43^rd Convocation

The 43^rd Convocation of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay was held on Friday, September 16, 2005 at the IIT Convocation Hall. Shri Arjun Singh, Hon'ble Union Minister of Human Resource Development, was the chief guest and delivered the Convocation Address.

The Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) was conferred on Padma Bhushan Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, Govt. of India, for his outstanding contributions in the development of India's design and development capability and self-reliance in nuclear technology.

Shri Arjun Singh, delivering the Convocation Address recalled the dreams of Late Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who saw these institutes as the temples of modern India. Shri Singh said, “If Pandit Nehru were alive today, he would have been proud that IITs have earned the respect as leading Institutes of Technology and Science.”

Speaking on the role of IITs in the improvement of higher technical education in country, he said that IITs can lend their expertise to train the faculty of the technical institutions in the country. He also appreciated the distance education programme run by IIT Bombay.

Further Shri Singh mentioned that IIT Bombay in principle has agreed to set up a campus at Ezimala in Kerala exclusively for training the technical personnel of the Indian Navy and the World Bank has approached the IIT Bombay to help set up the first African Institute of Technology and Science at Nigeria.

He said, “IITs today are free to raise resources to take up activities. The government had recently introduced the block grant scheme, which would restore financial autonomy of IITs.”

In conclusion, Shri Singh urged the students to reflect on the education they have received and give back to the society and the country.

Shri Rahul Bajaj, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Bombay, while addressing students said, “You must have the courage to trust your own thoughts and views and to speak in your voice. Do what you love.” He said, the world today is uncertain and one must learn to take calculated risks to achieve success. “Focus on Positive. Work smart than just hard. These are challenging time. Exciting times. The rewards for those who get it right will be enormous,” Shri Bajaj said. He placed on record his appreciation of the excellent work being done by the Institute faculty. He also praised Alumni for their invaluable contributions towards the Institute. While referring to the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship set up by the Institute, he said, “I believe the Government needs to consider introducing a legislation on the lines of the Bayh-Dole Act of the US to enable academicians to profit from their intellectual property that they create in their institutions, something that SINE is designed to do.” 

In his response after receiving the Degree of Doctor of Science, Dr. Kakodkar said that India could dominate the world if its large number of youth had higher education. In view of a very large number of highly talented youth, India needs many more institutions such as the IIT.

Dr. Kakodkar called upon those who were passing out not to hesitate in treading uncharted course. For instance, the country should not be deterred from developing thorium-based technologies because they did not exist elsewhere. He stressed on research and education interface.

The Director of the Institute, Prof. Ashok Misra, presenting his report highlighted major landmark achievements of the Institute. He said “Nobel Laureates Prof. Hartmut Michel and Prof. Alan MacDiarmid have accepted the position of Distinguished Guest Professor in the Institute. Also a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by IIT Bombay and the National University of Singapore to establish a joint degree programme at the Masters and Doctoral levels.”

On academic front, Prof. Misra revealed that out of 1385 degrees awarded this year 845 are masters and 123 are doctoral, an increase of 74% over last year in doctoral degress. He said that Institute's academic programmes in recent years have been attracting the best students at all levels. 52 of 100 JEE top rankers have joined IIT Bombay this year.

Prof. Misra reported an upward growth in Institute's Consultancy activities with 950 projects, signifying the Institute's strength in solving issues of concern in all areas of technology. Activities related to Intellectual Property Rights saw a significant rise, with 22 applications filed, an increase of 40%. Technology transfers to the industry has grown too, enhancing the Institute's image as a provider of technological solutions.

Sponsored projects, industrial consultancy and Continuing Education Programmes contributed about 25% of the Institute's annual income. Prof. Misra added that resources are constantly augmented through contributions from alumni and well wishers and this year, about Rs. 11.00 crores were received in the form of donations.  (Click here for more...)

Degrees and Medals

At this Convocation 1385 degrees were awarded including 417 Undergraduate, 845 Masters and 123 Doctoral degrees.

The President of India Medal was awarded to Shri Vaze Vikrant Suhas, Civil Engineering and Institute Gold Medal to Shri Mohit Garg, Electrical Engineering (Dual Degree).

Institute Silver Medals were awarded to the following students who were most outstanding in the respective branch of Engineering/ Science.

Kota Venkata Kaundinya,  Aerospace Engineering

Kumar Varoon, Chemical Engineering

Parag Agrawal, Computer Science & Engineering

Shetty Nikhil Gopinath, Electrical Engineering

Prashant Sheketker, Mechanical Engineering    

Shinde Chetan Ulhas, Metallurgical Engineering & Materials Science

Banthia Prachee Subodh, Engineering Physics

Master of Science (M.SC.) Programme

Pramit Basu, Applied Geology

Sounak Sarkar, Anshu Pandey,  Chemistry

Mousumi Mandal, Mathematics

Satej S Khedekar, Physics

Joshi Kaumudi Vijay, School of Biosciences & Bioengineering

Dipti Garg, Applied Statistics And Informatics

M.Tech. Dual Degree

Brijesh Raghavan, Aerospace Engineering

Sandeep Gupta, Chemical Engineering

Raje Saurabh Pradeep, Civil Engineering

Dina Thomas, Computer Science & Engineering

Mohit Garg, Electrical Engineering

Mehta Vipul Vijay, Mechanical Engineering

Sarves Verma, Met.Engg. and Mat. Sc.

Other Medals

Click here for speeches and pictures of 43rd Convocation.

Teachers' Day 2005

The Teachers' Day celebrations were held on September 6, 2004. The Chief Guest Prof. P. V. Indiresan, Former Director, IIT Madras, presented the 'Best Teacher Award in Management' and 'Manudhane Awards in Chemical Engineering'.  The function began with 'Saraswati Vandana' and 'Guru Pranam'- a cultural programme arranged by the students to pay the tribute to the teachers.

Prof. P. V. Indiresan while delivering the speech said, “Teachers should inculcate the attittude of finding the truth among their students. They should encourage them to experiment and verify the truth rather than just accept it.” “Teachers should instill the spirit of adventure among the students,” he added. He said the respect for the teaching profession has come down over the years. Citing politics as the major reason for this, he said Governments didn't cultivate intellects of the country. 

Prof. Indiresan in conclusion urged the audience not to restrict their knowledge and keep exploring the unknown region.

Prof. Ashok Misra, Director, IIT Bombay, in his address stressed on the importance of Higher Education. Prof. Misra said “Education and particularly Higher Education is the backbone of countries like India.” He stated that teachers have a great responsibility in society, as they are the builders of our nation, with respect to the shaping the thought processes of the students. “Teachers should inspire pupils for generating new ideas and thoughts,” Prof. Misra said. 

Prof. A. K. Singh, Dean-AP, emphasized on the importance of a teacher's role in the students' learning and development process. He stated, “The role of a teacher is crucial, as they shape the future of students”. He said that IITs have a distinct position in the education field, and IIT Bombay offers an exciting environment for teaching and learning.

Prof. G. K. Adil, SJM School of Management, was awarded with the 'Best Teacher Award in Management'. The recipient of the 'Manudhane Awards in Chemical Engineering 2005 were: Prof. A. S. Moharir, Prof. Devang Khakhar, and Prof. S. C. Patwardhan. Awardees in their responses mentioned about the significant role played by their respective teachers in their success.

IITB-NTPC Join Hands For Collaborative Research

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) and National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) have signed a Research agreement on September 18, 2005 to jointly take up 'Development of Adsorbent based Process for the Capture of Carbon dioxide from Power Plant Flue Gases'. Under the agreement, the two organizations will carry out basic collaborative research and technology development over the next four years along with laboratories of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR). The technology, when implemented, will enable NTPC to capture carbon dioxide from flue gases from its coal-based thermal power plants for its subsequent sequestration. The project will be undertaken by Prof. A. S. Moharir, Deptt. of Chemical Engg.

For NTPC, this is a major step in its quest for developing indigenous technologies through Energy Technologies Research Center, a new initiative expected to enhance and strengthen the indigenous competency in adsorption research in the country.

The Research Agreement was signed by Prof. Kartic C. Khilar, Dean of Research & Development at IIT Bombay and Dr. R. R. Sonde, Executive Director, NTPC, in the presence of Prof. Ashok Misra, Director, IIT Bombay and others from both organisations.

Prof. Mahesh Tirumkudulu, Deptt. of Chemical Engg., has been selected as a Young Associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.

Girish Dadhich, Himanshu Shringarpure, Prakshep Mehta, and Supriyo Chakraborty (all Deptt. of Electrical Engg.), have bagged 1st runners-up position at the Intel IXA Student Research Contest 2005 for their project entitled "Implementation of Protocol Independent Multicast- Sparse Mode (PIM-SM) on IXP 1200/2400 Network Processor Platform" held at the I.I.Sc. Bangalore on September 12 and 13, 2005. Prof. Girish P. Saraph was their guide.

IIT B students crack Chemistry Olympiad

Arun Paidimarri Vijayawada and Himanshu Asnani Kota, both Electrical Engg., have bagged a Silver and a Bronze medal respectively at the International Chemistry Olympiad 2005 held at Taipei, Taiwan during July 16-25, 2005.

Alumni Distinctions 

Dr. Vasant Matsagar, Deptt. of Civil Engg., has authored an article entitled "The Temple of Legendary Visionaries". The article has been adjudged as the second best write-up by the Secretary-General, Rajya Sabha and is included in the proceedings of the 200^th Celebrations of Rajya Sabha published at the Parliament of India. Dr. Matsagar will be awarded with a memento, a certificate and copy of the book by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat.

Ashish Kumar Chauhan, B Tech Mechanical Engg. and CIO, Reliance Infocomm Limited, has been awarded CIO-100 award for year 2005. The award recognizes top 100 CIOs in the world along with their organizations on a specific theme. This year’s theme was boldness, the willingness to embrace risk for the sake of reward, even in constrained times.

A workshop on Nanotechnology was held at IIT Bombay on September 8 and 9, 2005 under the aegis of the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI).  It was a NASI satellite symposium on the occasion of the platinum jubilee of the Academy.  The primary objective of the workshop was to explain the subject of nanotechnology to the public, especially to college students and teachers interested in the field.  Thus, there were popular, introductory lectures on the first day, whereas on the second day, advanced, research lectures were held to give a glimpse of some of the forefront work going on in this new area that is receiving great attention from all sectors.

There were talks from selected leading international and national researchers. Prof. Ashok Misra, Director, IITB, welcomed the participants, among whom were nearly a hundred college students and teachers from around Mumbai and elsewhere, besides those from IITB.  The workshop was inaugurated by Prof. Ved Kamboj, President, NASI, and coordinated by Prof. D.S. Misra, Physics, and Prof. Jayesh Bellare, Chemical Engineering.  The Dean R&D, Prof. Kartic C. Khilar, gave an overview of the work being done at IITB.  Among the speakers were:

Prof. Mark Welland, Head of the Nanoscale Science Group in the Electrical Engineering Division, Cambridge University, and Fellow of the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering, gave an overview of developments in nanotechnology at Cambridge University and in his presentation gave emphasis on how nanotechnology is related to biological objects giving examples of household fly, hair mite & red blood cells. Then he gave glimpse of various imaging technologies like ESEM, TEM, UHVSTM, and AFM necessary for study of nano scale objects. He mentioned about the Moor’s law and role of nanotechnology to follow the graph of Moor’s law. He discussed about top down and bottom up approach to develop nano scale devices and assembly of small scale objects using moving atoms. He illustrated some pictures of writing at a nano scale using Atomic force microscope tip. Further, Prof. Mark Welland threw light on the work being done in field on sensory diagnostics at Cambridge University.        

Prof. Jim McLaughlin, Director of Nanotechnology Research Institute, University of Ulster gave an overview of Bio-nanotechnology at University of Ulster on the first day and delivered a presentation on “Nanotubes for Biosensors & Bio-compatible amorphous carbon surfaces” on the second day. He gave an overview of the work being done at Nanotechnology Research Institute, University of Ulster, with the special emphasis on the use of nanotechnology for medical devices. He mentioned about the research being done in the development of nanoporous membrane, emergency filtration products, dendrimers, nanoparticle labels, nanoelectrodes, electronic nose for asthma diagnosis, drug delivery systems and high throughput arrays for analysis. The talk also included mention about plasma systems, nanofabrication projects and nano-coating going on at University of Ulster, mainly using diamond like carbon (DLC) as the coating material. Further, Prof. McLaughlin threw light on the work being done in the field of Carbon Nanotubes at University of Ulster.

Prof. Murali Sastry, Head, Nanoscience Group, Materials Chemistry Division, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune gave an overview of Bio-nanotechnology at National Chemical Laboratory. In his presentation he gave some examples of exquisite nanoscale/mesoscale structures found in nature, biomimetic MEMS like bacterial flagella. He told about change in properties in the material at nano scale range giving example of gold nano particles and use of it in calorimetric tests like Northwestern test. He explained the methods to prepare nano particles with special emphasis on biological methods using bacteria, actinomycosis, and lemon grass extract to form triangular gold nano particles and their use in hyperthermia cancer therapy method and optical coatings. Further, Prof. Murali Sastry threw light on the work being done in the field of biological synthesis of nanomaterials at National Chemical Laboratory.   

Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao, Professor Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, gave an overview on microelectronics. In his presentation the emphasis was on use of MOSFET & CMOS and their scaling down approach.

Prof. Arnab Bhattacharya, Professor, Solid State Electronics Group, Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, gave an overview on nanotechnology work at TIFR. In his presentation he showed elaborated work on semiconductor nanowires, Self-assembled quantum dots and Semiconductor Optoelectronics. He gave brief description on methods of producing nanowires with hetrostructures and use as semiconductors. Also he mentioned about assembling Quantum dots and their use as Quantum-Well Infrared Photo detectors. While talking on optoelectronics he mentioned various kinds of Lasers and their use in day today life like lasers in medicine and LEDS and organic LEDS found in nature and mimicking them in electronic devices. 

A panel discussion that ended the workshop provided an opportunity for the audience to interact with the panelists.  The general feeling was that the field of nanotechnology fully deserves the attention it is getting and represents an active field for students seeking higher degrees. By blending new topics with the well established ones that are being rejuvenated by the interest in nanotechnology, the field will see an extensive growth in research opportunities leading to novel applications, industrial jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities, all of which should be harnessed by the young researcher.

Consultative meeting on Draft Treaty

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is currently discussing the draft of a treaty to provide for protection of the Rights of Broadcasting Organizations in the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) framework. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India is willing to engage all stakeholders in these discussions before formulating the country position in Copyright related issues.

In this regards, IPR cell, IRCC and Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India jointly had organised a consultative meeting on a Draft Treaty for protecting the rights of broadcasting organizations at IRCC Auditorium, IIT Bombay on September 3, 2005.  The treaty might have wide ranging implications on the rights of creators of the content carried on broadcast signals. Noted artists from the Indian film industry including writers, composers, lyricist, and singers enthusiastically participated in the meeting. Mr. Sudeep Banerjee, Education Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development elaborated the technicalities of the treaty and emphasised on government of India’s willingness to safeguard the rights of all creative persons whose work come under this treaty. Mr. Javed Akhtar, Mr. Sonu Nigam expressed the views and concerns of creative community and requested government of India to safeguard their rights. Mr. Sanjay Tandon explained the concepts of copyrights and its impact on creative community. Mr. Madhukar Sinha (Director, Copyright Division, Government of India) discussed the key points of the draft treaty for protecting the rights of the broadcasting organisations.    

Aagomani 2005

A workshop on the CDMA technology, was organized on August 27 and 28, 2005 by the Electrical Engineering Students' Association (EESA), IIT Bombay in collaboration with Qualcomm Inc., the pioneers of this technology worldwide. Qualcomm Inc. was the chief sponsor of the event. Over 250 people from both industry and academia attended the workshop. The academic participants mainly belonged to IIT Bombay as well as other colleges in Mumbai, Surat, Bharuch, Nagpur, Indore, Pune, Jalandar, Aurangabad and Gandhinagar. Professionals included those working with various telecommunication companies like Reliance Infocomm Ltd, Nokia India Private Ltd., TCS, iflect Technologies India Pvt Ltd, LG Soft India Private Limited, L&T Infotech, besides others.

The workshop began with an inaugural address by Prof. A.N. Chandorkar, Acting Head, Deptt. of Electrical Engg. Mr. Kanawalinder Singh, President, QualComm India, delivered the keynote address. He briefly presented the background of QualComm, the nature of the ongoing work, its various departments, offices, regional arms and touched upon the company's interactions with academia. He stressed upon the ecosystem-based economy propagated by QualComm which allows a host of other firms and individuals to run their businesses based on the CDMA technology, while providing increasing returns to QualComm. Some futuristic concept applications being pioneered in QualComm were also mentioned. He concluded with a video clip, describing a technology called Media FLO, set to hit world market by next year which will supposedly revolutionize mobile broadcasting. Mr. Richard Dean Hoss, Vice-President, Engineering, QualComm USA, then spoke on "CDMA2000 1X - Overview and Future Trends". Mr. Hoss was one of the members of the team which conceived the CDMA technology in QualComm. His topic covered various aspects of CDMA technology - Codes in CDMA systems, Physical layer, Power control, Handoff, Call processing, Various CDMA standards and enhancements, etc.

Day two began with a session by Nakul Duggal, Director Engineering, QualComm USA on "Operating Packet Data Services on CDMA2000". He covered packet data architecture, protocol stack and the various layers in CDMA2000. The highly informative lecture concluded with a description of applications on CDMA 1. The concluding session saw the unveiling of the BREW applications development environment of QualComm. Mr. Srinivas, Engineer QualComm, explained the various attributes of this unique venture which endeavours to give a great boost to the development of applications specific to wireless platforms.

Operations Continuum '05

In the future, effective Supply Chain Management (SCM) would be a key differentiator for companies working on a competitive market was the message that emerged from the Operations Continuum, an event hosted by the Shailesh J Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay on September 25, 2005 and attended by students from various B-schools. The event was a part of the Continuum series, a forum for B-school students to get an insight into the knowledge and the experience of people from the industry. The current Continuum was based on the theme of ‘Future Supply Networks’ and ‘The Role of RFID in Supply Chain’.

Inaugurating the event, the Head of the Department Prof. Mangesh G. Korgaonker stressed on the global and profound impact of technological innovation in the area of SCM and also spoke about the need to develop financial parameters to link financial performance to investments made for SCM.

The role of Adaptive Manufacturing in ensuring a Demand Driven Supply Chain (DDSL) was the theme of the talk by Mr. Ravi Mandayam, Development Manager, SAP Labs. Explaining the need for DDSL, he also stressed that Adaptive Manufacturing, which involved the ability of the plant to profitably replenish the Supply Chain while dynamically responding to unpredictable change was imperative if companies needed to run at the ‘speed of business’. “To be able to have a demand driven supply chain, there is a need for manufacturing excellence”, he remarked. Mr. Narayan Rajagopalachari, Vice-President for Global Consulting Services of i2 Technologies spoke about the need for enterprises to be agile and enumerated the Best practices in Supply Chain Management, which included, intimate customer and supply knowledge.

The differences between traditional supply networks and the Demand driven supply networks and the need to shift from the former to the latter was the theme of the talk by Mr. Adnan Ahmad, Director for Supply Chain at Castrol India Ltd. He elaborated on what aspects change needs to be made and the critical success factors for this purpose. “India is on the verge of a tremendous revolution in Supply Chain innovations”, he added. According to Mr. Ashok Pai, Director for Supply chain Solutions at Bristlecone Ltd., “ Both process re-engineering and use of IT is required for boosting supply chain efficiency.” “Supply chain processes need to be looked at first before embarking on information technology initiatives”, he added.

Various speakers discussed the technology behind RFID and its applications in Supply chains. Ms. Sandhya Sule of Patni Computers discussed the technical details of RFID and the associated standards commonly referred to as EPC (Electronic Product Code) standards. She emphasized that the adoption of RFID in India was mostly compliance driven and not because of cost reduction. She enumerated some of the deployment of RFID solutions in India but warned that use of such technology should be only if there is a sound business case and after a successful pilot project.

Mr. Rajiv Gehani of MAQ Software, a US based firm specializing in RFID and smart card applications gave an insight on some of the RFID applications which MAQ was currently working on, which included a pilot project for the Rajasthan State Transport for real-time tracking of their buses along the National Highways.

The approach towards the use of RFID in manufacturing and the practical issues involved in its implementation was discussed by Mr. Rajat Modi, Consultant for Technology Advisory services at PwC by taking the example of an ongoing pilot implementation of RFID for a power major in India. According to Mr.Modi, “The endeavor to use RFID in manufacturing is in removing all non-value adding activities”.

The underlying theme across the event and the talks was that Supply Chain Management is here to stay and that it is going to witness lots of technological innovations like RFID in the future. These valuable perspectives were well appreciated by the student and corporate delegates present.

Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao, Deptt. of Electrical Engg., has been appointed as a Visiting Professor in the School of Materials Science & Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He has delivered 12 hours of guest lectures on the subject "Nanoelectronics" to the post-graduate students at NTU during September-October, 2005.

Prof. R. O. Dusane, Deptt. of Metallurgical Engg. and Materials Science, articipated in the 21^st International Conference on Amorphous and Nanocrystalline Semiconductors, Lisbon, Portugal from September 5 to 9, 2005. He is a member of the International program committee of the conference and was invited to chair a session on “Sensors”. He also presented 4 contributions from his group in the conference.

Dr. B. Krishna Mohan, CSRE, visited University of Leeds, UK for three months on a Royal Society, UK research grant from May 23, 2005 to August 20, 2005. During this visit, Dr. Mohan conducted research on high resolution aerial and space image analysis. He also visited the Environmental Systems Science Centre, at the University of Reading to study the recent developments in the applications of Laser Remote Sensing.

Prof. Sudhir R. Ghorpade, Deptt. of Mathematics, gave a series of three lectures on "Linear Codes and Projective Varieties" in the Algebra Seminar at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA on September 7, 14 and 21, 2005. Prof. Ghorpade will also be spending this semester as a visiting professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA.

Prof. Bhaskar Roy, Deptt. of Aerospace Engg., attended the XVII International Symposium of Air Breathing Engines (ISABE 2005) held in Munich, Germany from September 4 to 9, 2005. He chaired a session on Compressor IV, Stall and Unsteady Effects, on September 7, 2005 and presented a paper "Aerodynamic Studies on Swept Blades on Axial Flow Fan / Compressor" coauthored with Manish Chauhan, Dual Degree, Aerospace Engg. Dept. in the session on Compresor V, Design Optimization on September 8, 2005. Prof. Roy also visited the R & D centre and the factory of MTU, Munich, where latest aero engines are being manufactured in collaboration with Pratt & Whitney Co., USA. He also visited the Aviation Museum (Flugwerft Oberschleissheim) of Deutsches Museum, Munich.

Prof. Tanmay Bhattacharya, Deptt. of Humanities and Social Sciences, attended an International Conference on Neurosciences (9^th ICON) at Havana, Cuba from September 5-10, 2005. He was one of the awardee by International Brain Research Organization (IBRO). The title of the paper was Age Differences in Dysexecutive Syndrome Among Non Clinical Sample co-authored with his doctoral student Mr. Atish Taukari. He also visited Centro Internacional de Restauracion Neurologisa (CIREN) and Cuban Neuroscience Center.

Prof. N. Ananthkrishnan, Deptt. of Aerospace Engg., delivered an invited lecture on “Small-Perturbation Analysis of Aircraft Flight Dynamics with Dynamic Derivatives Redefined” at ADA Bangalore  on August 31, 2005.

Prof. Shishir K. Jha, SJM SOM, attended a four day Workshop on issues relating to Copyright and the Public Domain and Alternatives to Copyright at CanterburyUniversity of Kent during August 25-28, 2005.

Prof. Jha also organised, on behalf of the IPR Cell, IIT Bombay and MHRD, a one day consultative meeting on 3rd September to discuss WIPO Treaty on protection of Broadcasting organisations and matters concerning Copyright Act, 1957. The consultative meeting was attended by the Secretary, MHRD, Mr. Sudeep Banerjee and numerous composers and musicians from Mumbai.

Prof. U. A. Yajnik, Deptt. of Physics, delivered lectures on: 1) "Ferromagnetic Domain Walls of Relic Fermions as Dark Energy" at Inter-Unviersity Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, on August 25 and at Physics Department, IIT Kanpur, on September 20, 2) "Einstein on Light : from Waves to Quanta and Back" at Centre for Philosophy and History of Science Colloquium, Pune University, on August 26, and 3) "The New Standard Model of Cosmology and Prospects for Unified Theory of Elementary Particles" at IIT Kanpur, Physics Department Colloquium on September 19, at Department of Physics and Astronomy, Delhi University on September 21 and at Physics Department, Punjab University, Chandigarh, on September 23, 2005.

Prof. T. S. Rathore, Deptt. of Electrical Engg., was Chief Guest at the inaugural function of 2-day workshop on the 'Art of Conducting Laboratory' organized by D J Sanghavi College of Engineering, Vile Parle, Mumbai under the aegis of ISTE-DJSCOE Chapter on September 2, 2005.

Prof. Rathore delivered lectures on “A New Method of Minimal Realization of Logic Functions” and “How to Motivate Students/Teachers for Research in an Inadequate Infrastructure Environment” at Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Wadala, in lieu of Prof. Sreenivasan Memorial Award Lectures at the inauguration of 19th IETE Student Forum on September 14, 2005. He also delivered expert lectures at LC Institute of Technology, Bhandu (Gujrat) as a Visiting Professor of ISTE for the year 2005-06 to motivate the students and faculty during the period Sept 17 to Sept 21, 2005.

Prof. L. M. Bhole, Deptt. of HSS,  was invited by All-India Bank Officers' Confederation to make a presentation on the subject "Roadmap For Banking Reforms" before the Independent Commission on Banking Policy. The Presentation took place on September 13, 2005 at the Press Club of India,Mumbai.

Prof. Bhole delivered two lectures on the subject of "Gramswaraj" at the Institute of Gandhian Studies, Wardha on September 24, 2005.

Prof. Bhole was interviewed by Doordarshan on the subjects of "Initial Public Offerings" and "Securities Exchange Board of India and the Securities Scams".The interview was telecast on DD News Channel on September 25, 2005.

Prof. Amiya K. Pani, Deptt. of Mathmematics and Jin Yun Yuan have published a paper entitled "Semidiscrete finite element Galerk in approximations to the equations of motion arising in the Oldroyd model" in IMA Journal of Numerical Analysis 2005 25(4):750-782.

Prof. S. C. Patel, Deptt. of Earth Sciences, delivered invited lectures on "Eclogites" and "Study of metamorphic reaction textures and interpretation of P-T path", at the Geological Survey of India Training Institute, Hyderabad on September 24, 2005.

Prof. Rowena Robinson, Deptt. of Humanities and Social Science, has published the book 'Tremors of Violence: Muslim Survivors of Ethnic Strife in Western India' (Sage Publications, 2005).

Prof. Pushpak Bhattacharyya, Deptt. of Computer Science and Engg., participated in the 10th Machine Translation Summit held at Phuket, Thailand on September 12-16, 2005. Prof. Bhattacharyya, who is in the program committee of the conference, presented the paper titled "Semantically Relatable Sets: Building Blocks for Representing Semantics" based on the research done jointly with Dr. Rajat Mohanty and Ms Anupama Dutta of the CSE Department. Additinally, Prof. Bhattacharyya attended the meeting of the South Asian Natural Language Processing Institutions.

Prof. S.P. Mahulikar and Prof. (retd.) S.K. Sane, Dept. of Aerospace Engg, have published a co-authored paper entitled 'Theoretical Analysis of Experimentally Observed Perplexing Calibration Characteristics of Ball-in-Vortex Flow-Meter' in Vol. 127, No. 5, pp. 1021-1028, Sep'05 issue of ASME Journal of Fluids Engineering.

Prof. Karunamay Subuddhi and Prof. Vikram Sirola, Deptt. of HSS, participated in a National Seminar on `Contemporary Social Movements in India', organized by Department of Philosophy, at Pondicherry University, between September 1- 3, 2005. The Seminar was sponsored by Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi.

Prof. Subuddhi and Prof. Sirola presented papers entitled: `Green Development and Changing Representation of Society and Movements in Contemporary Indian Society'  and ` Social Criticism: A Move towards Social Reconstruction' respectively.

Prof. Madhav N. Kulkarni, Deptt. of Civil Engg., delivered invited lectures on “GPS, Geodesy and Map Projections” at Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics, Pune, on August 28, 2005 and at National Water Academy, Pune, on August 29, 2005.

Dr. Eldho T.I., Deptt. of Civil Engg., attended the 15th Stockholm Water Symposium and World Water Week, held at Stockholm, Sweden and presented a paper entitled "Groundwater Quality Degradation due to Industrialization - the Cost of Non-action: A case Study of Patancheru, India" co-authored by Prof. S. Satyanarayana, Prof. S.K. Gupta and Dr. V.V.S. Gurunadha Rao during August 21-27, 2005.

Prof. Vivek P. Soni, School of Biosciences and Bioengineering, gave an invited talk on “Tissue Engineering” at the World Nano-Economic Congress 2005 held at Suntec convention centre, Singapore during September 27 and 28.

Prof. J. B. Doshi, Deptt. of Mechanical Engg., participated and presented a paper on "Analysis of Transients in Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors using Coupled Neutronics Thermal-Hydraulics Model" in a Conference on Mathematics and Computation, Supercomputing, Reactor Physics and Nuclear and Biological Applications (M & C 2005) held at Avignon, France during September 12-15, 2005. Prof. Doshi also visited the French Nuclear Centre at Marcoule where the Phoenix Fast Breeder Reactor is located.

Prof Prashant S. Phale, School of Biosciences and Bioengineering, presented a paper on "Biodegradation of carbaryl and phthalate isomers by soil microorganisms" at the Third interantional conferecne on the impact of Environmental factors on health, Environmental Health Risk III, held at Bologna, Italy during 14-16 Sept 2005. The conference was organised by Wassex Institute, UK.

Kunal Ghosh, Dual Degree student, Deptt. of Aerospace Engg., delivered an invited lecture on “Effect of Thrust Vectoring on Aircraft Flight Dynamics and Spin Recovery” at ADA Bangalore  on August 31, 2005.

Amrita Joshi, Research Scholar, Deptt. of Humanities and Social Sciences, presented a paper titled “Script and Communication: Japanese Visual Poetry in the International Context” at a conference organized by the European Association for Japanese Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria, during August 31 – September 3, 2005.

Astronomy Club

'Krittika', the Astronomy Club of IIT Bombay, had organised demonstration of "Starry Night Enthusiast" Software on September 6, 2005. This consisted of discussion of basic astronomy and stargazing with realistic simulations from astronomy software like 'Starry Night Enthusiast'. Also how this software can be used to view some celestial events were explained.

School of Biosciences and Bioengineering

Radhika Madhavan, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, USA, gave a seminar on “Long-Term Bidirectional Neuron Interfaces for Robotic Control, and in vitro Learning Studies” on September 15, 2005.

Department of Chemistry

Dr. Edward Lester, School of Chemical, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Nottingham, gave a lecture on “Working at the Chemical Engineering/ Chemistry Interface” on August 31, 2005.

Dr. Abhijit Sarkar, Associate Scientist, Michigan Molecular Institute, Michigan, spoke on “Advanced Polymeric Nanotechnology Solutions” on September 5, 2005.

Dr. Sason Shaik, Department of Organic Chemistry and The Lise  Meitner Minerva, Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, spoke on “The Protein, The Active Species and The Chameleon: Reactivity Patterns of Oxygen Transfer by Cytochrome P450” on September 29, 2005.

Department of Electrical Engineering

Dr. Vivek Mhatre, Postdoctoral Fellow, Intel Research Labs, Cambridge, UK, spoke on  “The Capacity of Ad Hoc Networks” on September 15, 2005.

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Jean-Frederic Levesque, University of Montreal, Canada, delivered a seminar on "Access to Health Care in Urban Kerala: Emerging Inequalities across Public-Private Divide" on September 14, 2005.

Dr. Ananta Kumar Giri, spoke on “Creative Social Research: Rethinking Theories and Methods and the Calling of an Ontological Epistemology of Participation” on September 21, 2005.

IRCC

Dr. Dave Ghosh, Director of Science & Technology, NRC Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation, at the Institute of fuel cells, National Research Council, Canada, gave talk on “Development of Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Technologies in Canada” on September 26, 2005.

Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology

Mr. S. Ramakrishnan, Director General, CDAC, spoke on “R&D Outsourcing: The Next Big Opportunity for India” on September 29, 2005. The seminar was co-organised with Tata Infotech.

Department of Mathematics

Tony Puthenpurakal, Department of Mathematics, IIT Bombay, spoke on “Ratliff-Rush Filtration, Regularity and Depth of Higher Associated Graded Modules” on September 14.

Prof. K. Jeyakumar,  University of Calicut, gave seminars on “Alpha-Binomial and related distributions” and “Discrete Stable and Semi-Stable Distributions” on September 22, 2005.

Jonathan Farley, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, USA, gave a talk on “Beauty and Terror: Does Mathematics Have a Role to Play in Counter terrorism?” on September 8, 2005.

Prof. A. Sitaram, ISI Bangalore, gave a seminar on “Some Questions in Integral Geometry” on September 12, 2005.

Seminars/ Lectures held under Yearlong Programme on Computational Partial Differential Equations (CPDE-05)

Prof. Amiya Kumar Pani, Deptt. of Mathematics, spoke on “Adaptive Finite Element Methods for PDEs”, “Recovery Based Methods: Theory with Examples”, “Residual Based Methods: Theory with Examples”, and “Explicit A Posteriori Error Estimators” on September 17, 19, 20, and 21, 2005, respectively.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Prof. P.P. Date, Deptt. of Mechanical Engg., IIT Bombay, spoke on “Numisheet Conference : In Retrospect” on September 21, 2005.

Dr. Himanshu Pokharana, Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA, delivered a seminar titled “Cooling Technologies in Notebooks” on September 15, 2005.

Dr. Sally E. Clift, Mechanical Engineering Dept, University of Bath, UK, gave a talk on “Investigating the Biomechanics of Articulate Cartilage: The Role of Computer Based Modelling” August 31, 2005.

Dr. Tyson Strand, TSI, USA, spoke on “PLIF (Planar Laser Induced Florescence)” on September 6, 2005.

Prof. A.W. Date, Mechanical Engineering Dept, IIT Bombay, gave a talk on “Do Rural Situations offer Scientific/Technological Challenge? An Inquiry Through Narration of 2 Case Studies” on September 8, 2005.

Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Material Science

Dr. Amitabha Das, Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology (BCAST), Brunel University, UK, spoke on “Solidification Under Intense Forced Convection” on September 1, 2005.

Mr. Dirk Moens, Product Support Specialist, Princeton Applied Research, USA, gave a talk on “SRET, a general overview of Scanning Reference Electrode Technology Equipment and Technology” on September 15, 2005.

Dr. Sudhi Sant, President, Twin Technologies Inc., California, gave a talk on “Importance of materials science in the development of novel antimicrobial silver films as  therapeutic agents for wound dressings” on September 28, 2005.

Prof. Peter Hodgson, School of Engg. & Tech., Deakin Univ., conducted a workshop on “Advanced Design Concepts for Automotive Engineering” on September 12, 2005. Prof. Hodgson presented new developments in the use of advanced modelling and new materials in automotive design. He also outlined Deakin University's research profile specific to the Engineering School.

Department of Physics

Dr. Kaushik Das, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, gave a talk on “A Mathematical Model for the Explosive Growth of a Vapour Bubble Confined in a Uniformly Heated Capillary Tube” on September 21, 2005.

Prof. Gautam Mukhopadhyay, Department of Physics, IIT Bombay, gave a talk on “Resonant Coupling Between Localized Plasmons and Anisotropic Molecular Coatings in Ellipsoidal Metal Nanoparticles” on September 14, 2005.

Dr. Jaydeep Majumder, University of Helsinki, gave a seminar on “Studies in Four Dimensional Theories with Unoriented Strings” on September 8, 2005.

Dr. Abhishek Dhar, Faculty member of Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, gave a talk on “Nonequillibrium Thermodynamics of Small Systems” on September 2, 2005.

SJM School of Management

Guest Lectures held as part of the course on Corporate Strategy

Mr. S P Shukla, President, Wireless Products & Services, Reliance Infocom Ltd., Mr. Arun Sekhar Aran, Executive Director, Nucsoft Ltd., and Ms. Rashmi Misra, Chairperson, spoke on Strategy Formulation and Execution for their respective organisations on August 28, September 1, and 10 respectively.

Workshop on 'Entrepreneurship and Incubation at IIT Bombay: Alumni Linkage' organised jointly by SINE and  IIT Bombay Alumni Association.

Celebration of World-Year of Physics organised by Physics Association, IIT Bombay.

 “Anjali”-Gandhi Jayanti Programme

 Talk on "Health and Spirituality" by Prof Vinod Kochupillai, Director, Cancer Research Center, AIIMS, organised by Unnati.