Institute Milestone

New Scholarships

New Faculty Members

Distinguished Lectures

Institute Lectures

Workshops / Conferences

Staff Sports Meet

Student Sports Meet

Institute Milestone

Solar Energy Research Enclave at IIT Kanpur: The idea of tapping the energy from the sun has always had great potential but for close to three decades now, all efforts for the large scale utilization of solar energy have run into problems. Amongst the many obstacles are the high cost of technology, the problems of energy storage and the distribution of solar power, and the daily/seasonal variability of solar resource. In the present initiative, the Solar Energy Research Enclave (SERE), comprising a group of faculty members at IITK, addresses these challenges under four broad research themes viz., solar energy capture, distribution, storage, and economics and policy. Their immediate concerns are to:

• Establish a technology demonstrator 1 MW (peak) solar power station in two phases. It will supplement the electricity requirement of the IITK campus during the day time (8 hrs) and thus help in reducing its dependence on grid power. This will also generate useful data for the future implementation of such projects in the region.
• Develop modules in the solar power station that will be used for research and will serve as test platforms for large scale solar energy technologies.
• Initiate new and augment the existing programs for long term research and development in solar power generation, storage, distribution, management and policy making in the institute.
• Provide practical input for graduate and undergraduate teaching programs. In addition, it will serve as a training and human resource development centre in the area of renewable energy.
• Increase the awareness of green technologies amongst the public.

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Suman Gupta Scholarship: Prof. S. K. Gupta (Ph.D/MTH/1966) an alumnus and former faculty member of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics (1964 - 2002) has instituted a scholarship in memory of his wife Late Mrs. Suman Gupta. The scholarship will be given to a 5th year student of M.Sc (Integrated) in Mathematics, on the basis of 4th year CPI.

Suman Gupta Gold Medal: Prof. S. K. Gupta (Ph.D/MTH/1966) an alumnus and former faculty member of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics (1964 - 2002) has instituted an award in memory of his wife Late Mrs. Suman Gupta. The award will be in the form of a Gold Medal which will be given to a graduating student in M.Sc (Integrated) Mathematics and Scientific Computing with the highest CPI in the class.

Suman Gupta Fellowship for Foreign Language Teacher: Prof. S. K. Gupta (Ph.D/MTH/1966) an alumnus and former faculty member of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics (1964 - 2002) has instituted a fellowship for a foreign language teacher, in honour of his wife Late Mrs. Suman Gupta. Mrs. Gupta was the German language teacher at the institute during 1970 -2000.

Shanti and Ramkishore Sahai Saxena Memorial Scholarship: Mr. Ashok Saxena (BT/ME/70) and Mrs. Madhu Saxena have instituted a scholarship in the name of Smt. Shanti and Shri Ramkishore Sahai. This scholarship will be awarded to a first year undergraduate student on a merit-cum-means basis.

Prof. Putcha Venkateswarlu Memorial Gold Medal: Prof. G. N. Rao, former faculty member of the Department of Physics (1965 - 1989) has instituted an award in memory of Prof. Putcha Venkaleswarlu (former faculty member of the Department of Physics, (1961 - 1981). The award will be in the form of a Gold Medal and will be awarded to the top undergraduate student in all engineering and science disciplines.

Prof. Burton J. Moyer Memorial Gold Medal: Prof. G. N. Rao, former faculty member of the Department of Physics (1965 - 1989) has instituted an award in memory of Prof. Burton J. Moyer. Prof. Moyer was a visiting Professor at IITK from University of California, Berkeley during 1965 - 1966. He had contributed significantly to the Physics curriculum, Central Nuclear Laboratories and IITK in general. The award will be in the form of a Gold Medal and will be awarded to the top M.Sc (both integrated and 2 year programs) student graduating the same year with a major in Physics.

Mrs. and Mr. S. N. Mittal Gold Medal: Prof. A. K. Mittal of the Department of Industrial Management and Engineering has instituted an award in memory of his parents Mrs. and Mr. S. N. Mittal. The award will be in the form of a Gold Medal and will be given to the best all rounderof the graduating batch of the Management Program .

Shri Bihari Lal Srivastava and Smt. Nalini Srivastava Memorial Scholarship: Mr. Chandra Mohan Srivastava (BT/CHE/1965) has instituted a merit-cum-means scholarship in the name of Shri Bihari Lal Srivastava and Smt. Nalini Srivastava.

Best Project Award: Mr. Ravi S. Bhagavatula (M.Sc5/Phy/1989) has instituted an award to be given to the student with the best project in the graduating batch of the Department of Physics.

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Prof. Manindra Agrawal, Deptartment of Computer Science and Engineering, has been selected for the G.D. Birla Award 2009 and the Rajib Goyal Prize for Young Scientist-2007 in physical sciences. http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/manindra/
Dr. Kantesh Balani, Deptartment of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, has been selected for the Dr. R. L. Thakur Memorial Award-2009. http://home.iitk.ac.in/~kbalani
Dr. Surender Baswana, Deptartment of Computer Science and Engineering, has been selected for the INAE Young Engineer Award 2009. http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/sbaswana/
Dr. Shantanu Bhattacharya, Deptartment of Mechanical Engineering, has been chosen for the IEI Young Engineers Award 2009. http://home.iitk.ac.in/~bhattacs
Dr. P. K. Bharadwaj, Deptartment of Chemistry, has been conferred the prestigious J. C. Bose fellowship. http://www.iitk.ac.in/chm/CHM/facultyinorg.htm
Dr. S. Ganesh, Deptartment of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, has been awarded the B. M. Birla Science Prize in Biology for the year 2008. http://www.iitk.ac.in/bsbe/Ganesh.html
Dr. Tarun Gupta, Deptartment of Civil Engineering, has received the INAE Young Engineer Award 2009. http://www.iitk.ac.in/ce/CIVIL/faculty/tarun/tarun.htm
Prof. Dipak Mazumdar, Deptartment of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, has been selected for the G. D. Birla Gold Medal 2009. http://home.iitk.ac.in/~dipak/
Dr. Balaji Prakash, Deptartment of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, has been awarded the DBT-National Bioscience Award for 2009. http://www.iitk.ac.in/bsbe/Balaji.html
Dr. Jayant K. Singh, Deptartment of Chemical Engineering, has been selected for the INAE Young Engineer Award 2009. http://www.iitk.ac.in/che/jks.htm
Dr. Anish Upadhyaya, Deptartment of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, has been selected for the 2009 Metallurgist of the Year Award. http://home.iitk.ac.in/~anish
Prof. Y. D. Vankar, Deptartment of Chemistry, has been elected as a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy. http://www.iitk.ac.in/chm/CHM/facultyorg.htm
Prof. Sandeep Verma, Deptartment of Chemistry, has been elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.iitk.ac.in/chm/CHM/facultyorg.htm

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Mr. R. S. Pandey Distinguished Lecture: Dr. L. M. Gantayet, career scientist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre gave a talk titled, "Interdisciplinary approach to development of innovative technologies" on 9th November, 2009. For the past decade and a half he has been leading the programme of laser isotope separation of various isotopes of interest, particularly in the deployment of the thorium fuel cycle and in medicine.
In his lecture Dr. Gantayet dwelt on many advanced innovative technologies which not only provide a key to fulfilling the basic needs of mankind in diverse areas such as energy conversion, materials, food and construction, but which also meet the challenges of resource depletion and environmental safety. He said that technologies with a potential to address the requirements of future generations for a century or more should necessarily be founded on a comprehensive science and technology base with a multidisciplinary approach. A large number of engineering and science disciplines are involved in the designing, building and operating of steel plants of several million tonne capacities, super thermal power plants, or huge petrochemical plants. A prominent example of an interdisciplinary approach is the development of nuclear technology, which utilizes inputs from every conceivable area of science and technology. Interdisciplinary approaches to the building of large accelerator machines and compact laser systems were also discussed.

Prof. Hari Sahasrabuddhe lecture: Prof. Barbara Liskov, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), MIT, gave a talk titled "The Power of Abstraction" on 29th January, 2010. She leads the Programming Methodology Group at MIT, with a current research focus on Byzantine fault tolerance and distributed computing. The contributions of Prof. Liskov include the design and implementation of CLU, a programming language that significantly influenced the development of object-oriented programming; of Argus, the first high-level language to support the implementation of distributed programs; and of Thor, an object-oriented database system. With Prof. Jeannette M. Wing, Department of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, she developed a particular definition of subtyping, commonly known as the Liskov substitution principle. Prof. Liskov is recipient of the "Alan M. Turing Award" for the year 2008, for her contribution to practical and theoretical foundations of programming language and system design, especially related to data abstraction, fault tolerance, and distributed computing.
In her talk Prof. Liskov said that science encompasses the finding of the right interface for a system, as well as the finding of an effective design for its implementation. Abstraction is the basis for program construction, allowing programs to be built in a modular fashion. She also discussed how the abstraction mechanisms that we use today came into being and how they are supported in programming languages. Some possible areas for future research were also identified.

Mr. R. S. Pandey Distinguished Seminar: Prof. N. H. Ravindranath, Centre for Sustainable Technologies at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, gave a talk titled, "Climate change: Science, technology and policy issues" on 1st February 2010. His main areas of research include climate change, forests and energy. He is a member of the Science and Technology Advisory Panel for the Global Environmental Facility of UNFCCC and is also a consultant for UNFCCC on greenhouse gas inventory.
In his talk Prof. Ravindranath said that climate change is one of the biggest environmental and developmental challenges facing humanity, one which has received unprecedented attention before, during and after the Copenhagen Climate Change Convention. He discussed questions like: What is the latest on climate science, technology and policy fronts? What was expected from the Copenhagen Convention and what was achieved? What are the implications of the Copenhagen Accord? Then he went on to discuss the contentious issues related to climate change, such as the role of science and the IPCC in the context of the evolving global and national response to climate change. Prof. Ravindranath concluded his lecture with a discussion of the big challenges and opportunities for India and Indian science.

Prof. Joseph John, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kanpur gave a lecture titled, "Internet Based Experiments: Exploring a New Paradigm in Distance Education" on 21st October, 2009.
He said that the internet forms one of the core foundations of a successful information technology-based society. Computer-aided data acquisition, web-based experiments, virtual instrumentation and control applications have been areas of interest in recent years. Also, researchers along with educational groups have been working for the of development of remote control systems suitable for classroom teaching. Technology enhanced learning is slowly becoming a part of the academic courses of universities and academic institutions.
During his lecture, he gave a live demonstration of a few virtual laboratory experiments which have been developed under a pilot project sanctioned by the MHRD. The project encompasses real-time data acquisition and processing, its online transmission to multiple users logged on to their respective web-browsers, and real time control of the experimental parameters from remote stations over the web. Thus an interactive academic platform has been envisioned which will open up a new paradigm of training, education and research in engineering sciences.

Dr. K. N. Shankara, the Satish Dhawan Professor at ISRO Headquarters, Bangalore, gave a lecture titled, "Chandrayaan-1 and Beyond" on 1st November, 2009. Dr. Shankara was awarded the Padmashri by the Government of India for his contributions to the field of satellite technology in 2004. He was also awarded the ISRO/DOS Distinguished Award for his contribution towards the first Indian satellite, Aryabhatta.
In his talk, he gave an introduction to the Chandrayaan-1 mission of ISRO and also a description of the Indian and foreign payloads carried by it. He also spoke of the possibilities of the commercialization of lunar missions, of the use of lunar helium as a safe energy source for the 21st century and of the recent discovery of water on the moon. He presented the hypothesis for the origin of water on the moon and concluded with a description of NASA's Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission.

Mr. Arvind Kumar Gupta (BT/EE/1975), a distinguished alumnus, gave a lecture titled, "Trash toTreasure" under NERD's SCoPE Talk Series on 3rd January, 2010. Mr. Gupta, joined TELCO, Pune after graduation and worked there for a few years, then took one year's study leave to work with the grassroot village level science teaching programme for children in the tribal district of Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh. During this period, he developed many useful low-cost teaching/science teaching aids by using locally available materials. The possibility of using ordinary things for doing science and recycling modern junk into joyous products appealed immensely to children. The outstanding contribution of Mr. Gupta in designing teaching aids for young children has been recognized by several national and international organizations.
During his lecture he demonstrated these aids to the audience, constructing dozens of toys like tone-changing flutes, whirling thread rings, wall-climbing critters etc. with a small plastic box full of things like thread, buttons, scissors, straws, matchboxes, marbles, empty ball pen-refills, and other throwaway items. For details visit: www.arvindguptatoys.com

Sir Anthony J. Leggett, Nobel Laureate in Physics, gave a talk titled, "Does the everyday world really obey quantum mechanics?" on 4th February, 2010. Prof. Leggett is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Chair and Centre for Advanced Study Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is widely recognized as a world leader in the theory of low-temperature physics. His pioneering work on superfluidity was recognized by the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics.
In his talk he said that quantum mechanics has been enormously successful in describing nature at the atomic level, and most physicists believe that it is in principle the whole "truth" about the world even at the everyday level. However, such a view prima facie leads to a severe problem: in certain circumstances, the most natural interpretation of the theory implies that no definite outcome of an experiment occurs until the act of "observation". For many decades this problem was regarded as "merely philosophical", in the sense that it was thought that it had no consequence which could be tested by experiment. However, in the last dozen or so years the situation has changed very dramatically in this respect. Then he went on to discuss the problem, some popular "resolutions" of it, the current experimental situation and prospects for the future.

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The Indian Conference on Cosmology and Galaxy Formation (ICCGF 09) was held from 30th October to 1st November. ICCGF is a national conference which was organized this year by IIT Kanpur as part of its Golden Jubilee Celebrations. The aim of the conference was to bring together some of the leading physicists of India, working in cosmology and related areas, to discuss the latest developments in these fields. For details visit: http://www.iitk.ac.in/phy/web2006/ICCGF2009/index.html

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  Inter-IIT Staff Sports Meet was held from 20th - 23rd December 2009 at IIT Kanpur. Prof. Sanjay G. Dhande inaugurated the event. The Meet had the eight most popular sports in the country - Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Cricket, Table Tennis, Volleyball, Tennis, Football and a demo event of Chess, in both individual and team based categories. IIT Kharagpur won the General Championship with IIT Kanpur bagging the silver in the overall championship. IIT Kanpur won the championship in both Badminton and Basketball. It stood high not only in sports but also in being a good and caring host. The prizes were distributed by the Deputy Director, Prof. R. K. Thareja. During this Meet, the well known folk singer Mrs. Malini Awasthi enthralled the campus community with Avadhi and Bhojpuri songs.

Inter IIT Sports Meet, was held from 11th - 18th December 2009 at IIT Kanpur. Prof. S. G. Dhande inaugurated the Meet. This event coincided with the inauguration of the new indoor sports complex. This complex has world class facilities for various sports. It fulfills the requirements of new sports and will help in the smooth conducting of the Inter IIT Sports Meet. It is situated in front of hall of residence VIII, near the football field. An Inter-IIT Aquatics Meet is held separately as part of the main Meet each year preceding the main Inter-IIT Sports Meet. The General Championship is awarded on the basis of the combined performance in the two Meets. This year's Inter- IIT Sports Meet will be remembered with pride in the history of IITK not only because it was hosting the event after a gap of 8 years but also because the IITK contingent performed better than ever before and stood 3rd in the Men's General Championship Tally for the first time in 45 long years of Inter IIT meets. The IITK Girls continued to perform well and in spite of injuries to important players, stood 2nd in the Women's General Championship Tally. Chess and Squash were conducted as demo events.

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