Campus Diary - February 2001















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Republic Day Honours

Prof. S.P. Sukhatme, Professor, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering has been honoured with the "Padmashri" in the year 2001's Republic Day honours list for distinguished service in the field of Science and Engineering.

Prof. Sukhatme did his Sc. D. (Doctor of Science) from M.I.T in the year 1964. He joined IIT Bombay as Assistant Professor in the Mech. Engg. Department and was Director, IITB from the year 1995 to 2000. At present he is Chairman, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.

He was elected Fellow to some of the prestigious Academies like the Indian Academy of Sciences (1986), Indian National Academy of Engineering (1987), Indian National Science Academy (1995). The prestigious "S. S. Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology" was conferred upon Prof. Sukhatme for his distinguished service in the discipline of Engineering Sciences in the year 1983

Another IITian featured in the honours list is Dr. Arun N. Netravali, Presidet, Research AT & T Bell Laboratories, USA, who will be conferred with the "Padma Bhushan" for distinguished service in Science and Engineering.

Dr. Netravali received the B. Tech (Honours) degree from IIT Bombay in 1967 and the M.S and Ph. D. degrees from Rice University, Houston Texas in 1969 and 1970 respectively, all in Electrical Engineering. Dr. Netravali is a member of the United States National Academy. He was awarded the Alexander Graham Bell Medal in 1991, the OCA National Corporate Employee Achievement Award in 1991, and Engineer of the Year Award from the Association of Engineers from India in 1992. In the year 1996, Dr. Netravali was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award by IIT Bombay.

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AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

Dr. Suparna Mukherji, Asst. Professor, Center for Environmental Science and Engineering has been offered the AICTE Career Award for Young Teachers for the year 2000. The Award is for a period of 3 years, and carries with it the full salary along with an additional grant up to Rs. 3,00,000 for personal development and research.

Prof. Anil K. Singh, Department of Chemistry has been elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences.

Prof. A. W. Date, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been elected as the Fellow of Indian Academy of Engineering.

Prof. U. B. Desai, Department of Electrical Engineering, has been elected Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) by the Governing Council in recognition of his distinguished contributions to "Engineering".

The paper titled "Building Social Capital: Collective Action, Adoption of Agricultural Innovations, and Poverty Reduction in the Indian Semi-Arid Tropics" by D. Parthasarathy, Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and V. K. Chopde, ICRISAT, Hyderabad, has been awarded the second place medal at the Global Development Network Conference held at Tokyo during 10-13 December 2000. The award comprises of a citation and a cash award of US $5000.

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Campus Student Honoured on the Republic Day

Ms. Madhura Sane, daughter of Prof. S. Sane, Dept. of Aerospace Engg. and Mrs. Sulabha Sane, Accounts Section, was invited by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Govt. of India, to witness the Republic Day Parade 2001 from the Prime Minister’s Box at Rajpath. The honour is given to University School toppers.

Ms. Sane, who studied at the J.J. College of Architecture, Mumbai, acquired the top position in B. Arch. examination held in April 2000 and was awarded the Gold Medal of the University of Mumbai along with 6 other awards.

Madhura Sane was a student of Kendriya Vidyalaya, IIT Powai and attended the Junior College at the Campus School, IIT Powai.

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STUDENT AWARDS / DISTINCTIONS

Mr. A. V. Jayanthan, research scholar working under the supervision of Prof. J. K. Verma, Dept. of Mathematics has been chosen by the Selection Committee as a winner of the C. L. Chandna Award for the year 2000.

Mr. Mayank Gupta and Mr. Deepak Kumar, final year B. Tech Students, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, have won a national level award for their Electronic Hardware Design in “The 31st All India Student Design Competition”, organized by the National Design Forum, Institution of Engineers (India). The award comprised of a Gold Medal. Their project consisted of Voice Control for Prosthetic Arm to be used by disabled persons.

Mr. Amit Batra, 4th year Dual Degree student, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering presented a paper entitled “Effect of Inlet Distortion, Co-swirl, and Counter-Swirl on Axial Compressor / Fan Performance” at the 5th National Conference on Air Breathing Engines and Aerospace Propulsion (NCABE 2000) held at DRDL, Hyderabad during 21-23 December 2000.

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VISITORS

Ms. Baroness Tessa Blackstone, State Minister for Education and Employment, Government of UK visited IIT Bombay on 2nd January and met the Director, Prof. Ashok Misra, Prof. S. C. Lakkad, Dy. Director, Prof. M. S. C. Bose, Dean (A.P), Prof. S. Suryanarayan, Dean (R&D) and the Registrar, Shri. D. K. Ghosh.

A 10-member Exploratory Mission of an Italian Scientific Delegation visited IIT Bombay on January 17th and had a meeting with Prof. S. L. Narayana Murthy, Dean (RM), Prof. S. Biswas, Head, Dept. of CSE, Prof. D. B. Phatak, Head, KReSIT and Prof. D. M. Dhamdhere, Dept. of CSE. This Exploratory Mission was arranged by the Ministry of Science and Technology, New Delhi.

The Sub-Committee on Technical Education, Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development visited IIT Bombay on the 5th January 2001 and held meetings with the Director, Dy. Director and the Deans. They were provided a brief overview of the workings of the IIT Bombay, Academic programmes, R & D activities, Future Projections for IIT B and Networking with other Institutes.

Prof. Alex Pentland of MIT Media Labs, USA visited IIT B on the 27th January 2001 and met the Director, Prof. Ashok Misra and Prof. D. B. Phatak, Head, KReSIT.

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Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony

The Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony of "The Girish Gaitonde Lecture Hall Complex" was held on 2nd January 2001 where the Chief Guests were Shri Girish Gaitonde and Mrs. Latika Jayawant Gaitonde. Shri Gaitonde has donated generously towards this project.

The Wadhvani Electronics Laboratory was also inaugurated along with the above in the Electrical Engg. Department.

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"Laboratory for Intelligent Internet Research" Inaugurated

Mr. S. Ramadorai, CEO of TCS, inaugurated the IIT-TCS Laboratory for Intelligent Internet Research on the 8th January 2001.

The IIT-TCS Laboratory is a collaborative venture between the Computer Science and Engineering Department at IIT Bombay and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), through its R&D center, TRDDC. Its goal is to make the Internet more intelligent, so as to better harness its capabilities.

Prof. Ashok Misra, Director, IIT Bombay. Profs. Krithi Ramamrithan, Pushpak Bhattacharya and Soumen Chakrabarti of Computer Science & Engg. Dept. also spoke on the occassion.

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FACULTY NEWS

Dr Rowena Robinson, HSS Department was invited to give a talk on `Religion, Caste and Language' at the Indian Sociological Conference held during 29th to 31st December 2000 at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala

Dr. J. C. Mandal, Associate Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering visited Mechanics Department, RWTH Aachen, University of Technology, Aachen, Germany during 27 Nov - 30 Dec 2000 as a guest scientist and delivered the following two guest lectures:

(i) Computations of flows inside calandria of a nuclear reactor,
(ii) A new multigrid method for Euler equations.

Prof. S. Mukherji, Bio-medical Engineering and Prof. Arunkumar, Computer Science and Engineering participated and gave lectures at the Symposium on Information Technology and Medicine, which was held on 12th January 2001 at Mumbai.

Prof. Dhanesh N. Manik, Mechanical Engineering, gave an invited talk on "Designing Quieter Diesel Engines" at the International Symposium on "Quiet Technology", held at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore from December 12-14 2000.

Prof. Pushpak Bhattacharyya, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering visited the European Head Quarters of the United Nations at Geneva and presented the work done on “Machine Translation in the fifth Universal Networking Language (UNL) Symposium held during 16-18th January 2001. The highlight of the symposium was one of the keynote speeches, which was made by Prof. M. G. K. Menon, Chairman, BOG, IIT B, where he emphasized the need for projects like UNL to cross the language barrier on the Internet leading to better understanding among human beings.

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SEMINARS / WORKSHOPS

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POPULAR LECTURE SERIES IN MATHEMATICS":Spring 2000-2001

The "Popular Lecture Series" of the Mathematics Association and the city-based association of college teachers, the Bombay Mathematical Colloquium, was started in the Autumn of 1997. The main objective of this series is popularization of mathematics among students and teachers in Mumbai. The lectures are accessible to people who know basic calculus, linear algebra and differential equations. The topics covered in the series touch many aspects of mathematics: history, exposition of an important theorem, recent developments, emerging areas of mathematics and development of important mathematical theories with a historical perspective.

The following lectures form a part of the Lecture Series for Spring 2000-2001:

"Roots of Algebraic Geometry" by Prof. S. S. Abhyankar, Purdue University, U.S.A., which was held on the 12th of January

"Perimeter of an Ellipse and Beyond" by Prof. R. R. Simha, University of Mumbai, on the 2nd of February.

"Ancient Indian Mathematics" by Prof. B. V. Limaye, IIT, Bombay on the 2nd of March.

"Geometry and Arithmetic of SL(2,R)", by Prof. M. S. Raghunathan, F.R.S., TIFR, Bombay on the 30th of March

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LAWPSP Symposium

The 12th Symposium on Lubricants Additives Waxes and Petroleum Speciality Products was organized by the Department of Chemical Engineering from February 2nd to 4th 2001.

Eminent speakers from Industrial and Educational fields gave talks on various topics during the various sessions of the Symposium. The sessions comprised of the following:

Industry Review, Automobile –Fuels and Lubricants Quality, Petroleum Speciality Products, Waxes, Lubricants and Functional Fluids, Solid Lubricants and Lubrication, Oil filed Chemicals and specialities, Additives, Synthetic Lubricants – Greases Analysis and Analytical Methods.

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STUDENT EVENTS

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SWIMMING CLUB NEWS

The Swimming Club organized a combined swimming camp (Beginners) for the benefit of the passing out post-graduate students from 21st November to 6th December 2000. Around 30 students participated in the camp whereby emphasis was placed on physical fitness, crawl stroke, backstroke and the survival jump. The camp concluded with an endurance test. The chief guest for the valedictory function was Prof. D. Dutta, Dept. of Bio-Medical Engineering.

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REPUBLIC DAY 2001

The Republic Day was celebrated on the 26th January at the IIT Bombay Gymkhana Grounds where the Director, Prof. Ashok Misra unfurled the National Flag. Cultural programmes were organised on the occassion by the students of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Campus School and IIT Bombay. The Republic Day Awards, comprising of commendation and cash prize of Rs. 250, were given to the following employees :

  1. Shri. R. P. Koli, Security Inspector, Security Section
  2. Shri K. V. Patil, Watchman, Secutiry Section
  3. Shri R. S. Sarmalkar, Library Attendant (S.P)
  4. Shri V. N. Gorule, Library Attendant (S.P)
  5. Shri S. S. Pawar, Library Attendant (S.P)

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Earthquake Relief: Appeal for Assistance

The Killer earthquake in Gujarat, with its intensity has affected thousands of people. Many have lost their entire families, and their home. In all the affected areas everyone is sleeping in the open, they have no warm clothes and no blankets and the temperatures are low. Many of the injured need help and most of all need to know that someone cares. Help is needed on a short-term and a long-term basis.

Director's Appeal

"We need hardly say that, it is our duty to extend our support in all possible ways to the earthquake-affected people of Gujarat. With this end in view, we appeal to all our staff members to contribute two days' salary, viz. one day's salary from the month of February and one day's salary from that of March 2001. For this purpose the Deputy Registrar (F&A) may be informed. Copies of the formats will be available in the offices of the Departments / Centres / Schools / Interdisciplinary Groups / Sections. The contribution will qualify for IT exemption under 80 (G) of the IT Act. The amount collected thereof will be provided to a suitable agency for rehabilitation of the victims."

Ladies Club has also organised collection centres for assistance in kind. Each family on campus can extend their support by donating generously. A list of required articles and addresses and telephone numbers of collection centers are given below:

Required Articles:
Blankets, warm clothes, bedcovers, sheets, candles, torches, buckets, tinned food, biscuits, cotton, first-aid medicines (band-aid, iodine, savlon, dettol, bandages), ORS, disinfectant, medicine for dysentery, diarrhoea.

Collection Centres and contact numbers:

Central Area:
Ms. Anasuyia Banerjee, BTR-2, 576 8334
Ms. Rama Rathore, B-142, 576 8413
Ms. Rashmir Misra, A-1, 576 8000

Lake Side:
Ms. Geeta Prasad, White House, 576 8571
Ms. Suman, Community Hall, 572 0050

Hill Side:
Ms. Chaturani, A-17, 576 8476
Ms. Phatak, A-15, 576 8747

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APPOINTMENTS

Dr. Rubin A. Parekhji has been appointed as a Visiting Faculty Member in the Department of Electrical Engineering with effect from 8th January 2001. The appointment is for a period up to 30th April 2001.

Prof. V. Subramanyan has been appointed as a Visiting Faculty Member in the Department of Earth Sciences with effect from 1st January 2001 for a period upto 30th April 2001.

Prof. U. V. Shenoy has been appointed as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering with effect from 2nd January 2001. The appointment is for a period upto December 2001.

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RETIREMENTS ON 31st JANUARY 2001

  1. Shri U. S. Gawali, Lib. Attdt., Grade II, Central Library
  2. Shri S. K. Bhawar, Sr. Mechanic, Computer Science & Engg.
  3. Shri L. V. Amrute, Sr. Mechanic, Estate Office
  4. Shri P. S. Padmanabhan, Peon (SG), Administration

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EVENTS

CEP Courses

05-09 Human Computer Interface, by Prof. Anirudha Joshi, IDC
06-11
Effective Management of Projects, by Prof. A. S. Babu, CARE for Canara Bank, Bangalore.
15-17
Low Cost Automation for Competitive Manufacturing, by Prof. N. Ramakrishnan, Dept of Mech. Engg.
22-23
Energy Conservation (for Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd., Nagothane), by Prof. Anuradda Ganesh, Energy Systems Engineering

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