that Metaphotonics is a rapidly emerging new direction that deals with the manipulation of electric and magnetic fields and their coupling in nanoengineered materials to control the field distribution and propagation of electromagnetic waves. The application of metaphotonics ranges from photonics communications, to solar energy harvesting, to sensor technology, to biophotonics. Metaphotonics covers a broad scope which includes: Chiro-Optics that describes the coupling of electric and magnetic dipoles in a chiral medium; Magneto-Optics that describes the magnetic control of optical fields and involves cross-coupling between electric and magnetic fields; Magneto-Plasmonics that describes hybrid materials and systems with synergistic magnetic and plasmonic functionality; Plexcitonics involves plasmon-exciton coupling in hybrid metal/organic/inorganic systems to manipulate absorption and emission of organic/inorganic counterpart as well as the plasmonic field distribution; Spin-Photonics describes optical control of magnetization; Switchable/Transformable Materials in which electric, optical, and magnetic fields can be used for the dynamic and reversible control of an optical field as well as for linear and nonlinear optical functions. The talk concluded with a discussion of the various new opportunities in metaphotonics.

About the speaker: Dr. Paras N. Prasad is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Physics, Medicine and Electrical Engineering, the highest rank in the New York State University system. He also holds the Samuel P. Capen Chair at the University at Buffalo and is the Executive Director of the multidisciplinary Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics. Dr. Prasad has published over 500 scientific papers, co-edited six books, and co-authored a monograph (with D. J. Williams), “Introduction to Nonlinear Optical Effects in Molecules and Polymers.” He has published several books such as “Introduction to Biophotonics,” and “Nanophotonics”. Dr. Prasad has won several awards and honours. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America. He is also a recipient of the prestigious Sloan and Guggenheim fellowships. Dr. Prasad has received the Schoellkopf Award of the Western New York American Chemical Society for his academic achievements. He was a recipient of the Morley Prize of the Cleveland Section of the American Chemical Society in 2004.

About the Donor: Dr. Satish Dasari (MD) has instituted the Prof. Ramachandra Rao Dasari Distinguished Lecture in the name of his father who was a former faculty member at IIT K in the Department of Physics from 1962 - 1974. Prof. Dasari is currently Associate Director at MIT’s Spectroscopy Laboratory.

Dr. M. Ramamoorty Distinguished Lecture in Electrical Engineering: Prof. Ajit K. Chattopadhyay, Honorary Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur gave a lecture titled Advances and Recent Trends in Power Electronics Technology on 22nd March 2012. In his talk Prof. Chattopadhyay said that power electronics deals with the conversion, control and conditioning of electrical power in the wide range of mW to GW with the help of switching mode power semiconductor devices. It has gone through dynamic evolution in the last five decades. In this lecture, the importance of power electronics was discussed initially after a brief historical introduction. The recent advances of power semiconductor devices (like high power IGBT, IGCT and IEGT in particular), power converters, variable frequency ac drives and their advanced control methods (like vector and direct torque control) were reviewed briefly. The emerging applications of power electronics in the field of power systems such as FACTS, devices like STATCOM, UPFC, DVR, Active Filters, HVDC, Distributed Generation interfaces with Renewable Energy Sources were also touched upon. The prognosis of different areas were highlighted along with likely trends for future development.

About the Speaker: Prof. Ajit K. Chattopadhyay received his BE in Electrical Engineering from Calcutta University, M Tech degree in Electrical Machines from IIT Kharagpur, and the PhD degree from the University of Manchester, England. Prof. Chattopadhyay joined the Electrical Engineering Department at IIT, Kharagpur in 1960, became a Professor in 1976 and the Head of the Department during 1992-1995. He has authored more than 140 research publications in the field of Electrical Machines, Power Electronics and Electric Drives. He is a Life Fellow of IEEE and a Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering (India), a Life Fellow of IE (I), IETE (I) and of the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology. He has received the Bimal Bose Award (1986), Bharatia Cutler Hammer Prize (1986), Tata Rao Prize of IE (India) (1993) and the Distinguished Alumnus Award (2006) of BESU, Shibpur. He was elected as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. He has co-authored a book titled “Power Quality Improvement in Cycloconverter-fed Systems” published by VDM Verlag, Germany.

About Prof. M. Ramamoorty: Prof. Mylavarapu Ramamoorty joined the faculty of the Electrical Engineering Department at IIT Kanpur in 1967. In 1968, he established the first graduate program in power electronics in India. He left IIT Kanpur in 1977 to spearhead research and development activities in various industry and government institutions. He was instrumental in establishing a number of internationally recognized research and testing laboratories in India. Dr. Ramamoorty authored seven books and more than 200 technical papers and is the recipient of numerous awards from professional bodies.

About the donor: Dr. Shashi M. Kuppa (BT/CE/1985) has instituted a Distinguished Lecture Series in Electrical Engineering in the name of his father Prof. M. Ramamoorty. Dr. Shashi M. Kuppa is currently the chief, Special Vehicle and Systems Division Officer of Crashworthiness Standards, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Department of Transportation, New Jersey, USA.

Dr. R. S. Pandey Distinguished lecture in the Department of Mechanical Engineering: Prof. Jyeshtharaj Bhalchandra Joshi, DAE-Homi Bhabha Chair Professor, Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai gave a lecture titled Dynamics of turbulent flow structures and transport phenomena: implications to equipment design on 22 March, 2012. Most heat transfer equipment are operated in a turbulent regime. The flow patterns in these equipments are complex and are characterized by flow structures (“turbulent eddies”) of a wide range of length and time scales. The accurate quantification of these flow structures is very difficult and hence the present design practices are still empirical. Methods were discussed regarding the age, size, shape and energy content distribution of the flow structures. Consideration of these structure properties is important for the accurate estimation of design parameters such as heat transfer coefficient, mixing efficiency, drag coefficient etc. The flow structure information provides useful insights into the views of earlier established analytical and heuristic theories of heat and mass transfer. These studies have led to novel equipment designs, which have already been implemented in the industry.

About the Speaker: Prof. J. B. Joshi is a Chair Professor of DAE-Homi Bhabha National institute Mumbai, India and is also the J. C. Bose Fellow in the Institute of Chemical Technology Mumbai, India. He did his BE and ME in Chemical Engineering from the University of Mumbai in 1971 and 1972 respectively, followed by a Ph.D. from the same university in 1977. He has several awards to his credit including the INSA young scientist medal in 1981, and the Amar-Dye-Chem Award for Excellence in Research and Development given by the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers in 1983. Prof. Joshi has published over 300 papers and 50 monographs/ book chapters/State-of-the-Art Reviews. Many of Prof. Joshi's designs and products are implemented in the large, medium and small scale industry. He has also taken the initiative to promote science awareness among school going students. His research and teaching interests are in Fluid Mechanics, Multiphase Reactor Design, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Atomic Energy, Solar Energy and Bio-Energy.

About the donor: Dr. R. S. Pandey Distinguished Lectures Series in Mechanical Engineering is supported by Mr. Rakesh Pandey (BT/ME/1978). Under this lecture series, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kanpur organizes one lecture in each semester by a distinguished person. Mr. Pandey is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the IITK Foundation. He joined the foundation in 2006 and served as its Secretary from 2006-09. In 2008, he was elected president of the IITK Alumni Association. He is a Distinguished Research Scientist at Olin College of Engineering and Executive-in-Residence at Northeastern University, USA. Mr. Pandey had a long tenure in Research at the Bose Corporation spanning research, innovation, and product development, business start-up, sales and marketing. He launched and ran Bose's subsidiary in India (1995), started Bose Technology Center in India (2003) and created the Center for University and Industry Research (2008). Mr. Pandey holds a Master's from Penn State University.

Professor C. N. R. Rao Distinguished Lecture: Professor Sanjay Mittal, Department of Aerospace Engineering gave a lecture titled “Using High Performance Computing (HPC) for Understanding Fluid Flows” on 26th March 2012. Prof. Mittal began the lecture with a brief overview of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Then he gave a summary of his group's recent research efforts to understand fluid flows, by using computational tools. Prof. Mittal also discussed his group’s work towards understanding the mechanism of swing and reverse-swing of a cricket ball. Questions such as, 'can a new ball reverse-swing?' were also addressed. In general, Prof. Mittal and his group employ modern stabilized finite element methods for solving the governing equations for fluid flows. They are utilized to compute flows at various Reynolds and Mach numbers including those that involve moving boundaries. Some of the flow problems arise from practical applications while others add to the understanding of certain fundamental issues in fluid mechanics. Most of the applications require large scale computing. To that extent, whereever possible, in-house codes have been parallelized using MPI libraries. Scalability on parallel computers has also been demonstrated. Parallel implementations on the Linux cluster have resulted in super-linear speed-up. One of the several problems that the Mittal group studied is the flow in the air-intake of a high speed engine. A mixed compression intake for a Mach=3 flow is considered. Viscous effects as well as boundary layer bleed are modeled. The buzz instability is observed in certain cases. Both little and big buzz are found. Their frequency is related to the super-harmonics of the intake duct which acts as an open-closed organ pipe. The role of bleed in controlling the buzz oscillations is studied. A brief overview of their work on understanding wakes of bluff bodies was presented.

About the Speaker: Prof. Sanjay Mittal did his B.Tech in Aerospace Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1988. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, USA in 1992. He joined IIT Kanpur as a faculty member in 1994. He has served as the Dean of Academic Affairs of the Institute. He received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 2006. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and of the Indian Academy of Sciences. His research interests include unsteady aerodynamics, laminar separation bubbles on airfoils, aerodynamic shape optimization, fluidstructure interactions, bluff body flows, linear stability analysis, buzz instability in air intakes, aerodynamics of sports balls, train aerodynamics, traffic modeling and high performance computing.

About the Donor: Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao was born on June 30, 1934 in Bangalore. In 1958, he completed his PhD from Purdue University. From 1963-76, he was a Professor of Chemistry at IIT K. During 1984-89, he was the Director of IISC Bangalore. Dr. Rao has published more than 45 books and 1500 research papers with more than 42,000 total citations. Concurrent with his academic excellence, he was appointed as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Indian Prime Minister in 2005. He has won several international prizes and is a foreign member of the US National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Royal Society (London). He has also been given the high honors of Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India. The annual C. N. R. Rao Lecture is supported by a generous donation from Prof. Rao.

Samsonov Memorial International Lecture on Inorganic Materials: Prof. Ir. Eric J. Mittemeijer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany gave a lecture titled Unusual Properties of Nanosized Materials on 26th March, 2012. Prof. Mittemeijer said that the term “nanosized materials” is usually meant to indicate polycrystalline material having grain/crystallite sizes (far) smaller than 100nm. Such materials can occur as powder materials, as thin films, as nanosized second-phase particles in a matrix, etc. A main characteristic of such materials is the very high grain-boundary/interface density. Properties of nanocrystalline materials therefore can be very different from the corresponding bulk materials. Prof. Mittermeijer discussed their recent work which revealed that in the case of Ni, crystallite-size reduction first leads to “normal” (in the above sense) lattice contraction, but upon reducing the crystallite size to about 45 nm or below, an abnormal increase of the lattice parameter occurs. A so-called Gibbs-Thomson effect is believed to be responsible for the stabilization of phases as nanocrystals which as bulk material would be unstable. This effect was demonstrated to occur for iron nitrides upon nitriding a nanocrystalline iron film. Prof. Mittermeijer also talked about the mechanism of unusual grain-growth behaviour of nanocrystalline material, as demonstrated by annealing ball-milled, nanocrystalline, elemental powders. He concluded his talk with a discussion of metal-induced crystallization involving amorphous silicon (a-Si) and nano crystalline aluminum (c-Al). This work is likely to lead to novel routes for the growth of nanostructures.

About the Speaker: Professor Dr. Ir. Eric J. Mittemeijer is currently the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (formerly Max Planck Institute for Metals Research) Stuttgart, and is also a Professor (chair holder) at the Institute for Materials Science at the University of Stuttgart. His research is focussed on the relation between the properties and structure of new materials (e.g. nanomaterials) and, in particular, surface layers, and phase transformations of metastable materials. He has published more than 600 papers in international scientific journals.

Professor G.V. Samsonov (1918-1975): Prof. Grigorii Valentinovich Samsonov was born on 15th February 1918 in a town near Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). After earning his first degree at the Nonferrous Metals Institute in Moscow, he joined the Soviet Navy. At the end of the Second World War, he was stationed in the Soviet occupied zone of Austria. It was here he became interested in the extensive refractory metals and their compounds. After the cessation of the war, Prof. Samsonov returned to Moscow and resumed his higher studies and research under the guidance of Professor M. A. Merson (Institute of Steel and Alloys), a noted powder metallurgist of the then USSR. After completion of his PhD degree, Prof. Samsonov joined the Institute of Metalkeramika (powder metallurgy) in the Ukrainian Academy of Science at Kiev as a senior scientist. The Institute was later renamed “Institute of Materials Problem.” Within a few years, he was elevated to the post of Deputy Director. Simultaneously, he was invited to head the Powder Metallurgy Department of Kiev Institute of Technology. Prof. Samsonov made seminal contributions to the structure-properties-processing-performance relations of inorganic materials such as carbides, nitrides, borides, silicides, germanides, selenides, phosphides. Prof. Samsonov authored nearly 1500 papers. He also authored/edited 50 books and monographs including the seminal book “Configurational Model of Matter”. He has mentored several students who are now spread throughout the world.

About the Donor: Prof. Gopal Shankar Upadhyaya joined the Department of Metallurgical Engineering (now Materials Science and Engineering) at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur as a Professor in the year 1976. Prior to that he was an Associate professor at the University of Roorkee from 1964-1975. He was awarded the doctorate degree from the Kiev Institute of Technology, Ukraine in 1969 under the guidance of the internationally renowned materials scientist Professor G.V. Samsonov. Prof. Upadhyaya has published more than 300 papers and authored/edited 16 books. He has served on the Advisory Boards of practically all the major conferences and journals in powder metallurgy. Prof. Upadhyaya's past graduate and doctorate students are actively engaged in powder metallurgy research and industry. After retiring from IIT Kanpur (in 2001), Prof. Upadhyaya currently resides in Varanasi. This lecture has been instituted by him in honour of Prof. G. V. Samsonov.

Professor Jagadishwar Mahanty Distinguished Lecture Series in Physics: Professor Madan Rao, Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore and National Centre for Biological Sciences (TIFR), Bangalore gave a lecture titled “Active Cell Mechanics and Information Processing” on 30th March, 2012. Prof. Rao spoke of the cell as an organized collection of molecules that interact with each other: a chemical engine subject to physical laws. Essential to the physics of the living cell is that molecules that move around in the cellular environment are subject to forces that arise from energy-consuming active processes. He pointed out that the collective behavior, fluctuations and mechanical response of active matter are fundamentally different from ordinary matter. In addition, molecules in the living cell are carriers of information. The living cell manages the organization and flow of information by means of active mechanical stresses generated within it. Prof. Rao said that this has dramatic consequences for the spatiotemporal regulation of chemical reactions in the cell. He also discussed some recent ideas on how this allows the cell to solve an optimization problem in information processing. This thus brings together two apparently unconnected seminal papers of A. Turing.

About the speaker: Prof. Madan Rao is a well-known name in the fields of theoretical Condensed Matter Physics, Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics and Biological Physics. He obtained his PhD from IISc, Bangalore. Prof. Rao joined RRI, Bangalore, in 1994 and he is currently a professor there. He is also an adjunct professor at NCBS (TIFR), Bangalore. Prof. Rao has published numerous research papers during his illustrious research career. In recognition of his pioneering contribution to the fields of theoretical condensed matter physics and biological physics, he was awarded the prestigious Swarnajayanti grant, the B. M. Birla science award in Physics and also the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award. He is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.

About the Donor: Prof. Jagadishwar Mahanty Lecture Series in Physics has been instituted by Dr. Siddharth Mahanty in memory of his father, Prof. Jagdishwar Mahanty, who was a faculty member in the Physics Department at IIT Kanpur from 1961-1972. He made important contributions to Condensed Matter Physics, particularly, to the study of many body physics, lattice dynamics, van-der-Waals interactions and the electronic structure of solids. He was instrumental in shaping the Physics department during its infancy. In 1972, he joined the prestigious Australian National University and superannuated from there in July 1995 due to ill health.

Professor Ian Angell, Professor Emeritus, London School of Economics gave a lecture titled “Science's First Mistake: Delusions in pursuit of Theory” on 4th January, 2012. In his talk, Prof. Angell pointed out the conceit of modernism and scientism that is grounded in the arrogance of scientific certainty. The message of his book 'Science's First Mistake' is that understanding through scientific theory, and application via its methods, can never expose the real nature of reality. Indeed there is no such thing as 'understanding', only mere description through observation. Science's First Mistake is to forget that its abstractions do not deal with reality. Rather, its models and theories are 'unnatural in nature' and artificial, and indeed quite absurd when viewed from outside of Science. As a controversial postscript, and although an agnostic himself, Angell argued that the arguments of atheists like Richard Dawkins are logically indefensible, and that religion is every bit as relevant as Science for day-to-day living, probably more so.

About the speaker: Ian Angell was Professor of Information Systems at the London School of Economics for twenty-five years, where he taught courses on technological innovation and its implications. He is a forecaster of the socio-political and business consequences of Information and Communication Technologies, with over four decades of research experience into the impact of computerization on society. On his early retirement in September 2011, he was made Professor Emeritus at LSE. He now divides his time between research, consulting, lecturing worldwide, writing books and articles, and supporting the Alumnus Office at LSE.

Prof. Jagadish Shukla, Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences (AOES), George Mason University, USA and President, Institute of Global Environment & Society (IGES) gave a lecture titled “Global Warming: Science, Politics, Ethics and Policy” on 14th February 2012. Prof. Shukla's lecture had three parts. The first part reviewed our current understanding of the mechanisms for weather and climate variations, and showed some evidence for predictability in the midst of chaos. The second part showed comprehensive evidence from observations and models presented by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change that global warming is real and caused by human activities. The third part examined the role of science and politics in ethical choices and policy options for adaptation to, and mitigation of, the impacts of climate change. Uncertainty in predicting changes in the Indian monsoon in a changing climate, and India's contributions to greenhouse gas emissions were also discussed.

About the speaker: Prof. Jagadish Shukla was one of the lead authors of the 2007 report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Al Gore. He is a recipient of several other honours and awards including the Padmashree by the Government of India ,the International Meteorological Organization (IMO) Prize, the Rossby Medal and the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal of NASA. He is also an elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. Prof. Shukla has made contributions to the science of meteorology and to the global society through fundamental scientific advances, institution building, and international cooperation in meteorology for the betterment of humankind. He has made significant contributions to the understanding of the predictability of weather and climate including the Asian monsoon dynamics, deforestation and climate change. His research has established that there is predictability in the midst of chaos and that there is a scientific basis for short-term climate prediction.

The XVI International Workshop on the Physics of Semiconductor Devices: The XVI International Workshop on the Physics of Semiconductor Devices was organized at IIT Kanpur by IIT Kanpur and the Semiconductor Society of India from 19th – 22nd December 2011. This workshop provided a valuable forum for interaction between scientists and technologists working in the area of semiconductor materials and devices. The topics that were covered in this workshop were Optoelectronics, VLSI and ULSI Technology, Nanotechnology and Emerging Areas, MEMS and Sensors, Device Modelling and Simulation, High Frequency/Power Devices, Photovoltaics, Organic Electronics, Display and Lighting.

Conference on tropical rivers: A three-day conference on “Tropical Rivers: hydro-physical processes, impacts, hazards and management” was held from 5th to 7th January 2012 as a part of the International Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP) project IGCP 582. This conference, organised by Prof Rajiv Sinha, focused on long-term, as well as short term direct impacts of human-induced change and climate variability and management of tropical river basins. There were talks on identification, quantification and modeling of key hydro-geomorphologic indicators during the past and present times. The potential impacts of global change on river systems and their socio-economic implications were also discussed. During the conference there was also a day-long field excursion along the banks of the Ganga river which are characterized by 10-15 meters high excellent cliff sections exposing alluvial stratigraphy for a time span of 30 ka. A visit to the Ganga barrage at Kanpur was also organised and the large scale human induced change in the course of the Ganga for the construction of the barrage was discussed. A number of scientists and researchers took part in the conference including Prof. Vinod Gaur, a noted scientist from CSIR's Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation, Bangalore, Prof. S. K. Tandon, Department of geology, University of Delhi, Dr. Snighha Ghatak, Geological Survey of India, and Dr. Vikrant Jain, department of geology, University of Delhi.

ISEC 2012, the 5th India Software Engineering Conference, an annual event of the Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSE) under the umbrella of the Computer Society of India, was held at IIT Kanpur during 22nd to 25th February, 2012. The conference brought together researchers and practitioners from across the world to share the results of their work. There was also a session in which the best paper award winning papers of FSE (Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering) and ICSE (International Conference on Software Engineering), were presented by the authors. Prof. Nenad Medvidovic' of the Computer Science Department, University of Southern California, and Prof. Pankaj Jalote, Director, IIIT Delhi were the keynote speakers of the conference. The conference had 125 participants from across the world. The general chairs of the conference were Prof. T V Prabhakar and Prof. Sanjeev K. Aggarwal, both of IIT Kanpur.

The 47th Inter IIT Sports Meet was held from 21st to 25th December 2011 at IIT Kharagpur which is celebrating its Diamond Jubilee. The various competitive events were Athletics (100m, 200m, 400m, 1500m, High Jump, Long Jump, Shot Put, Discus Throw, Javelin Throw, Hammer Throw, 4x100m Relay), Basketball, Football, Volleyball, Badminton, Cricket, Lawn Tennis, Table Tennis and Throw-ball (Tennis ball) and Badminton for women. In this Meet IIT Kanpur bagged gold medals in cricket and badminton, silver medals in table tennis and basket ball and bronze medals in the march past, volley ball and athletics. IIT Kanpur secured third position in this meet while the home team, IIT Kharagpur won the General Championship.

Techkriti, the annual technical and entrepreneurial festival of IIT Kanpur, was organized from 27th to 30th January, 2012. The theme for this year's festival was “technology for the future” and an event to help solve the common man's problem through technology titled “SocCon: The Social Conquest” was launched as the flagship event of Techkriti'12. Talent on full throttle from colleges all around the globe participated in about 40 different events. Continuing the legacy of an unparalleled reputation from the past years Techkriti hosted a multitude of events like IDEAS - which became the 1st B-Plan Competition in India where 9 out of 10 finalists were funded and incubated, Robogames, Take-Off, ECDC, International online programming competition (IOPC) - which saw a record 844 teams participating and 7 out of the 10 top teams belonged to international universities, Indian Open Rubik's Cube Challenge – which lead to the creation of 3 National Records, Software Corner, Junkyard Wars and many more which explored all possible arenas of Technology as well as Entrepreneurship.
In the talks and exhibition section, Techkriti had some of the most renowned personalities like Richard Stallman; Founder, GNU; Rollo Carpenter; creator, Cleverbot; Victor Hayes, the father of Wi-Fi; Chris Phillip; the invisible man; Deepak Mohanty, Executive director, RBI; Jack Gallant, pioneer in mind reading; Sanjoy Mahajan, street fighting mathematician; Philip Leduc, creator of the world's smallest fuel cell and many more. Entrepreneurs' Enclave, a flagship initiative by Techkriti'12, provided a unique platform for the amalgamation of ideas of ingenious startups and noteworthy venture capitalists

Exhibitions at Techkriti'12 were a splendid display of the latest in technology from all over the world. International exhibitions this year featured City Cluster Avatart (a virtual reality system for networking between cities from Italy), Rezero (world's first ball-bot from Switzerland) and PaPeRo (emotionally intelligent robots from Australia) among others. Apart from these, two new adhoc segments were introduced this year- inhouse exhibits which showcased IIT Kanpur's indigenous research and Indian Techies which had the desi innovators showing off their inventions.

Every night in Techkriti'12 there was a professional show to help everybody unwind after the technical and entrepreneurial rigors of the day. The festival was opened by Spontaneous Fantasia- a real time 3D animation show by J-Walt - a graphic artist from Los Angeles. The revelry continued on the second night with performances by Art4Dance- a group of professional acrobats from different corners of the world. This show consisted of Silk Acrobatics, LED Robot Dance and a fire show. The third night featured a Hand Shadowgraphy act by the world renowned artist Mr. Amar Sen. The festival ended with a mesmerizing live concert by Kailash Kher. The soulful master singer had the crowd of students from all over India swaying to some his most popular songs and still left everybody wanting more.

Professor Mullick passed away on 15th February, 2012. Prof. Mullick was born on 7th July, 1935 in Punjab. He had his education in Calcutta where he completed M.Sc. (Electronics) in 1958 from Calcutta University. Subsequently he was an associate lecturer at IIT Kharagpur from 1959 to 1962 in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering. He obtained his PhD from Cornell University in June 1965 and joined the IBM System development Division. Prof. Mullick joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kanpur in 1967. He superannuated in 1995. Professor Mullick is survived by his wife Smt. Uma Mullick, one son and a daughter.

Professor Lalita Sarkar passed away on 8th February 2012 after being unwell for a couple of months. Prof. Sarkar was born on the 8th August 1936. She obtained her PhD from the University of British Columbia (Canada) subsequent to which she joined IIT K as a lecture in 1967. She superannuated in 1996, was reemployed and finally retired on the 30th June 1997. Prof. Sarkar, who was one of the early faculty members in the Physics Department, played a major role in shaping the Department as well as the curriculum. Together with her husband, Prof. Basant Sarkar who was faculty member in the Electrical Engineering Department, she strove for a just society within the campus, especially for the many underprivileged workers of those times who were without any assurance of their continued livelihood. Prof. Sarkar is survived by her son Arnab.

Professor Pandey passed away after a phase of ill health in Bhopal on 20th February, 2012. Prof. Arun Chandra Pandey was born in Faizabad, U.P. in September 1936. He completed his M.A. in Linguistics from Lucknow University in 1963. Prof. Pandey joined as a faculty member in English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in May 1964. In the late 1960s he spent some time in UCLA, USA on a KIAP (Kanpur Indo-American Program) fellowship, and returned in 1970 with a certificate in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). Thereafter, he pursued his Ph.D.in Linguistics and obtained his doctoral degree in 1979. He continued as a faculty member at IIT Kanpur until 1994, at which time he took voluntary retirement. Dr. Pandey is survived by his wife Smt. Rajni Pandey, and a son.

Shri Sanjeev Kashalkar, Registrar, IIT Kanpur passed away on 10th March, 2012 at a private hospital in Gurgaon following a brief illness. Shri Kashalkar was suffering from heart ailments for the last one month. Shri Kashalkar was born on 13th June 1955 at Allahabad. He completed his BA and MBA from Allahabad University. Thereafter, he obtained a PG Diploma in Foreign Trades from IIFT New Delhi, and an LLB from Allahabad University. Prior to joining IIT Kanpur as Registrar in 2005, Shri Kashalkar worked in various places like the Gramophone Company of India Limited, Kolkata, Al Shirawi Group in Dubai (UAE), Bhawani Paper Mill Limited, Allahabad, as Administrator, Kamla Nehru Memorial Hospital, Allahabad and at Harish Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad as its Registrar. Recently Shri Kashalkar had visited Japan, USA and Germany as a member of a delegation on behalf of the government of India. Shri Kashalkar is survived by his father, wife, one daughter and one son.

The Institute expresses its deepest condolences to the bereaved families of Prof. Mullick, Prof. Pandey, Prof. Sarkar and Shri Kashalkar and prays for the peace of the departed souls.

Published by: Office of the Dean, Resource Planning & Generation, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur-208 016, India
Phone: + 91-512-259 7635/ 7542 Fax: +91-512- 259 0353 Email – drpg@iitk.ac.in, arrpg@iitk.ac.in

Homecoming

Support from Alumni and Friends