No.

64 September 2016

Newsletter of the Indian Academy of Sciences

TWENTY-SEVENTH MID-YEAR MEETING

1 – 2 JULY 2016

Dipankar Bhattacharya (IUCAA, Pune) in his special

Inside...
lecture on ‘The AstroSat Mission’ said that AstroSat is a
multi-wavelength astronomy mission on an IRS-class
satellite in a 650-km, near-equatorial orbit with 6-degree
inclination and period of 98 minutes, launched on
1. Twenty-Seventh Mid-Year Meeting ....................... 1
2. Academy Public Lecture ........................................ 9
3. Eighty-Second Annual Meeting ........................... 10

4. Associates – 2016 ................................................ 11

5. Special Issues of Journals .................................. 12
6. Masterclass Series ............................................... 13
7. Hindi Workshops .................................................. 13
8. Summer Research Fellowship Programmes
for Students and Teachers ........................... 16

28th September 2015, the culmination of an effort spanning 9. Women in Science Panel Programmes ............... 17
two decades of multi-institutional collaboration. Some of 10. Refresher Courses and Lecture Workshops ...... 20
the key strengths of the AstroSat design, he said, are
the detailed imaging of nearby galaxies at ultraviolet 11. Training Programmes for Publication Staff .......... 21
bands, individual photon recording and hard X-ray 12. Workshop on Current Trends in
polarization. He added that it is an excellent tool to Journal Publishing ............................................... 22
study newborn stars and remnants of stellar death. He
concluded his interesting talk by listing out the wide 13. Promotion of Academy Journals .......................... 22
range of issues that AstroSat has started to address 14. Superannuated Academy Staff ............................ 23
such as the measurement of mass and radius of
neutron stars and black holes; probing accretion under 15. Obituaries ............................................................. 24
strong gravity in order to test the theories of gravity;
measurement of the strength and geometry of magnetic
fields of compact objects; exploration of the seismology

1
 EDITOR
T. N. Guru Row This Newsletter is available on the
Published by Academy website at: www.ias.ac.in/patrika/
Indian Academy of Sciences To receive a regular copy of the
Bengaluru 560 080, India Newsletter, please write to the
Phone: (080) 2266 1200, 2361 3922 Executive Secretary of the Academy
email: office@ias.ac.in (execsec@ias.ac.in)

Forthcoming Events
Eighty-second Annual Meeting, Bhopal 4–6 November 2016
Refresher Courses
• Immunology laboratory techniques using fish model
Vels University, Chennai 5–17 December 2016
• Experimental Physics – 82
Kakatiya University, Warangal 6–21 December 2016
• Advanced quantum mechanics
Government Arts College, Melur 12–24 December 2016
• Experimental Physics – 83
Mody University of Science and Technology, Sikar 29 December 2016 –
13 January 2017
Lecture Workshops
• Scope on nonlinear physics
Fatima College, Madurai 5–6 January 2017
• Frontiers in material science
Ravenshaw University, Cuttack 6–7 January 2017
• Biotechnology, bioprospecting and conservation of bioresources
St. Josephs College, Bangalore 12–13 January 2017
• Recent perspectives in computational and experimental chemistry
Uday Pratap College, Varanasi 17–19 January 2017
• Frontiers in life sciences
Nehru Memorial College, Puthanampatti 17–18 January 2017
• Plant diversity and phytoremediation
Periyar University, Salem 19–20 January 2017
• Perspectives in biological research
• AVC College, Mannampandal 23–24 January 2017
• Plant Taxonomy
Bapuji Institute of Engineering and Technology, Davangare 27–28 January 2017
• Innovations and Reserch in Biology
Hindustan College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore 2–3 February 2017
• Glimpses on plant sciences
Nirmala College, Coimbatore 2–3 February 2017
• Recent advances in physics
St. Xaviers College, Kolkata 10–11 February 2017
• Emerging trends in chemistry
Saldiha College, Bankura 17–18 February 2017
• Hyperbolic partial differential equation (HPDE)
and conservation laws (CL)
NEHU, Shillong 22–25 February 2017

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of compact stars and accretion flows; investigation Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s (Centre for Policy Research,
of the process of star formation in the recent New Delhi) public lecture on the ‘Two ideas of India’
universe; study the emission process in quasars; and was a discourse on the sociological standing of
measurement of the polarization of high energy
X-rays in order to reveal the mechanism of GRB
emissions.

For a nation that is largely vegetarian, biological

demand for proteins needs to be met with plant sources.
The first wave of the Green Revolution in India may
have appeased our physical huger but it did nothing
for our nutritional hunger, said K N Ganeshaiah (UAS,
GKVK, Bengaluru), in the introduction of his Special

current day India. The ‘idea of India’ is a term that is

used quite often. There exists a sense that there are
two different ideas at stake for India, often centered
on three axes – it may be secularism vs. communalism,
majoritarianism vs. minoritarianism, or diversity vs.
singularity. People tend to place themselves on
either side of this ideological divide. However, the
real contrast that exists, according to Mehta, is of
imagining India either as a federation of communities,
or as a new zone of individual freedom; the primary
unit of analysis in the first case being communities
while in the second case, individuals.

Lecture, ‘Feeling the ‘Pulses’ for protein revolution’. The concept of the zone of individual freedom is not
This lecture, in commemoration of the International as popular as it should be; it is often said that a
Year of Pulses, focused on the need for our nation liberal individual is a Western construct not suited to
to pay greater attention to protein-yielding pulse India’s diversity. One should not succumb to this
crops, so as to meet the nutritional demands. argument, which is incredibly ridiculous, argues
Mehta. We are currently in a peculiar situation where
The first Green Revolution was a starch revolution. our identities are compulsive and inescapable – it is
He brought to the attention of the audience that not for us to decide who we want to be. Religion,
while there existed an All India Coordinated Research caste, etc., have become necessary parts of our identity
Project (AICRP) for each cereal such as rice, wheat, that is forced upon us. Ideally, in a liberal society,
maize, sorghum, and even minor millets, more than one would hope that as a citizen, one is offered the
a dozen pulses were clubbed under a single AICRP. biggest human dignity of being able to define
There is a general misconception that pulses have oneself.
a lower yield potential. It is for this reason, he
asserted, that farming of pulses has not been given He spoke of the concept of tolerance that exists
its due importance – either by farmers or by between different communities and ethnic groups, as
researchers. long as each of them have their own space and stay
in that space. This, however, does not capture new
Explaining the research undertaken in his lab, challenges of tolerance which is wearing away, giving
Ganeshiah showed how one can achieve a much way to acrimony at social and political levels.
greater seed yield. The second Green Revolution, when
it occurs, will be with pulses – for their untapped With this, he left the audience with a new outlook of
potential, high protein content and nutritional the social scenario in India.
prominence, claimed Ganeshaiah, which is what we One of the major attractions of the 27th Mid-Year
should, as a nation, strive towards. Meeting of the Academy was a special symposium

3
on ‘Gravitational Waves’. The recent discovery of
gravitational waves, hailed as one of the most crucial
discoveries of all times, has begun a new scientific
frontier of understanding the universe. The session
saw the participation of experts involved in the
LIGO and VIRGO projects from IUCAA, Pune, and
ICTS, Bengaluru, who presented various aspects of
gravitational waves including the LIGO experiment
and the upcoming LIGO project in India. The
symposium also elaborated on the importance and
applications of the discovery of gravitational waves
along with the technological challenges involved.
The highlights of the symposium are as follows:
waves from the Newtonian and Post-Newtonian era to
Tarun Souradeep (IUCAA, Pune) presented the Einstein’s theory of general relativity, the speaker
introductory remarks and spoke on ‘Beyond first described how the advent of relativistic astrophysics,
discoveries with LIGO-India’. Elaborating on the followed by the measurement of physical properties of
gravitational waves, development of technologies like
laser interferometers and finally the discovery of binary
pulsar 1913+16 in 1974, has been consequential to
the confirmation and direct detection of gravitational
waves. The detection of gravitational waves can actually
be traced back to the development of laser
interferometry in 1963. This technology has slowly paved
the way for the large and growing pool of sophisticated
computational resources. The study of gravitational
waves demands the development of more intense data
analysis infrastructure and robust numerical simulation
models.

discovery of gravitational waves, he acknowledged Sukanta Bose (IUCAA, Pune) spoke on the title ‘In
the participation of over 60 Indian researchers in the era of gravitational wave astronomy’. The talk
the International LIGO Science Collaboration and summarized the nature of gravitational waves,
described in detail the geographic and demographic
advantages India has in the context of detection
and study of gravitational waves. It is expected that
LIGO-India will provide the largest baseline covering
12,000 km and, in joint operation with the existing
US-based LIGO detectors, will increase the sky-
localization tremendously. Giving an overall view of
the proposed global network of gravitational wave
observatories, he also provided a glimpse into the
engineering concept and design of LIGO-India at one
of the shortlisted sites in India.

Bala Iyer (ICTS, Bengaluru), representing the

Indian Initiative in Gravitational-wave Observations recently detected and characterized by LIGO which
(IndIGO), presented the fascinating history of originated from a binary black hole merger 1.3 billion
discovery gravitational waves in his lecture ‘From years ago. According to Bose, detecting gravitational
prediction to detection: Highlights of the fascinating waves is expected to remain a low signal-to-noise
history of gravitational waves’. The quest for gravitational ratio challenge at least for the time being. The talk also
waves began with analysing their physical effects as demonstrated the extraction of gravitational
determined by the equation of geodesic deviation. wave signals from noise by the Hanford and Livingston
Tracing the arduous journey of the study of gravitational detectors and elaborated on the science

4
of ‘detector characterization’. The talk stressed on
the importance of understanding the noise in LIGO
detector and learning to differentiate between
astrophysical signals and terrestrial noise. Detection
of gravitational waves opens up challenging and
exciting new avenues of studies such as coincidences
of gravitational and electromagnetic waves, circum-
merger environments and primordial black holes as
components of dark matter, he added.

C S Unnikrishnan (TIFR, Mumbai) described the

technological challenges associated with the detection
of gravitational waves in his talk ‘Interferometric
opportunity to test Einstein’s theory in the highly
relativistic regime of extreme gravity and velocities.
Intricate details of how the discovery has facilitated
the testing of post-Newtonian theory of gravity by
modelling the dynamics and waveforms using
perturbative expansions were discussed. The talk
demonstrated that the signals obtained by the
detectors are consistent with the predicted in-spiral,
merger and ring-down stages of the binary black
hole system. The tests have also thrown up evidence
of constraints on the mass of the graviton due to
lack of dispersion. The talk took a stock of future
gravitational wave detectors: Challenges’. Detection prospects such as testing the no-hair theorem
of gravitational waves involves tremendous conceptual and evidence of missing energy during merger of
and technological challenges. The Michelson black holes. He stressed on the need of more precise
interferometer has emerged as a fundamental technology to conduct future studies.
tool for precise detection of gravitational waves.
Despite this, ‘fringe splitting’ has been observed Varun Bhalerao (IUCAA, Pune) spoke on ‘Multi-
as a general drawback which might compromise messenger astronomy with gravitational waves’
sensitivity and requires meticulous design and and addressed the crucial question ‘Did the merger
tuning to isolate noise and ambient disturbances.
Fluctuating momentum transfer from light to the
mirrors and thermal noise arising from the coating
of the devices are also known to affect sensitivity.
The talk elaborated on the technologies required
to achieve such precision and sensitivity which
includes lasers, optics, vibration isolation along
with cleaning and contamination control.

P Ajith (ICTS, Bengaluru) said, 100 years after its

prediction, Albert Einstein’s general theory of
relativity, one of the fundamental achievements of
20th century physics, stands to be tested with the of black holes emit something visible?’ Electro-
confident detection of two gravitational waves. This magnetic emissions are known to carry complementary
was the focus of the talk entitled ‘Testing the general information such as precise location, nucleosynthesis
relativity using gravitational wave observations’. and ejecta properties, which, along with gravitational
The speaker elaborated on how the gravitational waves, can provide a complete astrophysical picture
wave signals detected by the two detectors are and enhance our understanding of the universe.
consistent with that expected and predicted from The talk centered on the need of detecting the
the merger of two black holes. This offers the first electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational waves

5
and the Indian contributions towards the same. T Punniyamurthy (IIT, Guwahati) spoke on ‘Carbon–
Bhalerao spoke about how the CZTI module of carbon and carbon–heteroatom bonds formation
India’s AstroSat has been aiding the detection of and their application for medicinally significant
electromagnetic counterparts, acting as a wide heterocycles’. He touched upon carbon–carbon and
angle monitor with a median area 190 sq.cm. for carbon–heteroatom bond formation, cross–
29% of the sky. CZTI observed 30% of the localization dehydrogenative coupling and directed C-H activation.
of the detected gravity wave and has placed strong He also presented examples of biologically
upper limits on an X-ray counterpart. The speaker important benzofuzed Azoles and methods of
also stressed on the need for highly co-ordinated benzofuzed Azole synthesis along with the draw-
ground-based global research, automated tele- backs and advantages. He explained his team’s
scopes, specialized instruments and programs and contribution towards the development of novel strategies
that of a dedicated network of satellite to follow for the construction of carbon–carbon and carbon–
up gravitational wave sources. The speaker drew heteroatom bond formation and their applications in
attention to the existing and upcoming Indian facilities medicine and biological sciences.
like Devasthal telescope, Indian 10 meter class
telescope, Thirty Meter Telescope, and other partner The ‘Young Scientist’ award winner K N Uma
programs and the role they are likely to play in (VSSC, Thiruvananthapuram) presented interesting
the coming days in expanding the horizons of information on ‘Tropical mesoscale convective
astrophysics. systems and their associated dynamics’. She spoke of
the evolution and the internal structure, dynamics
Lectures by Fellows/Associates of the Academy were and microsphysics of TMCS (Tropical Mesoscale
as follows: Convective Systems) during different phases of
monsoon, the role of convection in controlling the
P B Sunil Kumar (IIT, Chennai) spoke on the
stratospheric water vapour over global monsoon
‘Mechanisms governing shape changes in biological
regions, the impact of synaptic-scale convection in
membranes’. In this talk, he introduced the audience
stratospheric intrusion of ozone and convection-
to biophysical perspective of membrane dynamics.
generated gravity waves. She touched upon the
Biological membranes that surround cells and
characteristics of convection, active and break phase
sub-cellular organelles are highly conserved across
of monsoon, obstacle effect and global monsoons.
species – not only qualitatively, but also quantitatively
(i.e. with respect to double membrane spacing, Suman Chakraborty (IIT, Kharagpur) delivered a
thickness, etc.). These membranes are subjected talk on ‘Liquid water may stick on hydrophobic
to a constant flux of molecules that traverse surfaces’. According to general perception, on a wetting
across the bilayer, and also fission/fusion events, surface (hydrophilic), liquid water is believed to
all throughout which the morphological changes adhere to the surface causing multilayer sticking,
that membrane undergoes remains highly whereas on a non-wetting surface (hydrophobic),
conserved, following which it unfailingly restores its water is believed to glide across the surface leading
architecture.
to slip. He demonstrated that the relationship
Kumar’s talk acquainted the audience with the between intrinsic wettability and stick/slip is not
underlying physical principles that govern obvious. Furthermore, he summarised, a hydrophobic
morphogenesis in biomembranes. Kumar also described surface is not synonymous with slip and neither a
the computational simulation approaches hydrophilic surface means sticking of water. He
that he uses to study membrane remodelling, explained the effect of salt concentration on slip over
curvature fluctuations (caused by the binding and hydrophobic surfaces using the example of a game
of land and water (known as Kumir Danga in
unbinding kinetics of proteins associated with bio-
Bangla). He said that wettability can be a dynamic
membranes) and the dynamics of fission – fusion
parameter that can be altered without altering the
events, which regulate cell membrane shapes. He
chemical composition of the surface.
illustrated this using phase diagrams of changes in
steady state shapes of naturally emerging vesicles, Mahak Sharma (IISER, Mohali) spoke about ‘Molecular
in response to non-equilibrium curvature remodeling mechanisms regulating endosome–lysosome tethering
events, such as tubes and discs – shapes that cell and fusion’. Lysosomes are responsible for receiving,
organelles are most frequently found to conform to. degrading and recycling macromolecules derived from

6
endocytosis, phagocytosis and autophagy. Sharma generalizations’. The work of Riemann and Roch and
discussed recent studies on the role of Arl8b, a the generalizations were discussed. He stated
member of the Arl (Arf-like) family of small GTPases, Grothendieck Riemann–Roch theorem and
in regulating lysosomal trafficking and endosome- Grothendieck’s discovery of the group of cycles on
lysosome fusion. The focus of her talk was interaction an algebraic variety called the Chow groups. He then
of the HOmotypic fusion and Protein Sorting (HOPS) elaborated on Euler characteristic of vector bundles
complex with the GTP-bound Arl8b, particularly via the and Quillen’s K-theory along with Bloch’s discovery
hVps41 subunit. Studies of molecular regulations of motivic cohomology. Touching upon Bloch’s
of endosome-lysosome tethering and fusion can not Riemann-Roch, Equivariant K-theory and Riemann-
only shed light on salmonella-mediated pathogenesis Roch for equivariant K-theory, he explained the
but also on other medically significant biological results he had proved. He showed that the Riemann-
processes, where the lysosome plays an important Roch theorem of Grothendieck and Bloch could be
role, such as bone resorption, MHC II-Ag complex generalized for varieties with group action as well.
formation, ECM degradation, etc., she said. Finally, he made some remarks on the most recent
What makes the DNA ‘readable’ is the fact that it is generalization of Riemann-Roch theorem.
a stretch of nucleotide sequence that serves as a Armed with an atypical organelle that it inherited from
code for transcription, possibly ensuing translations
an algal ancestor following a secondary endo
and even binding of various DNA-binding proteins
symbiotic event, the malarial parasite, Plasmodium,
including transcription factors. But what if the
has captured the attention of many. In her talk ‘A relict
sequence is no longer readable and the long stretch
organelle that changed the way we thought of
of DNA strands knots itself up? In his talk ‘Knotty
malaria’ Saman Habib (CDRI, Lucknow) introduced
DNA: Another dimension to gene regulation’, Shantanu
the audience to the significance of this heirloom
Chowdhury (IGIB, New Delhi) offered a glimpse of
component for the parasite, and how it is an
his work in the context of secondary structures in
extremely enticing target when it comes to designing
DNA as important elements of gene regulation.
antimalarial drugs.
Debashish Goswami (ISI, Kolkata) spoke on
The apicoplast – a four-membrane, non-photosynthetic
‘Quantum group symmetry of classical and non-
commutative geometry’. Quantum groups are plastid found in plasmodium – with a 35 kb genome
generalizations of groups which naturally appear has been linked with parasite survival. The vitality
as symmetry objects in various branches of of the organelle is associated with its role in the
mathematics and physics. After briefly introducing major housekeeping functions and metabolic path-
C* algebraic compact quantum groups and their ways of the organism. In her talk, Habib presented
co-action the speaker explained quantum groups and fascinating pictorial evidences of how, although the
quantum isometry groups, and gave a few non- apicoplast is a very small spherical structure to start
commutative examples. He discussed quantum group with, in liver stages of the organism’s life cycle, it
actions on classical spaces and its application. evolves into a large and complex web-like form, which
is quite unlike that observed in plant plastids.
Kanishka Biswas (JNCASR, Bangaluru) in
his talk titled ‘Origin of ultra-low thermal conductivity Habib went on to talk about her studies, the results
in complex chalcogenides: Effect of intergrowth of which have helped identify molecular participants
nanostructures, lone pair, and anharmonic rattling’ and events involved in apicoplast division and its
touched upon chemical aspects of topological biogenesis, the genome organization, DNA Replication
insulators and thermoelectrics. He explained the and protein translation within the organelle, and
Peltier effect, the Seebeck effect and the importance the sulfur mobilization pathway of Fe-S cluster
of thermoelectrics. He concluded that low thermal biogenesis.
conductivity can be achieved by phonon scattering
through intergrowth nanostructures, lone pair- R Prabhu (IIT, Patna) spoke on ‘A glimpse into
induced bond anharmonicity, and anharmonic rattling quantum information science’. The principles of
modes/bonding asymmetry. quantum mechanics have revolutionized the way
materials are understood and novel systems are
The Ramanujan prize winner, Amalendu Krishna designed. While the fundamental concepts of quantum
(TIFR, Mumbai) delivered his talk on ‘Grothendieck mechanics have given rise to many integrated and
Riemann–Roch theorem: Reminiscences and interdisciplinary areas of study, the most recently

7
emerging field is that of Quantum Information concentration, the significance of which was realized
Science (QIS). A unique amalgamation of information only after the discovery of ‘high nutrient, low
technology and quantum mechanics, QIS, plays a chlorophyll’ regions in vast areas of the oceans of
central role in storing, processing and communication the world. With this preface Sunil Kumar Singh
of data using ‘Qubits’. The speaker elaborated on the (PRL, Ahmedabad) delved into his talk ‘Biogeo-
two protocols of QIS, namely quantum communication chemistry of trace elements and isotopes in the Indian
and quantum computing, and their roles in secured Ocean’.
communication systems like cryptography, dense
coding and teleportation. Explaining the concepts of Biogeochemical cycling of trace elements has direct
implications on the marine carbon cycle, which in
quantum correlation, which are subtler than that of
turn influences ocean ecosystem dynamics and
classical physics, the speaker described how these
climate change. Data on trace elements is scarce,
principles are applied in highly secure information
particularly in the deep ocean, limiting the under-
transfer and faster computing. The talk focused on
standing of biogeochemical cycles in the ocean.
understanding the connection between quantum
Geotraces – an international research programme –
information protocols and quantum correlation in was established in order to resolve this issue. Sunil
multipartite quantum systems. Quantum channels Kumar spoke of his research endeavors as part of
reduce the required number of dimension states, as the Geotraces–India venture, highlighting, most
opposed to classical channels of information transfer interestingly, the state-of-the-art equipment that his
and holds immense promise of novel technologies of team uses, in order to collect oceanic water samples
the future. and process them. He mentioned his work with the
seawater-Fe testing facility which currently exists
Subhra Chakraborty’s (NIPGR, New Delhi) talk
in only a few labs worldwide. To exemplify the
was titled ‘Understanding biomolecular networks
research strategies involved in a study such as this,
modulating nutrient response and immunity in
he elaborated on one of his projects that focused
plants’. She introduced the subject by stressing on the measurements of dissolved Nd concentration
upon the need for better, higher yielding food crops and its isotope composition in waters of the Bay
to meet the global nutritional demand, and how of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the eastern Indian
abiotic stresses, in an agricultural field, can adversely Ocean, concluding that these studies can help
affect plant growth, development and most notably provide a better understanding of various oceanographic
the overall harvest. processes.
Her work focuses on plant transcriptomes, proteomes Using the analogy of an aircraft, K V Venkatesh (IIT,
and metabolomes – all of which, unlike the genome, Mumbai) introduced the concept of systems biology,
is very dynamic, and a key indicator of the physiological where an aircraft and a biological system, such as a
state of the plant part. In this context, her initial efforts cell, have multiple components, interactions, feedback
looked at the development of sub-cellular proteomes. loops, etc. A major distinction, from a technical
Of late she has been working on investigating the perspective, is that while engineered systems have
biomolecular networks pertaining to fungal manuals, the complex dynamics that exists between
pathogenicity, specifically Fusarium wilt in legumes various components of most biological systems,
and Sclerotinia rot in tomato. To learn more about such as a single cell or a complex organism, are
the molecular mechanism involved and more yet to be characterized. With this opening, he
particularly to delineate the role of oxalate commenced his talk on ‘Systems engineering
decarboxylase in fungal tolerance, she developed perspective of human metabolism: A multi-scale model
transgenic tomato plants that express oxalate for disease analysis’.
decarboxylase and are fungal resistant. Touching Venkatesh explained the need to use a combination
upon the findings of this study, she concluded that of mathematical modelling, genomic, proteomic,
studies such as these, in general, these will prove to metabolomic and interactomic data to study a
be very useful in identifying plant biomarkers and biological system. He also mentioned the challenges
developing healthy stress-resistant crops. that exists in modelling disease states at a systemic
level.
How is it that some oceanic ecosystems show less
photosynthetic productivity even if they are high Venkatesh explained his research interests that
on nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates? The included the development of a multi-scale composite
answer lies in trace elements, isotopes and their model for whole-body human metabolism, incorporating

8
tissue-specific metabolism and regulation, in order to group has attempted to explore it in cyclometalated
analyse the effects of lifestyle, such as diet and cationic iridium complexes. They have successfully
exercise, on metabolism and analyze disease achieved a distinction between molecular and
states such as metabolic syndrome and cancer. Using nano-aggregation through fabrication of gold nano-
his work as an example, he illustrated a whole body particles capped by cyclometalated cationic iridium
metabolism model that he developed to study complexes. Various aspects of AIE highlighted in
insulin resistance, and how, once characterized, he this talk were aggregation-caused quenching,
could obtain a simulation of the effect of typical architectural diversity, the driving force behind it and
lifestyle parameters including diet and exercise on its applications. Application includes sensors, latent
various components of the system (say, plasma finger printing recognition, viscosity sensor, DNA sensor,
glucose). He also demonstrated how he applied peptide sensor, dual colour cell imaging probes, cellular
such models to study metabolic syndrome. The apoptosis probe, fluorescent nano particles, etc.
motivation to develop such a model is to gain systems He explained morphological tuning in AIEgens, the
level insights that could aid hypothesis generation, discrete emission behaviour of AIEgens, the effect
model testing, target identification, disease indication, of crystal packing patterns and live cell imaging.
etc., he said. The speaker said that his group is interested in
D S Pandey (BHU, Varanasi) spoke on ‘Aggregation- restricting intramolecular rotation by aggregation and
induced emission: Optical and morphological supplementing the complexes with long alkyl chains
insights’. With the patronage of AIE it has been possible to achieve micelles and vesicles in aqueous solution,
to control aggregate build-up by strategic tuning which could eventually lead to emission enhancement.
of intermolecular interactions leading to nano- They have chosen zinc and cyclometalated iridium
structures of new morphology and tunable solid complexes, as these are being widely used in
state emission. The unique phenomenon of metal- molecular recognition, fluorescent sensors, photonic,
driven AIE is relatively scarce and the speaker’s optoelectronic and biological fields.

*****
ACADEMY PUBLIC LECTURE
The Black Hole Event Horizon Telescope
Ramesh Narayan
Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences
Harvard University, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics, Cambridge, USA
22 June 2016, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
A black hole is an object which is so compact, and whose
gravitational pull is so strong, that nothing –
not even light – can escape from its interior. The universe
contains countless numbers of black holes, some that weigh
only about ten times the mass of the Sun and others as
much as a billion times more. Even though light cannot
escape from inside a black hole, gas flowing towards the hole does emit very intense radiation: radio waves,
light, X-rays, and gamma rays. Astronomers study such radiation on a daily basis using telescopes on the
ground and in space. However, until now, no telescope has had the angular resolution necessary to produce
an actual image of the region close to a black hole. This will change in the next couple of years when a new
facility, called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), will begin operations, said Ramesh Narayan. The EHT will,
among other things, provide new ways of testing Einstein's general theory of relativity in the strongly curved
space-time near a black hole. The talk reviewed this exciting new frontier.

*****
9
 1700 Umesh V Waghmare,
EIGHTY-SECOND JNCASR, Bengaluru
Electrons in a Crystal: Localized versus
ANNUAL MEETING Extended Orbitals

1800 – 1900 Public Lecture

IISER, Bhopal
Rajendra Singh, Tarun Bharat Sangh,
Alwar (Rajasthan)
4 – 6 NOVEMBER 2016 Indigenous Knowledge System of Water
Management in India
PROGRAMME 5 November 2016
4 November 2016 0900 – 0940 Special Lecture
Sunil Mukhi, IISER, Pune
1000 – 1045 Presidential Address Academic Ethics in India:
Ram Ramaswamy, JNU, New Delhi What We Must Do
Chimeras: A Spontaneous Emergence
of Dynamical Disorder Inaugural Lectures of Fellows/
Associates
1045 – 1130 Book release: A Life in Science
by Prof. CNR Rao 0940 – 1000 Pradyut Ghosh, IACS, Kolkata
Published by Penguin Random House, Recognition, Sensing Separation of
India Anions
Inaugural Lectures of Fellows/ 1005 – 1025 Ankur A Kulkarni, IIT, Mumbai
Associates Towards a Convex-Analytic View of
1200 – 1220 Arun Chattopadhyay, IIT, Guwahati Impossibility Results in Stochastic
Decorating the Surface of a Quantum Control and Information Theory
Dot with Molecules
Symposium “Our Second Genome”
1225 – 1245 Sanjib K Agarwalla, IoP, Bhubaneswar
Neutrino Oscillation Parameters: 1050 Partha P Majumder, NIBMG, Kolkata
Present Status and Future Roadmap An Overview of Our Second Genome
1400 – 1420 Javed N Agrewala, IMTECH, Chandigarh 1110 Sharmila S Mande, TCS, Pune
Caerulomycin A Suppresses Arthritis Gut Microbiome and Human Health
Symptoms by Expanding Regulatory
1140 Vineet K Sharma, IISER, Bhopal
T Cells
Novel Insights into the Human
1425 – 1445 A Raghuram, FASc, Pune Microbiome
From Calculus to Number Theory
1210 Souvik Mukherjee, NIBMG, Kolkata
Walter Kohn Memorial Symposium The Microbiome in Skin Health and
1530 T V Ramakrishnan, BHU, Varanasi Disease
Walter Kohn and the Rise of Condensed 1240 Shekhar C Mande, NCCS, Pune
Matter Physics The Indian Human Microbiome Initiative
1600 Swapan K Ghosh, BARC, Mumbai
Inaugural Lectures of Fellows/
Density Functional Theory for Materials
Associates
Modeling at Different Length Scales:
A Legacy of Walter Kohn 1400 – 1420 G C Anupama, IIA, Bengaluru
Time Domain Astronomy – Explosive
1630 Tanusri Saha-Dasgupta, SN Bose
Transients
National Centre for Basic Sciences
Kolkata 1425 – 1445 S Ganesh, IIT, Kanpur
Beyond the Conventional DFT: Role of Non-coding RNAs in Cellular
Life with “U” Stress Response

10
1450 – 1510 K N Balaji, IISc, Bengaluru
Mycobacteria Scapegoat Host ASSOCIATES – 2016
Epigenetic Factors and Non-coding
RNAs to Sneak Through Host Immune Subhro Bhattacharjee
Responses
ICTS, Bengaluru
1515 – 1535 Anshu Pandey, IISc, Bengaluru Quantum Many-Body Systems,
Chemistry with Bigger Atoms Quantum Magnets, Topological Phases
of Condensed Matter
1800 – 1900 Public Lecture
Ravi Korisettar, Dr VS Wakankar Atanu Bhattacharya
Archaeological Research Institute, IISc, Bengaluru
Dharwad Ultrafast Science, Surface Science,
Importance of the Vindhya Basin in the Molecular Beam Experiments
Prehistory of the Indian Subcontinent
Sagar Chakraborty
6 November 2016 IIT, Kanpur
Nonlinear Dynamics, Turbulence,
Inaugural Lectures of Fellows/
Associates Magnetohydrodynamics

0900 – 0920 Krishna P Kaliappan, IIT, Mumbai

Swetaprovo Chaudhuri
Domino Strategy to Synthesis of Natural
IISc, Bengaluru
Products and Heterocycles
Propulsion, Combustion, Energy
0925 – 0945 Appa Rao Podile, University of
Hyderabad, Hyderabad
Transglycosylation by Bacterial
Yogeshwaran Dhandapani
Chittnases
ISI, Bengaluru
0950 – 1010 N Ravishankar, IISc, Bengaluru Probability, Stochastic Geometry,
Intriguing Structure and Transport Random Topology
Behaviour of Ultrathin Single Crystalline
Gold Nanowires C T Dhanya
1015 – 1035 B Anand, IIT, Guwahati IIT, New Delhi
Homing Mechanism of the CRISPR-Cas Water Resources Engineering, Climate
Adaptive Immune System Change Impact Assessment,
Hydroclimatological Modelling
1100 –1120 Tirthankar Bhattacharyya, IISc, Bengaluru
What Do Analytic Functions Look Like?
Radhika Ganapathy
1125 – 1145 Pratap Raychaudhuri, TIFR, Mumbai TIFR, Mumbai
Low Temperature Scanning Tunneling Representation Theory, Number Theory,
Spectroscopy Algebraic Groups
1150 – 1210 G R Tripathy, IISER, Pune
Re-Os geochronology: Clues for Past Rohini Garg
Marine and Atmospheric Conditions NIPGR, New Delhi
Plant Epigenomics, Biotechnology,
1215 – 1300 Special Lecture Gene Regulation
Amitabh Joshi, JNCASR, Bengaluru
Experimental Ecology and Evolution in P Jayanth Kumar
the Laboratory AIIMS, New Delhi
Noncoding RNA, Acute Lymphoblastic
& Myeloid Leukemias, RNA Building
***** Proteins

11
Sameena Khan
THSTI, Faridabad SPECIAL ISSUES
Structural Biology, Cell Biology
OF JOURNALS
Praveen Kumar Theme Issue on Higgs Physics
IISc, Bengaluru
Editor : Debajyoti Choudhury
Mechanical Behaviour of Materials,
Electromigration, Microelectronic Pramana – Journal of Physics
Volume 87, Issue 3, September 2016
Packages

With the discovery of a

Sabyashachi Mishra
125 GeV resonance by
IIT, Kharagpur the ATLAS and CMS
Theoretical & Computational Chemistry, Collaborations at the
Enzyme Catalysis, Molecular Physics Large Hadron Colliders
(LHC), we have entered a
Jagannath Mondal new era in High Energy
TIFR-CIS, Hyderabad Physics. While the particle
Computational Chemistry, seems to have properties
very close to what the
Theoretical Chemistry
Standard Model (SM)
predicts, we are still to
Samrat Mondol ascertain, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this is
Wildlife Institute of India, Dehra Dun indeed the case.
Molecular Ecology, Conservation Genetics, In light of all the results from the LHC so far, it is not
easy to answer whether the SM is all that there is to
Wildlife Endocrinology
physics at the TeV scale or if the new discovery bring,
along with it, some hints of new physics beyond the SM.
V K Prajapati The first step of answering this question
Central University of Rajasthan, would be to re-examine not only the Higgs discovery
Kishangarh Infection Biology, analysis (not limiting ourselves to the  and
Parasitology, Chemical Biology ZZ channels), but also consider how sensitive our
conclusions may be to the (model) assumptions
that, inherently, are part of any such deciphering
B Uday Kumar Reddy
of complex experimental data. This is of particular
IISc, Bengaluru relevance, on the one hand, in deciding whether
Compiler Optimisation, the remaining ‘discrepancies’ in the Higgs observations
High Performance Computing, are of any importance and, on the other hand, in
Automatic Parallelisation understanding possible post-Higgs signals such as
the purported excess in the  final state at 750 GeV,
reported in December 2015. Another important
Ranjit Thapa
question that haunts the community of particle
SRM Research Institute, physicists now is the following: if the discovery is
Kattankulathur Density Functional Theory, indeed that of the SM Higgs, what keeps it light
Metal-free Catalyst, Hydrogen Storage and protected from large quantum corrections? Apart
from supersymmetry, does there exist a natural
resolution of the hierarchy problem? Or should we
be happy enough with extensions that may not be
seem as natural?
***** Equally valid is another query: if the discovered
particle is only approximately the SM Higgs, then is

12
the electroweak breaking mechanism driven by an theories that allow us to explore the unknown in
extended scalar sector? This question assumes small steps? This, again, could be related to the very
particular significance in the context of the aforementioned first questions raised in this preface. And, finally,
excess at 750 GeV. Is new physics (at the few TeV what does this discovery (and/or the theoretical
scale), then, well-approximated by a simple two- explorations associated with it) tell us about other
Higgs doublet model or should we consider more questions related to symmetry breaking, whether
elaborate structures such as the minimal super- it is the understanding of the QCD vacuum or the
symmetric SM? resolution of the puzzle related to the observed
Should our pursuit of understanding physics at higher baryon asymmetry in the Universe?
energy scales be guided by notions of symmetry and/or This is a collection of reviews on the state of the field,
a more fundamental construct or should we be happy which examine some of these questions and, in
enough with the more agnostic frame of effective attempting to answer them, raises other intriguing ones.

*****
MASTERCLASS SERIES
The Masterclass series of eBooks brings together pedagogical articles on
single broad topics taken from Resonance, the Journal of Science
Education, that has been published monthly by the Indian Academy of
Sciences since January 1996. Primarily directed at students and teachers
at the undergraduate level, the journal has brought out a wide spectrum
of articles in a range of scientific disciplines. Articles in the journal are
written in a style that makes them accessible to readers from diverse
backgrounds, and in addition, they provide a useful source of instruction
that is not always available in textbooks.
The second book in the series, Linear Algebra and Analysis Masterclasses,
is by Prof. Rajendra Bhatia. A celebrated mathematician, Prof. Bhatia’s
career has largely been at the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, where
he has been for over three decades and is currently a Distinguished
Scientist. He has contributed pedagogical articles regularly to Resonance,
and these comprise the bulk of the present book. Only two of the ten
articles in the book have not appeared earlier in Resonance.
Professor Bhatia’s work has made significant inroads in a variety of areas, including mathematical physics,
computer science, numerical analysis and statistics. The book, which will be available in digital format and
will be housed as always on the Academy website, will be valuable to to both students and experts as a useful
handbook on Linear Algebra and Analysis.

*****
HINDI WORKSHOPS
The Indian Academy of Sciences and the Raman Research Institute
jointly conducted a workshop on ‘Noting, Drafting and Computing
in Hindi’ on 24 June 2016 by Dr S N Mahesh, Sr. Hindi Translator,
Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Bengaluru. This was
followed by Hindi Vocabulary Quiz.

Hindi Fortnight was jointly observed during 14-26 September 2016.

Various competitions such as quizzes, story-telling, Hindi typing,
knowledge of Administrative Glossary, Hindi dictation and Hindi
songs were held. The fortnight concluded with Hindi Day Celebration
on 26 September 2016. A lecture by Dr Niru Sinha, Maharani Lakshmi
Ammani College for Women, Bengaluru, was followed by prize distribution.

13
 SUMMER RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME
FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
This is a major activity of the Academy under its Science Education initiatives. Started in 1995, it has grown
rapidly in size. This is particularly so after the Indian National Science Academy (New Delhi) and the National
Academy of Sciences India (Allahabad) joined with this Academy in 2007 in conducting this programme.
The table below gives information on the number of applications received; the number of fellowships awarded
and availed in 2016.

No. of applications No. of fellowships No. of fellowships

Sl. No. Subjects received offered availed
Students Teachers Students Teachers Students Teachers

1 Life Sciences
(incl. Agri. Sciences) 2954 121 482 64 434 50
2 Engineering Sciences
and Technology 8488 155 570 40 439 25
3 Chemistry 1733 78 294 31 251 21
4 Physics 1935 75 230 28 198 17
5 Earth and
Planetary Sciences 748 07 139 02 124 01
6 Mathematics 810 18 116 08 90 06
TOTAL 16668 454 1831 173 1536 120
GRAND TOTAL 17122 2004 1656

Many institutions in the country helped the programme by hosting Summer Fellows and providing them the
necessary facilities, such as laboratory support, accommodation, etc. The following tables give information on
(a) the cities in which ten or more Summer Fellows were placed and (b) institutions that hosted ten or more
Summer Fellows in 2016.

(a) Cities in which ten or more Summer Fellows were placed in 2016:

Sl. No. Cities (as hosts) No. of SRFs Sl. No. Cities (as hosts) No. of SRFs

1. Bengaluru 346 12. Varanasi 26

2. New Delhi 206 13. Kharagpur 21
3. Mumbai 175
14. Ahmedabad 17
4. Hyderabad 163
15. Ropar 17
5. Kolkata 94
16. Kanpur 16
6. Pune 76
17. Durgapur 15
7. Chennai 73
18. Gandhinagar 15
8. Thiruvananthapuram 59
9. Bhubaneswar 39 19. Karaikudi 15

10. Guwahati 34 20. Lucknow 12

11. Mohali 34 21. Dehradun 11

14
(b) Institutions that hosted ten or more Summer Fellows (c) Many institutions in the country were also benefited
in 2016: by the programme as several of their own students
and teachers were selected under the programme
Sl. No. Institutions (as hosts) No. of SRFs
and had the opportunity to work at institutions
1 IISc, Bengaluru 249 elsewhere. The following is a list of such institutions
2 IIT, Mumbai 83 from where ten or more summer fellows were
3 BARC, Mumbai 55 selected in 2016.
4 IIT, Chennai 48
5 UOH, Hyderabad 47 Sl. No. Institutions benefitted No. of
6 IIT, Guwahati 34 by SRFP SRFs
7 IISER, Mohali 31
1. NIT, Tiruchirappalli 26
8 IIT, New Delhi 29
9 IIT, Hyderabad 27 2. NITK, Surathkal 24
10 BHU, Varanasi 26
3. Pondicherry Univ., Puducherry 23
11 CDFD, Hyderabad 24
12 UOD, Delhi 24 4. IIT, Kharagpur 19
13 NCL, Pune 23 5. ISM, Dhanbad 19
14 ISI, Kolkata 22
15 NPL, New Delhi 22 6. CUSAT, Cochin 19

16 IISER, Pune 21 7. Central Univ. of

17 IISER, Thiruvananthapuram 21 Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur 18
18 IIT, Kharagpur 21
19 NISER, Bhubaneswar 21 8. Univ. of Delhi, New Delhi 18
20 ICT, Mumbai 20 9. BHU, Varanasi 18
21 JNCASR, Bengaluru 18
10. Univ. of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 17
22 NCCS, Pune 18
23 NGRI, Hyderabad 18 11. NIT, Rourkela 17
24 ICGEB, New Delhi 17
12. Bharathidasan Univ.
25 IIT, Ropar 17
Tiruchirappalli 16
26 IISER, Kolkata 16
27 IIT, Kanpur 16 13. St. Stephen's College, New Delhi 16
28 UOD(SC), New Delhi 16
14. NIT, Warangal 16
29 CMERI, Durgapur 15
30 PRL, Ahmedabad 14 15. IIT, Roorkee 16
31 NII, New Delhi 13
16. RGUKT, Nuzvid 15
32 CECRI, Karaikudi 12
33 CCMB, Hyderabad 11 17. MSRIT, Bengaluru 14
34 IACS, Kolkata 11 18. IISER, Pune 14
35 NCBS, Bengaluru 11
36 NIPGR, New Delhi 11 19. Jadavpur Univ., Kolkata 14

37 Univ. of Calcutta, Kolkata 11 20. Thiagarajar College, Madurai 14

38 Bose Institute, Kolkata 10
21. Tezpur Univ. Tezpur 13
39 CDRI, Lucknow 10
40 IIST, Thiruvananthapuram 10 22. SASTRA Univ., Thanjavur 13
41 IIT, Gandhinagar 10
23. VIT Univ., Vellore 13
42 ILS, Bhubaneswar 10
43 Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 10 24. PESIT, Bengaluru 13
44 NIIST, Thiruvananthapuram 10
25. IIT – Madras, Chennai 13
45 RGCB, Thiruvananthapuram 10
46 WIHG, Dehradun 10 26. Christ Univ., Bengaluru 12

15
 Sl. No. Institutions benefitted No. of Sl. No. Institutions benefitted No. of
by SRFP SRFs by SRFP SRFs

27. Presidency Univ., Kolkata 12 36. IIT – Bombay, Mumbai 11

28. SJCE, Mysuru 12 37. BITS – Pilani, Rajasthan 11

29. NIT, Agartala 12 38. IIT, Bhubaneswar 11

30. IIT, Guwahati 12 39. IIT, Kanpur 10

31. IISER, Bhopal 12 40. Central Univ. of

Rajasthan, Ajmer 10
32. SPP Univ., Pune 12
41. Miranda House, New Delhi 10
33. Anna Univ., Chennai 12
42. IISER, Mohali 10
34. SVNIT, Surat 12
43. SRM Univ., Chennai 10
35. SSN College of Engg .,
Chennai 11

The mentors–summer fellows’ ratio for the year 2016 is provided in the following table.

Summer Fellows
Sl. No. Subject-wise Number of Total
Mentors Candidates
Students Teachers

1 Life Sciences
(incl. Agri. Sciences) 381 434 50 484

2 Engineering Sciences & Technology 247 439 25 464

3 Chemistry 227 251 21 272

4 Physics 159 198 17 215

5 Earth & Planetary Sciences 092 124 01 125

6 Mathematics 051 90 06 96

TOTAL 1157 1536 120 1656

This activity of the Academies has received enthusiastic response from both the faculty, who acted as guides,
as well as the students and teachers, who availed the fellowship.

*****

16
 ‘WOMEN IN SCIENCE’ PANEL PROGRAMME

A lecture workshop was organised by the Women in Kaneenika Sinha, Indian Institute of Science Education
Science (WiS) Panel, Indian Academy of Sciences, & Research, Pune, gave a lecture entitled "Certain
Bengaluru, in association with Azim Premji University, functions of Ramanujan". Sinha skilfully used Srinivas
Bengaluru, under the "WiS: A Career in Science" Ramanujan's life and mathematical interests to
programme on 17 September 2016 at the Azim demonstrate not only the significance and ingenuity of
his discoveries but also how simple methods can be
Premji University, PES Campus, Electronic City,
used by students to solve important problems.
Bengaluru. The programme was attended by around
100 participants comprising undergraduate students and Veena Srinivasan from the Centre for Environment and
faculty members of both genders participated Development, ATREE, spoke on "Problem driven water
from Azim Premji University (APU) and nearby science: Framing research to address critical social
colleges. problems". Srinivasan spoke on the approach taken at
ATREE on solving water-related issues. Due to the
The program began with an introduction to the Women complex nature of water shortages due to overuse of
in Science program given by Dr Beena DB. The first water, increased extraction, climate change, changes
speaker, Rama Govindarajan, from International Centre in livelihood practices, etc., rather than taking a
for Theoretical Sciences, Bengaluru, began her talk hypothesis-driven approach, the first step was to identify
the issues that contribute to the broader social and
entitled "Fluid mechanics of clouds and other things".
ecological problems of water resource management.
Govindarajan gave a very informative talk on cloud
science; what causes clouds to form, what role does Yasmin Jayathirtha, Centre for Learning, Bengaluru,
altitude play on cloud formation, how aerosol particles gave a lecture entitled "The sceptical chemist: Education
act as nucleation points, etc. Interestingly, she for a scientific attitude". She spoke on the nature of
highlighted the fact that much remains unknown about the current education system, and the lack of promoting
clouds, and how climate change is affecting cloud questioning and understanding versus the exam-driven
patterns, and especially monsoons in India. system. Giving examples from her own experience in
teaching chemistry, she spoke about how science is
Varsha Singh, Department of Molecular Reproduction, truly a tool to question the universe.
IISc, gave a talk on "Secrets behind longevity in worms:
Sensory perception and caloric restriction". Audiences A panel discussion was held on various issues related
not only to women in science but careers in science
were introduced to different model organisms, each
in general. The panel included Aruna Rajan, Flipkart,
lending themselves to specific areas of study. In
Bengaluru; Varsha Singh; Priyanka Jamwal, ATREE;
C. elegans, Singh outlined how caloric restriction
Usha Rajaram, APU; and Rajaram Nityananda, APU.
results in increased lifespan, and made connections to
Topics included career options in science after BSc
the neural system. She spoke about pattern formation
(academic, industry and other options), work–life balance
in Pseudomonas bacteria, and raised many interesting
in a career in science, and issues faced by women in
questions regarding emergence of "multicellular
early stages of an academic career in scientific
behaviour" in a unicellular system. research/teaching and in a corporate career.

*****
17
 REFRESHER COURSES AND LECTURE WORKSHOPS
Jointly sponsored by IASc (Bangalore), INSA (New Delhi) and NASI (Allahabad)

REFRESHER COURSES
Two-week Refresher Courses are aimed at helping teachers to add value to their teaching and are designed
to have direct relevance to the study materials covered in the graduate and undergraduate syllabi followed
in universities and institutions in the country. The following courses were held from April to September 2016.

A. Refresher Courses in Experimental Physics

The Refresher Courses in Experimental Physics were held under the direction of R Srinivasan, who was
instrumental in the conceptualisation and designing of the experiments. He has so far held 79 Courses
in different parts of the country since 1999. These experiments are useful for laboratory programmes at BSc
and MSc levels, and many universities in the country have adopted these experiments as part of their
curricula. In order to conduct the Refresher Courses, a user-friendly kit containing several components has
been developed and manufactured under licence by M/s Ajay Sensors and Instruments, Bengaluru.
The following is the list of Experimental Physics Courses held from April to September 2016. Complete
information is provided in our website http://web-japps.ias.ac.in:8080/SEP/refresher_course__completedlist.jsp.

Sl. No. Title Venue Duration Director Co-ordinator

1 Experimental Panjab University, 25-09-2016 – J.S. Shahi
Physics – 79 Chandigarh 10-10-2016
2 Experimental Thiagarajar College of 05-07-2016 R. Srinivasan M. Mahendran
Physics – 78 Engineering, Madurai 20-07-2016
3 Experimental K. L. University, 14-06-2016 R. Srinivasan N.V. Suresh Kumar
Physics – 77 Guntur 29-06-2016
4 Experimental Goa University, Goa 10-05-2016 K.R.S. Priolkar K.R.S. Priolkar
Physics – 76 25-05-2016
5 Experimental University of Kashmir 12-04-2016 R. Srinivasan Gowher Bashir
Physics – 75 Srinagar 27-04-2016

B. Other Refresher Courses

The following is the list of Refresher Courses in Other Topics held from April to September 2016. Complete
information is provided in our website http://web-japps.ias.ac.in:8080/SEP/refresher_course__completedlist.jsp.

Sl. No. Title Venue Duration Director Co-ordinator

1 Mineralogy, Petrology, IASc Facility, Jalahalli, 17-09-2016 Alok K. Gupta T. D.

Thermodynamics, Bangalore 01-10-2016 Mahabaleswara
Organic Geochemistry
and Ore Geology
2 Plant Taxonomy – Yogi Vemana 15-09-2016 R.R. Rao A. M. Reddy
Orthadox and modern University, Kadapa 29-09-2016
aspects
3 Differential Equations Indian School 04-07-2016 Phoolan Prasad M. K. Singh
and Their Applications of Mines, 16-07-2016
in Science and Dhanbad
Engineering

18
 Sl. No. Title Venue Duration Director Co-ordinator

4 Mathematics The Maharaja 06-06-2016 V.M. Shah Haribhai

Sayajirao University 18-06-2016 R. Kataria
of Baroda, Vadodara

5 Quantum Mechanics Dayananda Science 15-04-2016 Sulabha R.H. Ladda

and Nuclear Physics College, Latur 30-04-2016 Kulkarni

6 Mountain Hydrology GB Pant University 28-03-2016 P.P. Mujumdar H.J. Shiva

and Climate Change of Agriculture and 08-04-2016 Prasad
Technology, Pantnagar

LECTURE WORKSHOPS
The following is the list of Lecture Workshops held from April to September 2016. Complete information is
provided in our website http://web-japps.ias.ac.in:8080/SEP/lecture_workshop_completedlist.jsp.

Sl. No. Title Venue Duration Convener Co-ordinator

1 Current Cauvery College 26-09-2016 S.K. Saidapur H. Abirami

developments for Women, 28-09-2016
in biology Tiruchirappalli
2 Ordinary and Bishop Cotton Womens 23-09-2016 M. Lakshmanan Muniraja Gopal
partial differential Christian College, 24-09-2016
equations Bangalore
3 Recent Kongu Arts and 23-09-2016 R. Ramaraj A.K. Vidya
developments in Science College, 24-09-2016
biochemistry Erode
4 Special topics in St. Philominas 22-09-2016 R. Srinivasan D. Revanna
condensed matter College, Mysore 24-09-2016 Siddaiah
physics
5 Recent advances Gulbarga University, 22-09-2016 R.R. Rao G.R. Naik
in life sciences Kalaburgi 23-09-2016
6 New horizons in Indian Academy 22-09-2016 C. Durga Rao K. Prashanthi
chemical and Degree College, 23-09-2016
biochemical Bangalore
sciences
7 Chemistry: an Raghunathpur 22-09-2016 Samar Kumar Bhaskar Biswas
innovative driver College, Puralia 23-09-2016 Das
in materials
science
8 Trends in modern Dr NGP Arts and 16-09-2016 D.N. Rao J. Karthikeyan
biology Science College, 17-09-2016
Coimbatore
9 Emerging and St. Joseph’s College, 16-09-2016 Soumitra Das Popy Dutta
re-emerging Bengaluru 17-09-2016
infectious
diseases

19
Sl. No. Title Venue Duration Convener Co-ordinator

10 Role of plant Kuvempu University, 11-09-2016 R.R. Rao Y.L. Krishnamurthy

taxonony in Shimoga 07-09-2016
conservation of
biodiversity

11 Some recent Kumaraguru College of 07-09-2016 M. Lakshmanan R. Balamurugan

trends in physics Technology,Coimbatore 09-09-2016

12 Role of St Joseph Degree 07-09-2016 V. Kannan Lakshmi N.

mathematical and PG College, 08-09-2016
science in Hyderabad
digitalization

13 An introduction to Christ University, 02-09-2016 Mythily Mayamma

the solution of Bengaluru 03-09-2016 Ramaswamy Joseph
ordinary differential
equations

14 Biodiversity and Karpagam University, 01-09-2016 R.R. Rao A. Sangilimuthu

bioremediation Coimbatore 02-09-2016

15 Chemistry – Madras Christian 26-08-2016 V. Subramanian P. Wilson

Current Focus College,Chennai 27-08-2016

16 Mining Metabolites VIT University, 25-08-2016 R. Uma Siva Ramamorthy

– Microbes in Vellore 27-08-2016 Shaanker
Plants

17 Prospects of Hindusthan College 23-08-2016 D.J. Bagyaraj G. Rajalakshmi

bioscience of Arts and Science, 24-08-2016
Coimbatore

18 Recent trends Kamaraj College, 17-08-2016 D.J. Bagyaraj A. Doss

in Biological Thoothukudi 18-08-2016
Sciences

19 Hyperbolic partial University of Calcutta 10-08-2016 Phoolan Prasad Susmita Sarkar

differential Kolkata 12-08-2016
equation (HPDE)
and conversion
laws (CL)

20 Lecture workshop Miranda House, 10-08-2016 Ajit Iqbal Singh Daulti Verma
on “analysis” Delhi 12-08-2016

21 Numerical methods KSR College of Arts 10-08-2016 P. Kandasamy S. Padma

and scientific and Science, 12-08-2016
computing Tiruchengode

22 Plant Taxonomy – Government Degree 08-08-2016 R.R. Rao B. Sadasivaiah

concepts and and PG College, 09-08-2016
changing trends Wanaparthy

20
 Sl. No. Title Venue Duration Convener Co-ordinator

23 Introduction to Government Arts 04-08-2016 G. Baskaran A. John Peter

theoretical physics College, Melur 05-08-2016

24 Advances in KLE Socities 29-07-2016 M.R.N. Murthy Prathibha K.S.

biotechnology S. Nijalingappa 30-07-2016
College, Bangalore

25 Advances in Sathyabama 21-07-2016 T. Subramoniam T. Sasipraba

microalgal University, 22-07-2016
research and its Chennai
relevance to
climate change

26 Applications of NIRRH, Mumbai 14-07-2016 Tarala D. Sarbani

flow cytometry 15-07-2016 Nandedkar Mukherjee
in health and
disease

27 Frontiers in M.R. Government Arts 11-07-2016 R.R. Rao R. Velayudhan

Biosciences College, Mannargudi 13-07-2016

28 Mathematical PSGRK College for 22-06-2016 M. Lakshmanan P. Meena

Physics Women, Coimbatore 24-06-2016

29 Emerging Mody University of 22-04-2016 A.K. Ganguly Amlan Kumar Das

technologies Science and 23-04-2016
based on Technology, Sikar
nanoscience –
a popularization
workshop

30 Chemistry and Vidyasagar University 21-04-2016 Anunay Amiya

biology interface Midnapore 22-04-2016 Samanta Kumar Panda

31 Internet of things: Dr GRD College of 15-04-2016 Krithi S. Sujatha

A research Science, Coimbatore 16-04-2016 Ramamritham
perspective for
smart environment

32 Recent advances MACFAST, Tiruvalla 1-04-2016 Sateesh C. Biju Dharmapalan

in life sciences 112-04-2016 Raghavan

*****
TRAINING PROGRAMMES FOR PUBLICATION STAFF
In an effort towards capacity-building of the publication staff of the Academy, an in-house training programme
on LaTex was held during February-March 2016. An in-house copyediting training programme was also organised
in June 2016. An Academy copy-editors' manual is in preparation for standardization of copy-editing and
proofreading of the journals.

*****
21
 WORKSHOP ON ‘CURRENT TRENDS IN
JOURNAL PUBLISHING’
A workshop on the 'Current Trends in Journal Publishing' was held for the Bengaluru-based Chief Editors,
Associate Editors and the publication staff of the Indian Academy of Sciences on the 23 June 2016, at the
Academy auditorium. The workshop was an interactive session meant, primarily, to acquaint the academy
staff with the latest advances in the academic publishing industry.

The workshop was inaugurated with a formal note by Prof. T N Guru Row, Editor of Publications, Indian
Academy of Sciences. He spoke of the changing scenario in manuscript publishing from the early 70s,
when correspondence with the publisher would be via the postal system, to the current day, where technology
has greatly accelerated and simplified the entire process.

Ms Surabhi Shukla, Senior Publisher, introduced the workshop with her talk 'The world is changing for
the researcher; what can we do?' She spoke mainly of the challenges faced by researchers in the digital
age and the opportunities a publisher can seize in such a scenario for its growth. Mr Sameer Gupta,
Publisher, spoke on Continuous Article Publishing, comparing and contrasting it with the existing print
technology while discussing its various advantages. He also discussed the use of e-proofing tool
by author and journal office, and the use of multimedia to make an article interesting to attract readers. There
was also a live demonstration of MENDELEY – a reference manager tool by Dr Gopakumar V, Chief Librarian,
Goa University, who also spoke of its various merits.

Mr Manish Uniyal, Marketing Manager for Research Solutions, discussed SCOPUS – a database of peer-
reviewed literature, its range of contents and how it can help researchers, authors and editors. He
also highlighted the importance of metrics for scholars and therefore the necessity of making content widely
available and easily accessible

Prof. Durgadas P Kasbekar, Associate Editor of Publications, Indian Academy of Sciences, concluded the
session by summarising the major points that were conveyed in the workshop, and thanking the speakers.

*****

PROMOTION OF ACADEMY JOURNALS

As part of promotion of the Academy's journals, the
Academy participated in the 34th Annual Meeting of
the Astronomical Society of India (ASI) at Srinagar during
10–13 May 2016, the ICAARS 2016 (International
Conference on Advancements in Automation, Robotics
and Sensing) at PSG College of Technology during
23–24 June 2016 at Coimbatore, and the CRSI meeting
held at North Bengal University, Siliguri, during 13–16
July 2016. The Academy journals were displayed
and fliers were distributed. The Academy awarded two
prizes for the best posters at each of these events.

*****
22
 SUPERANNUATED ACADEMY STAFF

G Chandramohan Ranjini Mohan

G Chandramohan joined the Editorial Department of Ranjini Mohan joined the Academy on 14 April 1978.
the Academy on 13 May 1973. He superannuated on She superannuated on 30 June 2016 as Senior
30 April 2016 as the Executive Secretary of the Administrative/Accounts Assistant.
Academy.

M Rajlakshmi Sujatha Mohankumar

M Rajlakshmi joined the Academy on 18 October 1995 Sujatha Mohankumar joined the Academy on 21 May
as Assistant Editor for Resonance journal, and she served 1997 as Assistant Editor for Resonance journal, and she
until 31 August 2016. served until 31 August 2016.

*****

23
 OBITUARIES

for Orpheus-703 engine to meet the power requirement

of HF-24. Roy Chaudhury's contribution towards
thrust augmentation of Orpheus-703 engine and the
development of type-certified reheat system at GRTE
were some of his achievements.

Under Roy Chaudhury's leadership, the team was

motivated to take up further projects of developing GTX
series engines, i.e. GTX-37U and GTX-37UB with
innovative flat rating concept, which was successfully
demonstrated during the 1980s. GTRE thus emerged
as a full-fledged laboratory committed to the
development of aerogas turbine engine systems suited
to specific Indian requirements. GTRE now has facilities
Sailendra Nath Roy Chaudhury for full-scale engine tests, testing engine components,
(Elected 1974) mechanical analysis, experimental stress analysis and
vibration engineering. Roy Chaudhury remained active
Air Vice-Marshal Sailendra Nath Roy Chaudhury, towards the betterment of GTRE. He was instrumental
Founder Director of the Gas Turbine Research in starting the annual gas turbine seminar at GTRE.
Establishment in Bengaluru from November 1961 to From a mere 20 to 30 personnel at GTRC (Kanpur) in
March 1981, passed away in the city on 18 May 2016 1961, the strength of GTRE increased to almost 1600
at the age of 93 years. engineers and technicians by the time Roy Chaudhury
superannuated in 1981.
The gas turbine engine technology prior to 1950s was
largely commanded by very few countries such as He was a firm believer in the utilization of bio-energy
USA, UK, Russia, Germany and France. India did not for tackling energy deficiency and uplifting rural
figure in this map. Then, under the leadership of the economy. After retirement in 1981, he was passionately
Defence Minister, the late V. K. Krishna Menon, with involved in the application of bio-energy for rural
full support of the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, development. His efforts resulted in the approval, by
it was envisioned to have an indigenous base for the Department of Non-Conventional Energy Sources of
developing gas turbine engines for aircraft, to be the Ministry of Science and Technology, of a
produced by the new set-up at Hindustan Aircraft Limited demonstrator project on the use of small gas turbine
(HAL). Sailendra Nath Roy Chaudhury, a fresh Air Force for Mandya Sugar Mill in Karnataka. The project
pilot, trained at the Cranfield Institute of Technology, demonstrated successfully the use of alcohol from
UK, in the field of propulsion, was identified by the the sugar mill to run the engine while the power
Ministry of Defence to take the lead for nurturing gas generated was used for running the bagasse dryer.
turbine technology in the country. The story begins in The hot gas exhaust from the drier was used for
1959, when the Gas Turbine Research Centre (GTRC) drying the bagasse and, in turn, the dried bagasse
took birth at the Air Force Station in Kanpur, where was burnt in the boiler for steam generation for
Roy Chaudhury was posted as a Squadron Leader various process applications, increasing the thermal
after his return from Cranfield, UK. The dedicated team efficiency to the extent of 34-36%. This was
under Roy Chaudhury’s leadership developed and tested demonstration of the real merit of using total energy
the first indigenous centrifugal type gas turbine engine concept – new to our country then. The concept of
of 1000 kg thrust at the Kanpur base on 4 April 1961. decentralization and co-generation using small gas
The same year GTRC was relocated to Bengaluru under turbine fuelled by biomass, biogas, etc., to make the
the Defence Research and Development Organisation, rural population of India energy-sufficient was close
and renamed Gas Turbine Research Establishment to Roy Chaudhury's heart.
(GTRE). The team at GTRE took up re-engineering of
the RD-9F Russian engine, a candidate power plant for His passion for doing something for the benefit of people
the HF-24 in association with the HAL team. never stopped till the very end. He set up a small
Subsequently, a 1700 K reheat system was developed laboratory at home to demonstrate the use of a small

24
set-up for generating electricity for a rural home. He experimental aspects of the spectroscopy of pairs of
also developed an electronic gas-flow meter with distant molecules. At Berkeley, Zewail and collaborators
reading facility and auto-billing. He wrote a book extended the concept of coherence to multidimensional
Restoration of Split Milk to bring out the complete systems. He joined California Institute of Technology
dimension of his efforts, deeds and persuasion to (Caltech), Pasadena, as a faculty member in 1976. At
achieve his goals. Caltech, he introduced the idea of shaped pulses to
examine molecular processes using molecular
Roy Chaudhury was the first Indian Air Force Fellow of coherence. The works on molecular coherence eventually
the Royal Aeronautical Society, London, UK; Honorary led to the birth of femtochemistry. This work earned
Fellow of Energy Institute, UK, and Fellow of the Indian Zewail the tenured position at Caltech within two years.
Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru. He was awarded He became a naturalized citizen of the USA on 5 March
the prestigious J. Omprakash Bhasin Award in 1984. 1982. He became the first Linus Pauling Chair in
He is survived by his wife, two sons, a daughter and Chemical Physics (1990). At the time of his death,
their families. Zewail held multiple positions: the Linus Pauling
Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Physics, and
***** Director of the Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast
Science and Technology at the California Institute of
Technology.

By studying chemical reactions in terms of the starting

ingredients and the final products and occasionally by
examining the transitory products, it is not possible to
observe the actual dynamics, as the process of chemical
bonding is very swift. It was then thought that the
chemical reactions occurred at the time scales of
molecular vibrations. A vibration of an atom in a molecule
takes about 10-100 femtoseconds (10-15 sec). The study
of chemical reactions required femtosecond lasers,
which became available in the 1980s. Zewail made
brilliant use of the new lasers by using them as strobe
lights. He used two laser pulses for studying the
Ahmed Hassan Zewail chemical reactions. The stronger pulse was used to
(Elected 2002) initiate the chemical reaction and the weaker pulse
was used to probe this chemical reaction. The
Ahmed Hassan Zewail, known as the 'father of measurements were conducted with varying time interval
femtochemistry', died in USA on 2 August 2016. He between the two laser pulses. This enabled the
leaves behind many science breakthroughs and an reconstruction of the different stages of the chemical
enduring legacy. A military funeral was held for Zewail reactions. Thus, one could visualize the motion of atoms
on 7 August 2016 in Cairo, Egypt. It was attended by in a molecular system in 'real time'. Zewail
senior academics, military generals, members of the demonstrated his technique for a variety of chemical
judiciary, family, friends and high-ranking Egyptian reactions from simple to very complex. The technique
officials. Those attending included President Abdel pioneered by Zewail is now a very widely used procedure
Fattah el-Sisi, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, along with in chemistry, biology, condensed matter physics and
former Presidents and Prime Ministers. materials science. Using the real time information about
the molecular processes, it is now possible to
Zewail was born on 26 February 1946, in Damanhour manipulate chemical and biological reactions. The
in the delta of the river Nile, Egypt. He grew up in technique has wide applications impacting the
Alexandria. He obtained BSc (1967) and MSc (1969) development of faster electronics. The technique
in chemistry from Alexandria University, Alexandria, developed by Zewial is likened to Galileo's use of his
Egypt. He then moved to the United States, where he telescope, which revolutionized modern astronomy.
completed his PhD (1974) from the University of Zewail received the 1999 Chemistry Nobel Prize
unshared. The citation said, 'for his studies of the
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, under the supervision of
transition states of chemical reactions using
Robin M Hochstrasser, well-known for his pioneering
femtosecond spectroscopy'. He is the first and only
work in molecular spectroscopy. For his postdoctoral
Arab to win the Nobel Prize in science. On that
research, Zewail joined the group of Charles Bonner occasion he said, 'If you can understand the landscape
Harris at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. of a chemical change or a biological change, you might
Zewail and Harris worked on the theoretical and be able to alter the landscape'.

25
In 2008, Zewail once again impressed the scientific prizes, schools and even localities have been named in
community when he and his team developed 'four honour of Zewai?.
dimensional electron microscopy'. By incorporating
the fourth dimension (namely, time) to the traditional He is survived by his wife, a doctor, Dema Faham; his
3D electron microscopy, it is possible to obtain two daughters, Maha and Amani; and two sons, Nabeel
resolutions that are 10-100 times better than those of and Hani.
conventional electron microscopes. With this
technology, it is possible to capture and recreate the *****
movement and dynamics of fleeting changes in the
structure and shape of matter, in real-time, and real-
space. In recent years, Zewail conducted a wide range
of studies using 4D electron microscopy, electron
diffraction and related methods. Femtochemistry is
based on laser–light. The 4D electron microscopy is
based on electrons and opened new avenues in biology,
chemistry, materials science and nanoscience. This
would have been Zewail's path to another Nobel Prize
for his outstanding achievements using electron-based
techniques.
For his numerous achievements (over 600 scientific
papers and 16 books), Zewail received more than a
Deepak Kumar
hundred prizes. His many awards include the 1989
(Elected 1987)
King Faisal International Prize for Science (in the
subcategory physics), which he shared with Theodor Deepak Kumar, born in New Delhi on 1 April 1946,
Wolfgang Hänsch from Germany. In 1999, Egypt passed away on 26 January 2016. He grew up in Delhi,
bestowed upon him the highest state honour, the Grand where he had his schooling. He studied in the
Collar of the Nile. Egypt issued postage stamps in his St. Stephen’s College of Delhi and obtained his BSc
hounour. His Indian honours include: Honorary degree with honours in 1965. He completed his Master's
Doctorate by Jadavpur University, Kolkata (2001); Sir degree in 1967 from the Physics Department of the
C. V. Raman Award, Indian Institute of Science University of Delhi. The same year he joined the graduate
Education and Research, Kolkata (2002); Honorary school of the Department of Physics in University of
Fellow, Chemical Society of India (elected 2001); Pennsylvania, USA. There he worked for his thesis on
Member, Indian Academy of Sciences (elected 2001); theoretical condensed matter physics under the
Foreign Fellow, Indian National Science Academy guidance of A B Harris and obtained his PhD in 1972.
(elected 2002). Zewail delivered the 'Rajiv Gandhi Soon after completing his PhD he returned to India and
Science Lecture' on 17 October 2002 in Bangalore. In joined the Physics Department of the University of
this lecture he acknowledged the scientific tradition Roorkee. He taught and pursued a very active research
and achievements of India. programme with several colleagues for the next sixteen
years in University of Roorkee. In 1985, JNU started
After receiving the Nobel Prize, Zewail devoted time building up its new School of Physical Sciences. It
to improving scientific research in Egypt. He will be was aimed towards having a programme with emphasis
remembered for his public service through tireless on research in areas of condensed matter physics. In
contribution to the science and education sphere as 1988, Deepak Kumar started working in JNU as a
well as for his scientific feats. In 1999, Zewail initiated Professor. He remained associated with the School of
the major project known as the Zewail City for Science Physical Sciences till the very last day of his life. The
and Technology in Giza, Egypt (http://www.zewailcity. faculty of the School had recently nominated his name
edu.eg/). The Egyptian Cabinet has proclaimed the to the University for Emeritus Professorship.
project as 'National Project for Scientific Renaissance'. In his doctoral research, Deepak Kumar studied the
He was one of the speakers at the Opening theory for the dynamics of an antiferromagnet at low
Ceremony of the 2015 International Year of Light temperature. A key aspect of this work lies in linking
and Light-based Technologies. He held high-profile the microscopic description with the long wavelength
political appointments including: United States First macroscopic hydrodynamic behaviour of the
Science Envoy to the Middle East (2009-2011), antiferromagnet. Indeed, it was these two approaches,
President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science often adopted in theoretical condensed matter physics,
and Technology (2009-2013) and UN Secretary General that Deepak Kumar time and again explored in his
Ban Ki-moon's Scientific Advisory Board (2013). Several research of later years.

26
During his years in the University of Roorkee, he worked collaboration with R Ghosh and her group on
in collaboration with A Mukherjee, Vijay Kumar, measurement problem in quantum mechanics, studying
S K Joshi, on surface segregation in random alloys. In environment- induced decoherence in the Stern-Gerlach
1986, from University of Roorke, with Kamlesh Kumari, measurement, effect of decoherence on Bell's inequality.
Deepak Kumar presented a spherical model of Ising While he worked with theoretician colleague
spins, placed on sites arranged in a cluster hierarchy. R Rajaraman on the nature of the flow in re-
The critical exponents for a ferromagnetic transition in normalization-group equations with respect to Umklapp
the system were shown to be non-universal, while for processes for electrons, he also took keen interest in
antiferromagnetic interactions, the system has no studying the data on magnetism of transition metal
transition, demonstrating that condensation cannot cluster compounds with his experimentalist friend
A K Rastogi.
occur in localized systems. During his initial years in
New Delhi, he studied microscopic models of hopping His contribution to science has been recognized by
conduction in a system with Coulomb interactions. In several organizations. He was Alexander von Humboldt
a paper with his student S Lamba, he calculated within fellow in Germany during 1978-79. He was elected a
the linear-response regime, the conductivity and the member of the Indian Academy of Science, Bengaluru,
dielectric functions in terms of the density-density in 1987. In 1990 he received the Shanti Swarup
response function. He pursued in the later years his Bhatnagar Award for Physical Sciences from CSIR. He
interest on discrete models and transport in simple was Senior Research Associate of International Center
systems. With G Santosh and R Ramaswamy, he for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy. He was also a
studied transport and phonon renormalization in a chain member of Indian Physics Association and Material
with transverse and longitudinal vibrations. He worked Research Society of India. Deepak Kumar was always
with R K Brojen Singh, on self-consistent study of a University teacher. All these years, even after his
localization in thin films, and with another student formal retirement from the University he never gave up
V Malik on thermodynamics and excitations of Coulomb his teaching and helping out the interested learner who
glass. With his student A Tripathi he worked in recent approached him. He constantly worried about improve-
years on the behaviour of velocity correlations and ment of standards of university education, and thought
mobility in single- file diffusion. In 2004, with R Mehrotra of ways of getting qualified people to join University
system. His article in Current Science, entitled 'University
of National Physical Laboratory, Delhi, he took the
science set to decline: a new caste system' (25 July
approach of classical hydrodynamics to study the
2011, 101(02), 149) is very relevant in this respect.
pattern formations in melting snow. Deepak Kumar
followed a very versatile approach in his research
working on different problems of theoretical condensed *****
matter physics. On one hand, he pursued with keen
interest hierarchical models of spins, microscopic
hopping models of transport, study of spin glasses,
and at the same time worked on coarse grained
models of classical thermodynamics as well as
hydrodynamics, looking into problems ranging from
surface segregation, phase transition in mixtures, heat
conduction and pattern formation in melting snow. He
collaborated rather extensively with a large number of
his colleagues not only in the Universities where he
worked, but also working in other Institutes in India.
During his years in Roorkee, he collaborated with
S Dattagupta, to study the non-equilibrium susceptibility
of superparamagnetic particles, with M Barma on the
Paramasivam Natarajan
critical properties of diluted anisotropic magnets near
(Elected 1987)
percolation threshold, and with S Shenoy on relaxational
dynamics of disordered ultrametric models. During his Paramasivam Natarajan, who was a pioneer in inorganic
JNU years, he worked with S Sarkar to study phase photochemistry specializing in the photochemistry of
diagrams of binary mixtures using methods of classical coordination compounds, passed away on 18 March
statistical physics. He collaborated extensively with 2016 at the age of 76. Besides his scientific
S Puri and his group again on problems of classical contributions, he was an institution builder. He
statistical mechanics, and studied models of phase established the Chemistry Department at the Post-
separation, dynamics, aging in ternary mixtures. And Graduate Centre in University of Madras, Tiruchirapalli,
over the same years, he was also very active in research which later became the Bharathidasan University. He

27
served as the founder Director of the DST-funded diverse fields in the area of photochemistry such as
National Centre for Ultrafast Processes at the University polymer dynamics in aqueous solution using
of Madras for ten years (1997-2006). His institution fluorescence techniques, photophysics and
building did not stop with universities, but continued at photochemistry in organized media, flash photolysis
the Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research studies of organic and inorganic systems using pico-
Institute (CSMCRI), a CSIR Laboratory at Bhavnagar in and femto-second lasers and photoelectrochemistry with
Gujarat. applications to solar energy conversion.

Natarajan was born on 17 September 1940 in Madras Natarajan showed that when macromolecular dyes are
(now Chennai) to Paramasivam and Chellammal. After coated onto an electrode and photolysed, the
graduation in chemistry from the University of Madras characteristics of the electrode reaction change
(1959), he worked there as a lecturer for two years completely and high current density is observed even
(1959-61). He completed his post-graduation from when film thickness is just 10 m. Normally polymer
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, in 1963 and then films of 10 m thickness have very high resistance and
worked as a lecturer in NGM College in Pollachi (1963- charge migration is practically nil through such films.
64). He continued his academic career at Varanasi The first report about this cell, published in Nature,
working as a junior research fellow (1964-65) and as shows much potential for solar energy conversion using
lecturer, and then moved to the Jawaharlal Nehru chemically modified electrodes. His contributions have
Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and been published in journals like Nature, JACS, JPC,
Research in Pondicherry (1965-66). He then went to Inorganic Chemistry, Chemical Communications and
the University of Southern California, first as an NSF others. He published more than one hundred papers
trainee, then as a research assistant and teaching and has several patents. He served as member of the
assistant (1966-71) before completing his PhD at the editorial boards of several journals. More than thirty
University in 1971. He moved to the Wayne State students obtained their PhD degrees under his
University in 1971 as a post-doctoral research associate supervision. As the Director of CSMCRI, Natarajan
with J F Endicott. contributed to promote new areas of research,
commercialized the technologies developed, the most
Returning to India in 1973, he became a CSIR Pool notable being the transfer of knowhow developed by
Officer and then reader in physical chemistry at the CSMCRI scientists for detergent grade zeolite to
University of Madras (1973-77). In 1977 he was NALCO. He was a member and Chairman of PAC for
appointed as professor and head of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry at DST and Chairman of Research
Chemistry at the Madras University PG Centre in Committee for Chemical Sciences in CSIR and a
Tiruchirapalli (1977-82). In 1982 he moved over to the member of SERC in DST and IUPAC committees.
main University in Tiruchi (Bharathidasan) to take up Natarajan was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar
the position as professor and head of the Department Prize for chemical sciences (1984) and elected to the
of Inorganic Chemistry and continued in this position fellowships of the Indian Academy of Sciences (1987),
until 2001. During this period, he took lien from the Indian National Science Academy (1988), IUPAC,
University to take over as Director of CSMCRI (1991- Society of Biosciences and other state Academies. He
97). He also founded the National Centre for Ultrafast was given the Best Teacher Award by the Government
Processes in the University of Madras in 1997 and of Tamil Nadu, the Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary
continued there until 2006. Lecture Award of INSA, Acharya P.C. Ray Award by
His research focus was on the use of flash photolysis the Indian Chemical Society, the DST-Ramanna
and single photon counting fluorimetry in the study of Fellowship, Sigma-XI Society award in USA, INSA-
photochemical reactions. One of the highlights of his Senior Scientist and INSA-Honorary Scientist. He held
contributions is chemically modified electrodes for the Sir M Visvesvaraya Chair at the Mysore University
polymeric photovoltaic application, which was published and Pandit Jawaharlal Chair at the University of
in Nature. He mastered inorganic photochemistry, Hyderabad.
working with A W Adamson, who is considered as the Natarajan leaves behind his wife (Sivabagyam), two
father of inorganic photochemistry and initiated research daughters (Shiva Sukanthi and Shakthi) and their
in this unique subject in India after his return from families.
USA. Natarajan started his research career in inorganic
photochemistry and subsequently contributed to many
*****
28
 was a referee for several scientific journals. She was a
member of the Editorial Board of Pramana – Journal of
Physics (2006-08), Journal of Chemical Sciences (2008-
11), and Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics
(2012). She was a member of various scientific
committees in the country, particularly of the Science
Academies and DST and the Council of Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi.
She was awarded the Young Scientist Medal of the
Indian National Science Academy (INSA), New Delhi in
1996, and selected as Young Associate of the Indian
Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru. She was made an
Associate Member of the Abdus Salam International
Charusita Chakravarty Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy (1996-
(Elected 2006) 2003). She received the B. M. Birla Science Prize in
1999 and the Swarnajayanti Fellowship in 2003. The
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA on 5 May coveted SS Bhatnagar Prize in Chemical Sciences from
1964 as the only daughter of the economists Sukhamoy CSIR followed in 2009. She was elected Fellow of IAS,
and Lalita Chakravarty, Charu grew up in a liberal Bengaluru, in 2006 and INSA, New Delhi, in 2015.
academic environment in Delhi. Charu was brilliant in
her studies and this was reflected in her topping the In a country in which women scientists have difficulty
Delhi Higher Secondary Board. She was selected as in pursuing their careers, Charu managed to balance
a National Science Talent Scholar and also cleared the work with family. She succumbed to cancer and
highly competitive Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) of breathed her last on 29 March 2016. She leaves behind
the IITs in 1982. She competed her BSc (Hons) in her husband Prof Ram Ramaswamy and their daughter
chemistry in St. Stephen's College, Delhi. After Kirthi.
graduating from Delhi University with a gold medal in
1985, she joined Cambridge University, UK, to do the *****
Natural Sciences Tripos, receiving the BA (Hons) degree
in Natural Sciences in 1987. She then joined the PhD
programme at Cambridge under the guidance of David
Clary. Her thesis was on the spectra and dynamics of
Ar-OH, an open shell system that involved a lot of
nuances. After receiving her PhD degree in 1990, she
went to the University of California, Santa Barbara,
USA, for postdoctoral training with Horia Metiu. She
returned to India for good in 1994.

IIT Delhi offered her the position of an assistant

professor in the Chemistry Department, where she rose
to the rank of a Professor in 2006 and stayed on till
the end. Charu's initial research centred around the
characteristics of atomic and molecular clusters,
anomalous properties of water and ionic liquids, phase M V Bhatt
transition in classical and quantum clusters, diffusion (Elected 1981)
in constrained media and related phenomena. She
guided a number of MSc and PhD students. Single- Mangalore Vivekananda Bhatt passed away in
author papers were the hallmark of Charu's research Bengaluru on 19 April 2016. He was born on 1 February
during the period 1995-2005. She was an expert in 1924 in Mulki, to Taranath Krishna Bhatt and Tulsi Bai
using path integral Monte Carlo simulation to unravel Bhatt.
quantum mechanical effects in the properties of atomic
Young Vivek was sent to his paternal grandfather's home
and molecular clusters. She has published more than
in Mulki, near Mangalore, to go to the village school
90 research papers in refereed national and international there. By his own accounts, Vivek did rather poorly in
research journals. The quality of her research output is school. He later went to Aloysius College in Mangalore
reflected in the large number of citations her papers for the pre-university class (12th standard) as it was
received and in the recognition from her peers. She called then. Subsequently, Vivek moved to Tiruchirapalli

29
(Trichy) in Tamil Nadu, and joined the St Joseph's close proximity, in the same small organic molecule.
College. In Trichy, Vivek became deeply interested in His opinion was that an understanding of 'neighbouring
chemistry and mathematics and soon his interest turned group effects' in small organic molecules would aid
into fascination. He graduated (BSc) with a first class unravel complexities of reactions in biological systems.
and first rank. Soon after, as a teenager (19) in 1943, He was ahead of his time in designing isotopic (D, N15
he joined the Organic Chemistry Department of the and O 18 ) labelling experiments to understand
Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, as research mechanisms of organic reactions developed by his
assistant. MVB completed his Associateship of IISc in group. He practised and advocated research in physical
1948 and PhD in 1954. From 1954 to 1957, he was a organic chemistry in the larger interest of understanding
postdoctoral fellow with D K Banerjee at IISc. He and exploiting the efficiency and specificity of chemical
travelled on a Fulbright Fellowship to Washington reaction that occur with unparalleled efficiency in living
University where he did his post-doctoral work with systems.
C D Gutsche from 1958 to 1959. MVB's second
He also published several reviews and book chapters.
postdoctoral stint from 1959 to 1960 was with Herbert
He was involved in summer school programmes for
C Brown (1979 Chemistry Nobel Laureate) at Purdue
teachers and some of his PhD students were teachers
University, USA. He also spent a year (1977-78) in
who had joined IISc on the Faculty Improvement
Brown's group as a visiting faculty. Brown must have
Program (FIP).
been quite impressed with MVB as many of the
students of MVB subsequently worked with Brown as MVB was a Fellow of the Indian National Science
post-doctoral associates. Academy (1984), Indian Academy of Sciences (1981)
and served as Indian representative of IUPAC. He
MVB returned to IISc in 1960 as Lecturer and was published around 135 papers, review articles and book
promoted to Associate Professor in 1965. From 1969 chapters, obtained 10 Indian and 2 foreign patents and
to 1984, he served as a professor, during which time guided 26 PhD students including 2 from Egypt.
he was also Chairman of the Department and Dean of
the Science Faculty. From 1984 to 1989 he was an He was married to Sarojini Nayak in 1955 and they had
Emeritus Scientist. four children. In 2005, Sarojini passed away.

MVB was a self-taught physical organic chemist as

this area of chemistry was in its infancy, especially in *****
India, when he started his independent research group
at IISc. Major contributions of his group were in the
areas of ring-chain tautomerism, new reagents and
reactions and quinone studies. He also collaborated
with faculty members from the departments of Chemical
Engineering, Biochemistry and Microbiology and Cell
Biology at IISc. He published papers on kinetics and
mechanistic studies in these areas. Notably, he
published a series of papers on different aspects of
ring-chain tautomerism in American Chemical Society
and Royal Society of Chemistry journals. His initial
studies in ring-chain tautomerism pertained to the
structure of ortho-benzoyl benzoic acid. This acid exists
in equilibrium with the hydroxylactone form in solution.
He extended the studies to understand the reactions
Noshir Hormusji Wadia
of ortho-benzoyl benzoyl chlorides with nucleophiles
(Elected 1983)
and studied the kinetics of hydrolysis of esters and
amides of orthobenzoyl benzoic acid. The results of
Noshir H Wadia, a pioneer and avantgarde neurologist,
this piece of research encouraged MVB to extend the
considered the grand old man of Indian neurology, and
studies to other gamma-keto acids and their derivatives.
revered by hundreds of his patients, students,
By now he had realized that the studies in tautomerism
colleagues, friends and family, passed away on 10 April
that he initiated had grown into a new area of research
2016.
for which he coined the phrase 'neighbouring group
effects' (to distinguish these effects from the classical He was born to Hormusji and Dinamai Wadia, as one
'neighbouring group participation') although the series of five children in Surat, Gujarat. He embarked on his
title of journal publications was maintained as 'Aspects journey to the UK in 1951 to train in neurology, after
of tautomerism'. Subsequent research in this area was the seamless completion of his undergraduate and
aimed at unravelling the effects of one functional group postgraduate medical education (1943-50) from Grant
on the reactions of another functional group present in Medical College and Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy group of

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hospitals, Mumbai. In the next five years in the UK, clinical suspicion. During his illustrious career, he served
Wadia worked as house physician in the department several institutions, as consultant neurologist for life for
of neurosurgery, Newcastle General Hospital, as the JJ Group of Hospitals and Grant Medical College,
resident medical officer in, the National Hospital for director of neurology and director of research, Jaslok
Nervous Diseases, London and as registrar to Russel Hospital and Research Centre, consultant neurologist
Brain in the department of neurology of the London for B. D. Petit General Hospital, Bhabha Atomic
Hospital. He won, despite stiff competition from British Research Centre, Tata Institute of Fundamental
residents, the opportunity to train under the illustrious Research and the Breach Candy Hospital and Research
Walter Russel Brain, the author of the standard text Centre. He published over 100 research papers and
book of neurology Diseases of the brain. The training book chapters, many of them in journals such as Brain,
under Lord Brain, the long-time editor of the reputed The Lancet, British Medical Journal and Neurology. He
neurology medical journal Brain and the President of delivered 10 orations, 25 international lectures and was
the Royal College of Physicians London, left a deep on the Editorial board of 4 journals. Recipient of the
impact on young Noshir and culminated in an association Padma Bhushan award, he was also conferred with
that they both nurtured for several years. Walter Brain's several accolades by both national and international
strong words of support earned him the opportunity to scientific bodies, notable among them being the
become the first Asian to be a registrar and tutor at Certificate of Appreciation for Services to Neurology, by
the London hospital. The ensuing promotion to senior the World Federation of Neurology.
registrarship based on research and publications, set
Over the years, he trained several neurologists who are
him on the right course of academics and clinical
now spread across the world besides India. He was
research in a career spanning more than five decades.
elected to several national and international scientific
His very first publication on typical features in acoustic
societies and member of various national and
neuroma was published in the journal Brain.
international research committees. He was a member
On his return to India, Wadia was appointed to the of several hospital boards and academic committees of
JJ Group of Hospitals as honorary assistant neurologist several institutions (both national and international). He
and lecturer in neurology in Grant Medical College in served as the chairman of the Governing Body and
January 1957. The 32-year-old neurologist dedicated President of the Institute Body of the Sree Chitra Tirunal
himself to developing the department of neurology, Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST),
starting with very limited facilities. By nurturing the Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. The institute was close to
growth of the departments of neurosurgery, his heart, a sentiment stemming from long years of his
neuroradiology and neuropathology around it, he association with it in various capacities.
transformed it into a full-fledged neuroscience centre
He leaves behind his wife, a noted clinical neuro-
that attracted several eminent faculty and generated
physiologist, Piroja Wadia, his two step sons and two
excellent clinical and research output. Quick to
brothers.
recognize the difference in the frequencies and types
of neurological disorders in India versus the UK, he
delved into the study of tuberculosis of the brain and
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spinal cord, the neurological complications of
manganese toxicity, the varied neurological
manifestations of craniovertebral anomalies, the
nutritional disorders affecting the nervous system, and
the spectrum of presentations of Wilson's disease, to
name some. His large body of work spanning several
different areas of neurology speaks of the diligent
researcher he was. However, most neurologists would
consider as his seminal contributions, the description
of two novel neurological entities from India:
(a) 'utosomal dominant cerebellar ataxia with slow eye
movements' which was later renamed as 'spinocerebellar
ataxia type 2 (SCA2)' caused by mutations in the ATXN2
gene and (b) EV70 disease. He described a polio-like
illness in two of his patients following acute Bahadur Chand Nakra
haemorrhagic conjunctivitis, which he was convinced, (Elected 1995)
was related to the conjunctivitis. Many years later,
Bahadur Chand Nakra, born on 31 March 1939, passed
when the enterovirus EV40 was isolated from Japanese
away on 12 April 2016. A detailed obituary note will
patients with conjunctivitis, he, along with the Japanese
appear in a future issue of Patrika.
team, injected the virus into the theca of monkeys and
reproduced the hind limb paralysis, thus confirming his
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