ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle

Chronicle wishes all its readers a very happy & prosperous new year 2007 !!!

This issue contains report about 3rd BHU International Alumni Meet held at our campus on Jan 6-7. The issue also lists Kashi Milap, a Silver Jubilee Reunion of our Class of 1981 held at our college.

We have interviewed Prof. T. A. Abinandanan (Meta 1985), professor at IISc, Bangalore. He is more known for his famous blog Nanopolitan, which arguably the best blog on higher education in our country.

We are pleased to announce the rebirth of our beloved magazine, Reverberations. The first issue is expected to be out in March 2007.

There is also an amazing Google video link about the KashiYatra 2006 (E TV Coverage) posted in this issue. We thank Nitin Mohan (ECE 1999) for forwarding the link.

We need more news. Please send us news, events, articles, information, etc, at: chronicle[AT]itbhuglobal.org. Please indicate your branch/year.

Thanking you,
The Chronicle Team

Chronicle is pleased to announce that Reverberations magazine is coming alive. The magazine, which was published by students and alumni from our institute, has seen many lives. It was often, only published and lost, due to various reasons.

Now the former Reverberations team members are joining hands together to bring out the magazine issue some time in March 2007. It is planned to have it published two times a year, i.e. in July and January of each year. The first issue will be published in March this year, as an exception. The second issue will be July this year.

In addition to the on-line edition, the team plans to publish a hard copy within 1-2 months of the online edition. So your very own magazine will not only be in your hands but also easily accessible in the institute through internet (thanks to the WiFi project by our alumni)

Reverberations has always been the voice of students and a unique platform for you to get you in touch with the alumni spread across the globe. The magazine will primarily focus on the creative values of students and alumni. Please read the following announcement for submission of articles.

The members for the Reverberation Team are as follows. The team will be expanded later to accommodate more members.

Yogesh Upadhayaya (Chemical 1977)
Biplav Mishra (Metallurgy 2002)
Dheerendra Tiwari(Ceramic 2004)
Priyank Kulshrestha (Civil 2006)
Neelakshi Hudda (Civil 2006)
Yogendra Pandey (Chemical 2007)

Announcement-Reverberations magazine invites articles!

As stated above, the Reverberation magazine will start publication with the first issue in March 2007. For this inauguration issue, it invites articles from IT-BHU community as follows:

1. The articles are invited from students, alumni and faculty of IT-BHU.
2. The topic can be any subject of general interest, such as poetry, joke, puzzles, cartoons, short stories, personal experience about work place, campus life. It can be also regarding curriculum improvement, college events, any first-hand account of attending a seminar, meeting, etc.
3. The articles should not be preferably more than 600 words (about two pages) long. You may submit photos, if required.
4. The editorial board reserves the right to publish any or all the articles. It will also edit the article to suit the space available. Some of the selected articles may be published in the following issues, if sufficient space is not available in the first issue.
5. The first issue will be of 60 pages in length. The length of subsequent issues will be decided upon the response received from the writers.
6. Please submit your articles, by February 28, via email to chronicle[AT]itbhuglobal.org. Please do mention “article for Reverberations” in the subject line.

We appreciate and look forward to your response.

Editorial Board - 2007
Reverberations…attitude in print

Dear Readers:

We published the sad demise of our alumnus, Shiva (N.S.Sivaramakrishnan) of ECE 1991 batch in Chronicle Dec. 2006 issue. We have received the following tributes from his classmates:

1. It is very sad to know the untimely departure of my classmate Shiva. I still remember him as a cheerful person with a broad smile. We will certainly miss his smiling face and his guitar. May HIS soul rest in peace. My deepest condolences for the family and friends to recover from this great loss.

   Rajesh Joshi (ECE 1991)
   rajesh.joshi[AT]ECE91.ITBHUGlobal.org
   Jan 2, 2007

2. My name is Andrew D'Souza (Ceramics- 1991). I would like to share my memories of Shiva. I played with Shiva as a member of the group ALLOY along with Nitin Bhatt, Asim Tewari and Hitesh Gulati. I have very fond memories of Shiva. He was a great musician and at the same time very humble in his ways. His passion for music infected us all and he was always willing to help the rest of us in the group. My IT-BHU years were greatly enriched by being a member of Alloy and Shiva was a big part of that.

   I am saddened by his untimely demise and will always remember him fondly. I am attaching a picture of Siva from our BHU days.

   

   Andrew D'Souza (Ceramics- 1991)
   asd108b[AT]yahoo.com
   Dec 31, 2006

3. Thank you for featuring AIM for Seva in Chronicle. I am very happy about this but I am also very sad to note the demise of our beloved Shiva. I have very fond memories of being with him in IT, watching him play his guitar in his room, in KP during practice sessions and in concerts. It is a loss for all of us and I pray for a better after life for him.

   With warm regards,
   Jaishankar Narayanan (Chemical 1992)
   jai[AT]aimforseva.org
   Dec 21, 2006
   Jt. Secretary,
   AIM for Seva, Chennai.

The batch of 1981 had a reunion during December 23-25, 2006, held at our campus. It was a great moment of life for the alumni for this meet celebrating Silver Jubilee of their pass out. The following report was prepared by Raj Dodhiawala (with input from his fellow batchmates) and forwarded to us for this Reunion, named as Kashi-Milap:

__________________________________________________________________________________

Report on Kashi Milap for the class of 1981:

Kasi Milap 81

Dec 23-25, 2006

Summary

The batch of 81 had its silver jubilee reunion from Dec 23-25, 2006 under the banner of Kasi Milap 81. The event was mainly about meeting and reliving the IT-BHU experience with batch mates after 25 years, but importantly, about understanding how the Institute has progressed since we left in 1981.

One clear message emerged from our meetings: IT Administration must make a sincere and serious effort to gain IIT status. We recognize that this sentiment is echoed by other Alumni and students and there is activity to support this cause. We felt, however, that the leadership for this effort must come from the Institute. If IT Administration can articulate a vision and clear plan to make conversion to IIT viable, not just the batch of 81 but all IT Alumni and students will join forces to make this vision a reality.

For the immediate-term, the batch of 81 agreed to fund the upgrade of the G11 room to a state of the art seminar and meeting facility, with advanced audio-visual equipment and related capabilities. We have targeted this to be completed before the summer of 2007.

The Milap

The meet was titled Kasi Milap 81; we sincerely hope this becomes a brand for annual alumni reunions from here on out. Incidentally, we are the batch that created and launched Kasi Yatra and it was great to see it thrive as it has: targeting an attendance of 10,000 for the 25th occurrence of the event, scheduled for Feb 22-25, 2007. Similarly, with Kasi Milap, we have embarked on an even more critical era in the performance, wellness and impact of IT and we hope all the Alumni of IT-BHU will join us to make this trek a resounding success as well.

Acknowledgements

The batch of 81 would like to thank the Dr. S. N. Upadhyay, Director, Dr. J. N. Sinha, Dean, Prof. A. K. Jha of the Alumni Cell, and the rest of the faculty, staff, and students that made our reunion possible and for spending their valuable time with us. We would be remiss to not mention the notable support of the Alumni Cell students (Vikalp Agarwal, Abhinav Nigam, Piyush Gupta, and others) without their sincere efforts and tenacity, our reunion would have fallen woefully short of the grand success it was. Anshuman Singh (EEE98), a key force at IT Alumni organization (www.itbhuglobal.org), provided invaluable insights related to the reunion activities.

Participation

The event was conceived in June 2006 by a handful of alumni active on a Yahoo Group and quickly gained momentum to enroll batch mates via individual connections. The reunion was attended by 44 alumni, which is just over 50% of approximately 85 batch mates that remain in contact (and has since grown) on the Yahoo Group. Most of the people came from within India but a handful came from the US, Indonesia, Australia, Middle East and Africa. About 15 alumni came with spouses and even children, extending the alumni friendships and nostalgia to families and proudly introducing them to the Institute that shaped our lives. Quite a few of us stayed at the newly appointed Gandhi Technology Alumni Center, a guest house with reasonably modern conveniences located behind Vishveshwariya hostel. The rest stayed in the city at Diamond Hotel.
Highlights

There were two main reasons behind the reunion:
1. To meet and relive memories with batchmates and
2. To learn about the vision and the current state of the Institute, looking for opportunities for the Alumni to reconnect with and give back to our alma mater.

The reunion, foremost, was about meeting our batch mates after 25 years. It was immediately apparent that the joy and warmth of rekindled memories from meeting our batch mates removed even the remotest of doubts that the impactful and momentous days of our lives can ever be forgotten. It took little to reestablish that we are indeed life long friends, cherishing individual successes and exploring new ways to re-connect, leveraging our heritage and experiences. The spouses and children fit right in to create a one big family event. Boating on the Ganges, early morning visits to heavily fortified Sankat Mochan and Kasi Vishwanath temples, the tour of Sarnath, and a gala dinner and dance at the Taj Ganges rounded out the experience.

We had several opportunities to interact with IT faculty and students, including an interactive session with the Director, Dean, and HODs. It was a little unfortunate that our event coincided with an intra-semester break in the academic session. Thus, our interaction with the students was limited to the trusty Alumni Cell team and a handful of others that stayed had through the break. Nonetheless, the students’ input seemed representative of the concerns and needs of the larger student body.

Generally, we had mixed emotions about the current state of the Institute. It was great to visit departments and to learn of exciting ways they had changed or expanded since our time there, but some things had stayed the same or, unfortunately, worsened. Almost all departments cried about challenges in recruiting faculty, let alone great faculty. Clearly evident was the limiting influence of BHU on upgrading IT’s academic status or improving essential infrastructure. In our interactive session, we discussed some of these challenges, suggesting IT administration to take greater ownership in revitalizing academic, infrastructure and student experience. In turn, we pledged to contribute to and work with the Institute on near- and longer-term projects. We concluded the session with call to action, appointing alumni, faculty and student reps on several endeavors, including the G11 update mentioned above, plus two key initiatives:

• Improve IT brand and build an image of IT as a premier institute, including the effort to convert it to an IIT, and
• Create an Endowment Fund to enable and support faculty and student enrichment opportunities

Call to Action

The batch of 81 is calling on IT Administration to articulate a plan and to begin making inroads on the IIT conversion plan. We will support this effort to our fullest ability. Beyond this, we are committed to make IT better through continuous involvement. We will be coordinating the current and future projects with the IT Alumni organization by aligning with www.itbhuglobal.org goals, and by extension, with the rest of the Alumni. We hope our endeavors will scale out to alumni from all batches, multiplying our collective efforts to help IT Administration, Faculty, Students and Alumni to execute a shared, heretofore handicapped, vision of our alma mater as a world-class institute for learning, growing intellectual equity, excelling in academics and imparting key life-skills to the next generation of India’s brightest. The batch of 81 firmly believes that the vision will simply remain on paper without the active involvement and support of each and every alumnus of IT-BHU. We request your feedback and your invaluable support. You may contact us through the itbhuglobal.org site.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

PowerPoint Presentation:

As part of celebration for Silver Jubilee Reunion, an interactive session among Faculty, Student and Alumni was held on December 24 for striving for excellence. Here are the six PowerPoint slides prepared by Raj Dodhiawala and Dinesh Mahale.

Download file
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Alumni Reunion of class of 1981-Photo album

Milap Banner:

Boat Ride:

Chemical Engineering:

The Presentation:

Murga Bano:

Rakesh is 1976 alumnus from IT BHU. He did his Bachelors in Chemical Engineering, joined M. Tech for a few months & moved on to the Marketing Division of Indian Oil Corporation as his first work place. As per him, it was an interesting learning ground of the commercial world & he is still very much emotionally bonded to this great organization and the people. With over 16 years of working with IOC, Rakesh moved to Caltex (A JV of Chevron & Texaco) as a start up company in India and got some excellent international exposure in terms of market & way of working for almost 5 years. He then shifted to head another start up company Coastal Wärtsilä Petroleum, a JV of Coastal Corporation - US based Oil & Gas Company and Wärtsilä India, a Scandinavian OEM in the Marine & Power market from Finland. And after a few years he transitioned into the parent company – Wärtsilä to head its Service Business Unit in India; a business process for Middle East & South Asia Region & also company head of Wärtsilä Sri Lanka.

Starting from October 2006 Rakesh has shifted to the Wärtsilä Head Quarters in Helsinki. He now heads the global organization with responsibilities for Marketing and Sales of Power Plant products as well as market development activities and is also on the Board of the Power Plants business unit of Wärtsilä.

Rakesh gives credit to some basic principles which have made him reach wherever he is today & always try to communicate this experience to the youngsters, including his son & daughter for moving on in life . . .

• Be a genuine & unconditional giver and believe in people
• Love change, question status quo relentlessly & always strive for commonsensical innovation
• Believe in action . . . many thousands of years back Buddha said a profound thing . . . “World is devoid of many great things because of two reasons 1) Not starting & 2) Not finishing”
• Take care of the attitude & health with daily deliberate actions & be creative about building both of them day by day
• Have fun! One can either be happy or unhappy & it is a lot smarter to chose to be happy!!

In his free time Rakesh loves to have fun with family, work out, read inspirational books, write, play flute, practice / teach yoga & meditation. His most recently acquired passion is cooking!

Here is a snap of him & his family . . .
From right: Rakesh > Wife – Mani > Daughter – Shivi > Daughter in Law – Shruti > Son – Karan

The above news was provided by Ashok Srivastava (Mechanical 1976).

An article in Indian Express about campus politics by Sandeep Pandey (Mechanical 1986), a leader in social works and winner of 2002 Ramon Magasasay Award

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/20022.html

Lucknow lessons in university reform

Sandeep Pandey

Posted online: Thursday, January 04, 2007 at 0000 hrs

The vice-chancellor of Lucknow University needs to be supported in his attempt to take it out of the mess it’s in

The vice-chancellor of Lucknow University, Ram Prakash Singh, has shown rare courage in taking the bull of campus hooliganism by the horns. This university, like most campuses, has been taken over by criminals in the garb of students, patronised by opportunist national political parties.

These so-called student leaders, who are neither students nor leaders, hope to catch the attention of one of the parties, so that they may use campus politics as a stepping stone to state or national-level politics. If a student gets elected to one of the three important posts of any student union of a major university, sooner or later he or she is ensured of a ticket to assembly or parliamentary elections from one of the major political parties.

As a Banaras Hindu University student with a rosy picture of politics as an instrument of social change, I had run for the post of representative of the university’s Institute of Technology in 1985. It was a shocking experience: the candidates for the posts of president, vice-president and general-secretary asked me to align with them on the basis of a common caste, and they offered me access to any movie in town — and also liquor, if needed, for students who could pledge their votes. Having won the election, I attended the first few meetings of the union. They left me disillusioned for life about Indian electoral politics.

Students who won or ran for the top three posts did very well in their subsequent political careers. Rajesh Mishra, who was vice-president of the union, is the Congress MP from Varanasi now; O.P. Singh, who was general secretary, became a minister in the last BJP government in UP. Manoj Sinha, a former president of the union, became the BJP MP from Ghazipur, and Satya Prakash Sonkar, who ran for a post in the 1985 university election but did not win, became an MLA later.

For many so-called student leaders, it may be a good thing to remain active in student politics till such time as they win an important student election or become notorious enough not to be ignored by mainstream political parties. But in general, universities suffer because of them. I can perfectly understand the predicament of Vice-chancellor Professor R.P. Singh, as I have had to face a similar sort of hooliganism. The occasion was a programme organised in the honour of 40 visiting Pakistani guests in August 2005 at the prestigious Malviya Bhavan of Lucknow University. Since the programme was being held at Lucknow University, we also decided to invite the then students union president, Rajpal Kashyap, to share the dais as a representative of the student community.

But other student leaders present there wanted to share the dais, too, and were in no mood to realise the seriousness of the programme. We put our foot down. A melee followed, with each of these ‘leaders’ appearing more threatening than the other. Some of them said abusive things about the organisers, not even sparing the women. This was embarrassing in the presence of our Pakistani guests, so we decided to boycott the snacks organised by the union. The Pakistanis joined us in walking out.

Frankly, I think Lucknow University needs an overhaul. It must be rid of all its goonda elements. But I never thought this was possible. When R.P. Singh took over as vice-chancellor and spoke of making an IIT out of Lucknow University, we thought he would soon get disillusioned. But he has demonstrated the guts and can take on not only the university lumpens but also state-level politicians. While Mulayam Singh Yadav shamelessly patronises goonda elements on campus and other political parties support him or keep silent on the issue, R.P. Singh has stuck to his guns. He needs all our support to take on Mulayam Singh Yadav and his brand of politicians. He deserves kudos for not having buckled under the political pressure to isolate him.

Without caring about the danger that he has invited to his personal security, he has shown the determination to raise Lucknow University out of the hopeless mess to which it had degenerated. If political parties think they can ride roughshod over the vice-chancellor by supporting the kind of rowdyism that has become the hallmark of Indian politics, they are mistaken.

People are tolerant of such politics because they have no option. As soon as they’ll have a healthier alternative they’ll reject the murkier elements.

The writer is a winner of the 2002 Ramon Magasasay Award for Emergent Leadership

Interview with Ajay Bagepalli, Director Channel Sales, Autodesk India published in
Computer Reseller News. He is a chemical engineering graduate from IT-BHU (around 1990).

http://www.crn-india.com/channelfolk/stories/68880.html

Excerpts from the interview:

"We plan to target over 50 cities across India"
Talk Back?
Nirendra Dev, December 01, 2006

Interview with Ajay Bagepalli, Director ? Channel Sales, Autodesk India

Can you tell us about your career background? What are your responsibilities in Autodesk?

Before joining Autodesk nine years ago, I had a successful sales career for a decade with Silicon Graphics, Tata-IBM and HCL-HP, addressing the technical & engineering computing market. My sales experience spans both ? direct (customer facing, long lead time, large value, strategic account sales) and indirect/channel business models.
……………………………….

……………………………..

Do you agree that Indian SIs are now opting for more strategic services to customers, moving from mere box pushing?

Customers, with an objective of maximizing their ROI, are becoming more demanding and expect partners not just to supply software but also provide value-added services such as training, post-sales support, customization and at times specialized services as well. Herein lies a great opportunity for partners to scale up their deliverables/offerings to customers and become ?trusted advisors' to their clients rather than being mere box-pushers. It is a win-win situation.

At a glance:
Age: 41
Educational Qualification: Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from IT-BHU, Varanasi and a PGDM from IIM-Bangalore
Favorite holiday venue: Switzerland
Favorite pastime: Spending time with my family
Favorite book: Non-Fiction - Stephen Covey's 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People';
Fiction - Mario Puzo's 'The Godfather'
Favorite car: Opel Corsa

HT Correspondent
Varanasi, January 20

CHIEF EXECUTIVE Officer of Indian Ocean Venture (London), Rohan Narse,
said that entrepreneurship aims at developing flexibility and also to
develop an individual instinct.

He was delivering a lecture on 'Engineering and Entrepreneurship' on
the second day of 'Technex-07', the three-day All-India Technical
Festival of Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, here on
Saturday.

Narse, also an alumnus of IT-BHU, dwelt upon the challenges of
construction and suggested how to pass them by breaking the pattern to
accept new things. He suggested several similar means to tackle
problems which will help choose the path of less resistance.

Besides, the second round of Code Warriors, paper presentation for
material life science category, technical sessions of Larson and
Tubro, IBM, Tata Consultancy Services and fourth round of
Panchtantrika etc. were held today.

The budding technocrats of Chemical, Civil, Electronics, Mechanical
and Metallurgy streams were seen challenging practical engineering
problem under Xtreme Engineering Session today.

Students of more than one dozen schools participated in a session, Bal
Vigyan, and displayed their models at the Swatantrata Bhawan. A
software contest, Altair and model show Modex were also held. More
than 50 models were displayed in Modex.

The main attraction of today's event was 'Redesigning Banaras' in
which the young brains suggested ways to tackle various problems of
this historical city.

The students focussed their ideas on traffic snarls, poor sanitation,
well-planned colonies etc.

An exhibition by students of ceramic engineering department and
Faculty of Visual Arts and another show exhibiting the latest mining
techniques are drawing much crowd.

Around 250 students of 35 engineering colleges including Indian
Institute of Technology and National Institute of Technology from
across the country are participating in this technical festival.

HT Correspondent
Varanasi, January 13

A SERIES of competitive events were organised during the management fest ‘Opulence-07’ being organised by the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU) at Swatantrata Bhawan on Saturday.

First and second round of tactitude, business paper presentation (cognoscenti), debate finals, preliminary round of business plan writing (ventura) and quiz (inquizzitive) were held today. The Industry Institute Partnership Cell of IT-BHU has organised this management fest.

The main attraction of today’s programme was a workshop on advertising, which was conducted by advertisement icon and CEO of Genesis Films, Prahlad Kakar. Kakar, who has directed ads for some of the biggest brands in market, as Pepsi, Kit Kat and Nestle gave valuable tips to the students.

Besides, a workshop on entrepreneurship was organised by the officials of department of science and technology (DST) including AS Rao and PK Dutta of Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Dr SK Goel of Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council and Dr. K. Suresh of Intellectual Property Rights wing.

These experts held one-to-one discussion with the grassroots innovators and went through the ideas and hypothesis of these models.

The DST experts suggested the innovators to get their models forwarded through the Outreach Centre for Technology Entrepreneurship Promotional Programme of BHU. As many as, 20 innovators of UP, Bihar and Jharkhand had displayed their models.

HT Correspondent
Varanasi, December 18

NOTED DNA scientist and director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (Hyderabad), Padmashree Prof Lalji Singh said that human cloning was useful in various applications.

He was delivering the keynote address on ‘bioethical issues of genomic research and cloning’ during a daylong workshop on Bioethics at the Mechanical Engineering Department of Institute of Technology in Banaras Hindu University here on Monday. Malviya Centre for Ethics and Human Values had organised the workshop.

Prof Lalji Singh said human cloning could be used for producing stem cells for treatment of damage in brain and also producing a reservoir of spare parts. “Besides, human cloning was also useful in disorders of blood cells, bone cells, cartilage cells, liver cells and skin cells etc,” he said.

He said human cloning could help in understanding the process of ageing. He also discussed in detail about various applications of cloning of animals. “Animals on the verge of extinction could be multiplied by cloning,” he added.

“Therapeutic cloning presents new scientific prospects. This includes studying development of anomalies and determining which treatment would be the most appropriate,” he said. He also talked about using transgenic animals for production of pharmaceuticals and Xeno-transplant (growing pig with human genes for organ transplant).

Talking about ethics in biology, Prof Singh raised various questions such as — should we tell the patient and/or his/her family members about genetic predisposition to diseases, health insurance for those who are at genetic risk, employability of those who are genetically predisposed (at risk) to certain diseases.

He said ethics were required in biology but it was still under consideration as to what should be actual face of such ethics. Emeritus Professor at Zoology Department of BHU, Padma shree Prof MS Kanungo presided over the lecture.

Coordinator of Malviya Centre for Ethics and Human Values and director of IT-BHU Prof SN Upadhyay delivered the welcome address whereas Prof AN Tripathi spoke about the concept of the centre. Prof RS Dubey established the theme of the workshop.

http://www.binstitute.org/conference2006/conference2006.pdf

As per the information brochure above, Bhaktivedanta Institute, Calcutta organized 2nd All India Students’ Conference on Science and Spiritual Quest in December 2006 at Puri, Orissa. Among other speakers, Dr. P.K. Singh was invited as a speaker at the meeting.

Opulence!
By Ankit Khanna, 2nd Applied Physics

Its fest time again in IT-BHU and the season was kicked off in the grandest way possible with Opulence- IT-BHU’s annual national level management fest, organized by the Industry Institute Partnership Cell (IIPC) of IT-BHU. Students from the best engineering and management colleges across the country flocked to IT-BHU, on 12th, 13th and 14th of January to be a part of this mega event. With huge prize money up for grabs and industry leaders sharing their pearls of wisdom, the 2007 installment of Opulence was the best in this young fest’s illustrious history.

Amalgamating past success with fresh ideas, under the able guidance of Dr PK Mishra (the Teacher Convener) and Mr Vikalp Aggarwal (the Student Convener), Team Opulence worked with an insatiable appetite for perfection and left no stones unturned to organize Opulence 2007. The packed itinerary of Opulence included a workshop on Advertising by Mr Prahlad Kakkar, India’s top ad film director and The Big Fight- a discussion which the likes Mr Kavi Kumar, Country Head, Indiabulls; Mr Pranab Mukherjee, An Internationally Renowned Quiz Master and Orator; Mr Ravi Jhakar, an alumnus of the 2004 batch and Business Manager, South Asia, BMT Asia Pacific. The discussion was moderated by Mr Pramod Joshi, Director, Career Plan. Both events took place before a fully packed Swatantrata Bhawan and had the audience riveted to their seats.

The events at Opulence were a mix of the old favourites and novel innovations. The traditional events like Case Study Analysis (Manthan), Business Plan Writing (Ventura), Business Paper Presentation (Cognoscenti), Ad-Making Contest (Adiosynchrosy), Debate (Razzmatazz) and Quiz (Inquizzitive) were accompanied by fresh events like Brand-Aid, Tactitude and Czar of the War. Czar of the war was a surprise final round featuring the best participants at Opulence 2007. The winner of Czar of the war Mr Anwesh from IBMT Bangalore walked away with the considerable sum of Rs 50000.

Another first at Opulence 2007 was the Techno-Innovator’s Camp, a platform for entrepreneurs, who have incorporated technical innovations in their enterprise, to give a presentation of their work. Some of the innovations included the production of diesel from plastic, the production of electricity using manual work by bullocks etc.

Opulence has received generous sponsorship from its partners Maini, Reva, Infosys, Maruti Suzuki, Bry-Air, HAL, IMS, Evalueserve and Radisson group of hotels.

PraGyaN Part 2: Alumni Speak
By Ankit Khanna, 2nd Applied Physics

PraGyaN, the workshop series, an initiative of the Industry Institute Partnership Cell and Opulence, started to promote entrepreneurial and managerial awareness, held its final installment before Opulence 2007 on the 6th of January 2007. A talk was given by some of the illustrious alumni of IT-BHU sharing their professional experiences before a packed G-7.

The speakers included Mr S. K. Maini, Chairman, Maini Group- maker of Reva electric cars, a one-of-its-kind pollution-free car in the world; Mr Deepak Pahwa Group Chairman Indo- American Joint Ventures, Chairman, Pahwa Enterprises, Managing Director, Bry-Air (Asia) Pvt. Ltd, awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the small-medium enterprise category in 1989; Mr Debashish Bhattacharya, General Manager, Siemens; and Mr Arvind Jain, Director, Bhilai Engineering Corporation. Several other alumni were present in the audience. Also present were Dr PK Mishra, Chief Coordinator IIPC and Teacher Convener Opulence; and Dr Pradeep Srivastava, Co-Coordinator and Organising Secretary, Opulence.

The alumni talked about how students should make best use of their stay in IT. They said that the most important qualities for being a successful entrepreneur are optimism and the ability to take risks. Also, to compete with the big boys of the industry one needs to incorporate innovation in his enterprise. Mr Maini’s quotable quote “you have to be big in a small way” got the message across in a most articulate manner.

The audience enjoyed the talk thoroughly, as the speakers, especially Mr Arvind Jain supplemented the serious stuff with anecdotal experiences from their stay in IT. With more such workshops in the offing, PraGyaN is sure to set the students thinking on the difference between just a job and a career.

Tata Consultancy Services has taken the initiative to fill the gap between academic output and industry demand.The demand for quality students has had the IT companies queuing up at leading colleges and at times even recruiting them even before they graduate. However, there are a few companies that look at colleges as more than being just `talent pools'. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is one of them.

With its `Tata Academic Interface Programme' the IT major is putting in place faculty development programmes, internship for students, awards and medals for Best student and Best project, conducting workshops and getting professionals and their own trainers to address students in their classrooms. All this and more comes as a part of the MoU signed between TCS and IT-BHU last month. The MoU has been signed for 3 years.

Academic Interface Programme is the company's initiative aimed to fill the gap between academic output and industry demand. The industry has to take the initiative to ensure that students get better training at their colleges itself.

The workshops start from January 2007 and will be evenly spread across all semesters.

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ITBHU - My Alma Mater By: vikramkarve | Oct 27, 2006 10:36 AM Member's Rating of this Product: Member's Recommendation of this Product: Yes Academic Programs: 4/5 Administration: 3/5 Extracurricular Programs: 4/5 Alumni Network: 2/5 Pros: A centre of excellence in its entirety Cons: Alumni Network not vibrant enough

ITBHU Institute of Technology Banaras Hindu University Varanasi On what basis do you judge an educational institution – an Engineering College or a B-School? In today’s world there is just one criterion – market value – the starting salaries and campus placement the students get. For today’s students it’s all about money, ambition and careerism – the more exorbitant the astronomical pay packets, and the greater the percentage of lucrative campus placements, the better the institution. And with the increasing commercialization of education, many institutes blatantly compete, advertise and focus on these materialistic aspects to attract students – it’s a rat race. I feel the cardinal yardstick for appraising the true merit of an educational institution is the value-addition it instills in its students – and I’m not talking of utility value alone; but more importantly the inculcation and enhancement of intrinsic values. The student should feel he or she has changed for the better, professionally and personally; and so should other stakeholders observing the student from the outside be able to discern the value enhancement. I studied engineering at ITBHU from 1972 to 1977 (first batch IIT JEE) and I experienced the well-rounded value addition I have mentioned above. I did my post graduation at a premier IIT and later taught at a prestigious university, but I cherish my days at ITBHU the most. I knew I was a better man, in my entirety, having passed through the portals of ITBHU, and I’m sure those scrutinizing me from the outside felt the same way. ITBHU was amalgamated by integrating three of the country’s oldest and best engineering colleges: BENCO (Banaras Engineering College) – the first to introduce the disciplines of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering in India, MINMET – the pioneer in Mining and Metallurgy, and College of Technology – the first to start Chemical and Ceramic Engineering. In my time it was indeed a center of excellence and a lovely place to be in. Learning from dedicated Professors, who were authorities in their subjects, amidst excellent academic facilities and ambience, elaborate labs and workshops, lush green campus, comfortable hostels, delicious food, expansive sports fields and beautiful swimming pool, the unique library, and the exquisite temple that added a spiritual quality to the scholarly ambiance – it was an unparalleled experience. One could learn heritage and foreign languages, fine arts, music, indology, philosophy, yoga, pursue hobbies like numismatics – the avenues for learning were mind-boggling. The idyllic environs and sanctimonious atmosphere of BHU were ideal for reflection and contemplation and helped one develop a philosophical attitude to life. Like all premier institutes ITBHU was fully residential, which fostered camaraderie and facilitated lifelong friendships amongst the alumni. I can never forget those delightful days in Dhanrajgiri, Morvi, Vishwakarma, Vishveswarayya and CV Raman hostels. Way back then, ITBHU was a wonderful place to study engineering. I wonder what my dear alma mater is like now! VIKRAM KARVE vikramkarve[AT]sify.com http://karve.sulekha.com http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com http://foodiekarve.sulekha.com BHU International Alumni Meet -Report Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 A Report on 3rd International Alumni Meet (IBAM)-2007 The 3rd International BHU Alumni Meet drew to a successful close on January 07, 2007 after more than a year of hectic preparations. In fact from January 05 itself it appeared as if every path in the city led to Swatantrata Bhawan, the epicenter of all activities. The response from our Alumni was overwhelming with more than 2000 participants registering themselves for this Mega Meet. In fact every available seat in the auditorium was taken up well before the start of the Inaugural Function. It was fortuitous that arrangements for viewing the function via close circuit TV had been made in all the conference halls on the first floor of Swatantrata Bhawan as well. No wonder this sea of humanity prompted our local newspapers to dub this event as a “Mahakumbh”. The Vice Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University, Prof. Panjab Singh inaugurated the two day Meet and International Seminar on “Education in the 21st Century and Mahamana’s Vision,” while Justice Giridhar Malaviya presided over the function. In his Inaugural Address Prof. Panjab Singh outlined his vision for the development and growth of the University. In his passionate appeal to the Alumni he requested their full cooperation in the development of the Malaviya Heritage Complex, the establishment of an Alumni Fund, the institution of a Malaviya Chair and other related activities. The presence of Justice Giridhar Malaviya, National President of the “Mahamana Malaviya Mission” added to the emotional and historic significance of the event; many of our delegates were heard to remark that they sought the reflection of his illustrious grandfather, the Mahamana in him. Justice Giridhar Malaviya emphasized that the students of BHU have a responsibility not only towards themselves but also towards the country. Their priority as students of this unique institution should not be, only to seek employment, but to contribute in the onerous task of nation building. While emphasizing the importance of serious research on Mahamana’s ideology, he outlined the role which Mahamana Smriti Bhavan at New Delhi will play in providing requisite facilities and access to resource material. The chairperson of the 3rd IBAM, Prof. D.P. Singh described in detail the activities of the Mahamana Malaviya Mission which also include social initiatives for the deprived sections. The Alumni of Banaras Hindu University have always been a powerful presence at the national and international level. At the same time their sense of duty and commitment towards their Alma Mater has been commendable. The Inaugural Function of the 3rd IBAM was thus the appropriate platform to express our appreciation towards these dedicated Alumni. Our former students honoured with this year’s “Distinguished Alumnus Award” include Prof. Namwar Singh (Eminent Literary Critic & Chancellor, MG Hindi University, Wardha) & Prof. R.B. Singh (Member, National Commission on Farmers, G.O.I.). The award was given in absentia to Prof. C.N.R Rao, Prof. Jayant Narlikar, Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan and Shri P.L. Jaiswal (Working President, Mahamana Malaviya Mission). Also honoured on this auspicious occassion was the stalwart socialist leader, Shri Prabhu Narayan Singh, who is also our oldest living Alumnus. The Inaugural Function witnessed the release of various publications connected with the journey of the Banaras Hindu University- notably the “Souvenir”, the “Report on the Development of BHU” and “A History of BHU”:. The message from Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, on this historic occassion was also read out before the assembled gathering. The Inaugural Function ended with a heartfelt vote of thanks by Prof. C.K. Padia, the Organizing Secretary of the 3rd IBAM. An important part of the Meet was the International seminar on “Education in the 21st Century and Mahamana’s Vision.” Spread over two days, it was visualized as a glimpse into the vast body of multifaceted ideas which characterize the speeches and writings of Mahamana. This two day International Seminar evoked tremendous response from participants all over the world. The first session devoted to “Engineering and Technical Education” was chaired by Prof. B.M. Shukla (Former Vice-Chancellor, Gorakhpur University)and Co chaired by an academician of the stature of Prof. R.H. Tupkari (Senior Vice President, Mahamana Malaviya Mission). This session which dealt with the role and growth of Engineering Education in the 21st Century as well as the relevance of Mahamana’s Vision for the Industrial growth of India reached new heights with the participation of Prof. D.P. Singh (Emeritus Professor, BHU), Dr. V.K. Mathur (University of New Hampshire), Prof. Satish Tripathi (Provost and Executive Vice President, University at Buffalo), Prof. R.B. Singh (Member, National Commission on Farmers) & Shri Amit Chatterjee (Advisor to Managing Director, Tata Steel). Mahamana was always very particular that a person should be first and foremost a responsible citizen and good human being. Thus it was only appropriate that the second session should be dedicated to “Ethics and Human Values.” We were fortunate that this session had an outstanding keynote speaker in Shri Dharmapal Maini (Editor, Manav Moolya Vishwakosh & Director, Institute of National Human Value, Gurgaon). The session was chaired by none other than Dr. Mangla Rai, Director General, ICAR. The invited speakers in this session included Prof. A.N. Tripathi (Former Coordinator, Malaviya Centre for Value Studies, BHU), Shri Ashok Mehta (Former Chief Standing Counsel, State of UP) and (Prof. Jagadish Shukla , George Mason University, USA) January 07, the second day of the International seminar opened with a session on “Malaviya Ji : Builder of Modern India.” The keynote address was delivered by Prof. Rewa Prasad Dwivedi, (Ex Dean, Sanskrit Vidya Dharma Vijnan Sankay, BHU). The eminent littérateur Prof. Namwar Singh (Chancellor, MG Hindi University, Wardha) was in the chair whereas Prof. Chandramauli was the co chair. The erudite invited lectures were delivered by Shri Anand Shankar Pandya (leading Diamond Merchant), Prof. V.C. Srivastava (former Director, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla), Prof. S.K. Srivastava (Ex Dean, Faculty of Social Science, BHU) and Prof. Sushila Pant (Ex Professor, Department of AIHC & Arch, BHU) amongst others. The House reassembled after a short tea break for the fourth session entitled “Medical Education at BHU.” The keynote speaker was Prof. R.H. Singh (Visiting Professor, Wonkwang Digital University, Iksan City, The Republic of Korea). This session chaired by Prof. Gajendra Singh (Director, IMS, BHU) was truly international with inputs by Dr. Jongsoon Seo (Professor, Wonkwang Digital University, The Republic of Korea), Dr. Bhanushankar Mehta and one of the senior most Physicians in Varanasi, Prof. I.M. Gupta (Ex, Professor, IMS, BHU). The last and fifth session was focussed on “Women Education and Empowerment”. The keynote lecture was delivered by Prof. Chandrakala Padia (Professor, Dept. of Political Science & Coordinator CWSD, BHU). The session chaired by Prof. Hemlata Swaroop (Former Vice Chancellor, Kanpur University) was actively participated in by not only Social Scientists but also Faculty members from other disciplines. Many of our prominent Alumni like Prof. Raghunath Singh (Nottingham University), Prof. V.S. Satyanarayana (University of New South Wales), Prof. S.V. Tatwawadi (Leicester, UK), & Shri Rajendra Bhambri (Coal India Limited) as well as distinguished guests like the Hon’ble Ambassador from Netherlands Mr. Erik Niche, graced this occasion by their whole hearted presence and participation. The poster sessions on “Environment Education and School Education” and “Globalization and IPR” were successful in initiating debate and discussions among the participants, which included not only senior academicians like Dr. Bhushan L. Jalali (Ex Director of Research, Haryana Agricultural University) but also many young faculty members from BHU & surrounding colleges. The Valedictory Function on January 07, 2007 which began with an emotional welcome by Prof. D.P. Singh, was a fitting finale to this Mega Event. In this sentimental moment of parting, our Alumni reiterated their commitment—financial and otherwise towards the growth of their University. It would be no exaggeration to say that every single Alumnus present there was moved to the depths of his heart by the appeal of the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Panjab Singh to work as a family towards the progress of the University. The services and contribution of our Alumni towards the growth of the University were personally acknowledged in this function with appreciation and admiration. Those honoured on this occasion included Shri S. Somaskandan “(Author of A History of BHU)”; Shri Sudarshan K. Maini (Chairman, Maini Group and who was also presiding over the session) Shri A.S. Pandya (leading Diamond Merchant in the World); Prof. B.M. Shukla (Former Vice-Chancellor, Gorakhpur University); Prof. Satish Tripathi (Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, University at Buffalo, USA); Shri G.S. Agarwal (leading entrepreneur); Dr. R.P. Singh (former Vice-Chancellor, MPUAT, Udaipur); Prof. Chitaranjan Jyotishi (Former Dean, Faculty of Performing Arts, BHU) & Dr. B.R. Singh (Director, Ispat Group) — each one of them a towering personality in his own right. The interactive feed back session with our Alumni enriched and added to our experience with inputs from Dr. Kalpalata Pandey (Professor in Education, MG Kashi Vidyapith), Shri Harishankar Singh (General Secretary, Mahamana Malviya Mission) and Dr. Shyam Narayan Pandey (one of our seniormost Alumni). Perhaps the highlight of the whole event was the sentiment expressed by Justice Giridhar Malaviya that henceforth the International BHU Alumni Meet should be hosted every three years at the BHU Campus. We felt our efforts have been well & truly rewarded !! Vignettes The delegates were heard saying that the Registration Kit was becoming HEAVY with all the gifts- Mahamana Sandesh, Mantra Pushpanjali, Mahamana Ke Vichar : Ek Chayan, Inaugural Address of the Vice Chancellor Report on the development of the University, C.D. of the Kulgeet, Calendar, etc. The stalls set up by the various Faculties of BHU attracted immense attention. The Alumni were seen going up to the stalls of their parent department and interacting with the present students The exquisite cultural programme presented by the teachers and students of the Faculty of Performing Arts held the audience spellbound on the evenings of January 06 & 07. The commercial stalls did brisk business with the Alumni and particularly their families displaying keen interest in the wares displayed there. In the evenings the Swatantrata Bhawan looked like a fairy land with the well lit food courts, exhibition stalls, temporary lounges etc. A mini cyber café was setup in the foyer to enable our Alumni to stay connected. Much enthusiasm was generated about the upcoming Rajiv Gandhi South Campus of BHU at Barkacha on 2760 acres of land, with many Alumni choosing to take a day trip there. Dr. D.P. Maini donated the “Manav Moolya Vishwakosh” in five volumes to the University, whereas Prof. Namwar Singh promised to gift his personal library to his Alma Mater. A hoarding displaying the Mahamana Smriti Bhawan at New Delhi was an added attraction. The Alumni reacted positively to the appeal for the funds to complete the complex. Prof. D.P. Singh, Chairman, 3rd IBAM-2007 Professor D. P. Singh Professor Emeritus Department of Mining Engineering Institute of Technology Banaras Hindu University Varanasi 221005 Formerly, Vice-Chancellor APS University of Rewa, Lucknow University, UP Open University, Allahabad Phone +91 542 2315871, 91 9335386770 Spandan-07: Cultural events entertain Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 HT Correspondent Varanasi, January 16 THE FIVE-DAY cultural extravaganza ‘Spandan-07’, an inter-faculty youth festival at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) continued to enthrall the audience on the fourth-day here on Tuesday. Several cultural and competitive events such as short plays, film dance solo, folk and tribal dance, poster making, collage, debate and instrumental were organised at indoor, arts faculty and Pt. Onkar Nath Thakur auditoriums. The students raked up sensitive issues such as corruption, poverty, plight of farmers, unemployment and ineffective administration through their plays at indoor auditorium. Students of the law faculty staged a play ‘Why Capital Punishment?’ over the recent execution of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the commerce faculty staged a play ‘Akhir Kab Tak’ highlighting the problem of corruption and unemployment in the society. The students of Institute of Technology (IT-BHU) staged a play ‘Bhoma’ highlighting the plight of poor and farmers whereas the students of Vasant Kanya Mahavidyalaya (Kamachcha) staged a play ‘Hindustan Ki Khoj’ and stressed the need to weed out corruption from the society. Students of the Mahila Mahavidyalaya staged a play ‘Andher Nagari’ and also flayed ineffective administration. Pawan Singh and Ambika Oberoi were the anchors of this event. Medicos lodge novel protest Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 HT Correspondent Varanasi, December 17 Even though the medicos of Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) of Banaras Hindu University are doing their routine hospital work, they are on indefinite relay hunger strike since Friday night to show their resentment over the smooth passage of quota Bill in Lok Sabha. “We are on an indefinite hunger strike,” Dr Kamal Gupta, a junior resident doctor of IMS told HT. He added, “A batch of three resident doctors go on fast while carrying on with their work in the hospital.” “The protest started from Friday evening and will continue indefinitely,” he said. Gupta pointed out that the resident doctors did not want the patients to suffer so they have decided that a group of three would observe strike without affecting medical services. The students of BHU, including the students of Institute of Technology and medicos, took out a peace march on Saturday evening. The march started from IMS Gate to the main gate of BHU on Saturday to protest against the bill. Similar march were scheduled for Sunday evening, too. They are demanding withdrawal of the bill. The medical students also held a general body meeting of their association late on Saturday evening to chalk out the future course of action. The students of Institute of Technology (IT-BHU) had observed a three-day ‘Pen-Down Movement’ from April 12 to 14 against reservation. The IT students had boycotted all classes, labs, workshops and even session examinations against Union HRD minister Arjun Singh’s move to introduce 27 per cent quota in centrally-sponsored educational institutions. Apart from this, the medical students and resident doctors of IMS-BHU had gone on a strike in May and June this year. The medicos even ran parallel OPDs to register their protest against quota for OBCs. Expert: VAT cheaper for lung-related disorder Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 HT Correspondent Varanasi, December 27 “VIDEO ASSISTED Thoracoscopy (VAT) is an easier and cheaper procedure for the management of lung-related disorders in Indian set up,” noted surgeon of Thane, Dr HS Bhanushali said here today. He was delivering Col. Pandalai oration on ‘Evolution and status of general thoracic surgery’ at ‘ASICON-06’ organised by the Association of Surgeons of India at Swatantrata Bhawan in Banaras Hindu University. Dr Bhanushali credited to have introduced VAT therapy in India in the year 1991, said, “VAT is easy to do and has less morbidity and mortality. Adhesion of the lung, hydropneumothiorax, excision of pulmonary bulla is the easily done procedure,” he said.He also advised the surgeons to get acquainted with this procedure. “For cancer of the esophagus, paraspinal surgeries this procedure is in use by the famous surgeons of India,” he said, adding that due to prevalence of tuberculosis of lung, open thoracotomy would remain as procedure of choice for decortication of the lung. President of the Association of Surgeons of India, Dr. KS Gopinath delivered presidential oration on ‘A tribute to legend’. Giving tribute to a legend, he described how late Prof. KN Udupa (founder of Institute of Medical Sciences in BHU) started his childhood in Kateel village of Karnataka where grazing cattle was his main hobby. “From this stage, he reached to the stage when Government of India had honoured him with Padamshree,” he said, adding “Prof. Udupa was trained by Col Mirajker who was also a doyen of ASI. He send Prof. Udupa to Michigan for training in surgery and from there he never looked back and established IMS in BHU, which was first recognised by British Medical Council.” Prof. MW Buechler of Switzerland delivered a lecture on ‘Surgery of pancreatic cancer’. Two symposiums on ‘Update in vascular surgery’ and ‘Colorectal section’ were held today. Dr. U Vasudeva Rao of Bangalore gave introduction and overview of ‘Update in vascular surgery’ whereas Dr Kumud Rai of Pune dwelt upon ‘Imaging and vascular conduits’. Dr. Tongokar of Mumbai delivered a lecture on ‘Testicular tumors’ whereas Dr. Radhakrishna of Bangalore discussed in detail about ‘Undescended testis’. Dr. Kushal Mittal of Thane dwelt upon ‘Aetiopathology and classification’ whereas Dr. PN Joshi of Mumbai delivered a lecture on ‘Concepts behind management of fistula’. Richard David Rosin of UK delivered a guest lecture on ‘Management of malignant melanoma’ while Dr. Prateek Mehrotra of Lucknow dwelt upon ‘Breast cancer and persistent organo-chlorine pesticide exposure among Indian women: A possible association’. BHU docs go on indefinite strike Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 Link BHU docs go on indefinite strike [ 26 Dec, 2006 1928hrs IST PTI ] VARANASI: Resident and junior doctors of Sir Sunderlal Hospital in the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) on Tuesday proceeded on indefinite strike, while students of other faculties boycotted classes to protest against lathicharge on the anti-quota protesters by private security guards. The protesting doctors stayed away from duties in the hospital since early Tuesday morning, university sources said. The academic activities in the university were also affected as the students of various faculties’ boycotted classes. Their demand includes action against the security guards and other officials responsible for the baton-charge. It was the second time in the week that the junior and resident medicos proceeded on strike and other students boycotted classes after some anti-quota protesters were lathicharged by the security guards. The junior medicos and other anti-quota protesters have also decided to intensify their agitation against the OBC reservation in the academic institutions, Kamal Gupta, spearheading the agitation, said. Stating that the anti-quota protesters would not be cowed down by the coercive actions of the university, he said they would continue with their peaceful agitation against the reservation policy. The private security guards had lathicharged the anti-quota protesters late on Monday evening in which at least seven students, including two girls, sustained injuries while they were carrying out signature campaign near the university gate against reservation policy. Karan: Set up trauma centres on NHs Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 HT Correspondent Varanasi, December 28 FORMER UNION Health and Family Planning Minister Dr. Karan Singh said that India could become a major centre of health services for the developing countries. He was speaking as the chief guest on the inaugural function of six-day conference of Association of Surgeons of India ‘ASICON-06’ at Swatantrata Bhawan in Banaras Hindu University here on Wednesday. General surgery department of Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS-BHU) has organised the conference. “We can provide world class surgical facilities at one-tenth cost as compared to developed countries,” he claimed, adding, “The tradition of surgery is three thousands years old in India.” “At a time when a small country like Singapore is promoting its medical facilities, why not India?” he asked. However, he expressed concern over the poor state of medical facilities in rural areas of the country. “We have got world class medical facilities in metropolitan cities but if we move 80 or 100 kilometers away from metros then the scene is entirely different,” he said. “The medical services of rural India is limited to primary health centres but these PHCs even do not have basic standard medical facilities,” he said and stressed the need to equip PHCs with state-of-art medical facilities. He said that even doctors (specially government doctors) were reluctant to extend their services in rural areas. Dr. Karan Singh stressed the need of setting up of trauma centres on the national highways in view of increasing cases of accidents. “With the growth of infrastructure, the number of accidents have also increased and therefore there was need to set up trauma centres on national highways,” he suggested. Vice-Chancellor of BHU, Prof. Panjab Singh, president of ASI, Prof. KS Gopinath, immediate past president of ASI, Prof. RB Singh and president (Elect) of ASI, Dr. C. Palanivelu were also present on the occasion. Organising secretary and head of general surgery department at IMS-BHU, Prof. VK Shukla proposed the vote of thanks. 2006: Mixed bag for BHU Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 Sanjog Mishra Varanasi, December 29 FOR BANARAS Hindu University, the year 2006 started with some achievements, but ended with controversies. It was after 17 years that President of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam addressed the 88th combined convocation of BHU on March 3. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare agreed to extend the status of AIIMS to the Institute of Medical Sciences and Sir Sunderlal Hospital of BHU for funding purpose. Faculty of Dental Sciences was established in Institute of Medical Sciences this year. Evening OPD clinics (4 to 6 pm) started at SS Hospital from July 15, 2006. Indian Council of Agricultural Research granted the status of Agriculture University to the Institute of Agricultural Sciences of BHU for grant purpose. Recruitment of 207 teachers was completed this year. Officials of National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) visited BHU in April 2006 and placed BHU under A category. BHU was approved as an outreach centre for technology entrepreneurship promotional programme to fund project upto 10 lakhs in EasternUP. Science block, named as ‘Savitri Devi Vigyan Bhawan’ was constructed and inaugurated by Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh at Mahila Mahavidyalaya in BHU this year. A Railway reservation counter of North-Eastern Railway was inaugurated on June 6, 2006. However, BHU administration drew controversy over frequent lathicharge over students several times this year. The security personnel resorted to lathicharge over students during union HRD minister Arjun Singh’s visit and also when the students were staging a peaceful Kshatra Satyagrah outside Hindi Bhawan. The security personnel lathicharged medicos twice in a week, protesting Reservation Bill in this month. Show-cause notices to some of the teachers for participating in a programme of RSS drew criticism from former Union HRD minister Dr MM Joshi and President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Ashok Singhal. Decisions of Central Information Commission against BHU administration over the controversial death of a student Yogesh Rai earned embarrassment to BHU this year. BHU was in news for wrong reasons when its registrar was imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 by the Central Information Commission for deliberate and inordinate delay in handing over Harikesh Singh committee report to Dananjay Tripathi, friend of deceased Yogesh Rai. It was for first time in the history of BHU that it’s Vice chancellor Prof Panjab Singh and Registrar N Sundaram were summoned by CIC to Delhi. sanjogmishra_2006[AT]rediffmail.com BHU to introduce M.Sc Tech Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 HT Correspondent Varanasi, January 3 THE ACADEMIC Council of Banaras Hindu University has decided to introduce M.Sc. Tech. in environmental science and technology at its South Campus in Barkacha (Mirzapur) from the academic session 2007-08. Three-year M.Sc. Tech. degree course will be conducted by the Centre for Environmental Science and Technology of the Science Faculty. Coordinator of the center, Prof. BD Tripathi said that this course was designed to cater the current environmental needs of national and international organisations and would provide maximum job opportunities to the M.Sc. Tech. Degree-holders. Prof. Tripathi said that in this M.Sc. Tech. programme students would be given teaching and training in the field of environmental pollution, geo-informatics, natural hazards, air, water and soil management, bio resource management, waste water treatment, ISO certification, green land development, noise pollution control and management technologies. Prof. Tripathi said that for extensive training of the students, organisations of national and international repute such as Coal India, National Thermal Power Corporation, Hindalco and Kanoriya Chemical were being consulted. He said that Coal India (Singrauli) has given its consent to extend support in training and placement of students. There will be 30 seats in this master’s degree course in the first year. Graduates of B.Sc., B.Sc. (agriculture), MBBS, BE and B.Tech. could apply for this course, he said. V-C promises Malviya Heritage Complex Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 HT Correspondent Varanasi, January 6 VICE-CHANCELLOR OF the Banaras Hindu University Prof. Panjab Singh said that efforts were on to establish Malviya Heritage Complex on the campus. He was addressing a two-day international alumni meet at Swatantrata Bhawan, here on Saturday. Vice-Chancellor inaugurated the meet and spelled out priorities and plans of BHU administration about future activities. The alumni meet is being organised in association with the Mahamana Malviya Mission. Addressing the gathering, vice-chancellor announced to establish a chair in the name of its founder Mahamana Pt. Madan Mohan Malviya for extensive research. Recalling the vision of Madan Mohan Malviya, Prof. Panjab Singh said that Malviyaji believed that academic institutions were the nursery of good citizens. Former MP Prabhu Narayan Singh, noted literary critic and emeritus Professor of Hindi at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Prof. Namwar Singh and former director general of the Indian Agriculture Research Institute, Prof. RB Singh were conferred with ‘Distinguished Alumni Award’. Grandson of Madan Mohan Malviya, Justice Girdhar Malviya presided over the function and highlighted the very idea behind the foundation of BHU. Former vice-chancellor of the Lucknow University and chairman of organising committee of alumni meet, Prof. DP Singh also addressed the inaugural function. Organising secretary, Prof. Chandrakala Padia proposed the vote of thanks. Four publications, including an updated history of BHU titled ‘The History of Banaras Hindu University’ were released on the occasion. Around two thousands distinguished scholars from all over India and abroad mainly from USA, UK, Canada and Australia are participating in the alumni meet. Noted diamond tycoon and vice president of the VHP Anand Shanker Pandya, leading industrialist SK Maini, pro-Vice-chancellor of one of the US universities, Prof. SK Tripathi, director general of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research, Dr. Mangala Rai are a few among alumni of BHU participating in the meet. Increase investment in farm sector: ICAR Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 HT Correspondent Varanasi, January 6 DIRECTOR GENERAL of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) Dr. Mangla Rai said that there was an urgent need to increase investment in agriculture sector to counter the challenges of growing population and shrinking natural resources. Talking to media persons here on Saturday, Dr. Mangla Rai, who was here to participate in BHU international alumni meet, said that there was a decline in investment in agricultural over the last 26 years. “There was an investment of 4.2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) of the country in agriculture sector in the year 1980, but the same investment decreased to 1.4 to 1.5 per cent in 2006,” he said. Dr. Rai said India has got 17 per cent population, 4.2 per cent water and only 2.3 per cent land of the entire world. He said that there was a deficiency of sulfur and zinc in more than 50 per cent agricultural land in the country. Dr Rai said, “We harvest only 29 per cent of rainwater.” He further added that the use efficiency of water was only 40 per cent in India whereas use efficiency of water was 90 per cent in Israel. “If we increase the use efficiency of water by 10 per cent then we could get 40 million tonne additional food production.” He said that the total population of world was estimated to be around 11 trillion by the year 2050 and that of India would be more than 1.5 trillion. He said that there was an urgent need to ensure a double fold increase in food production. He said, “Around 57 per cent population of our country is dependent on agriculture, but there was only 0.2 per cent increase in job opportunities in rural parts of the country.” (Chronicle note: Please read billion instead of trillion in last two paragraphs) Interview with Prof. T. A. Abinandanan Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 Devotion to Higher Education- interview with Prof. T A. Abinandanan (Meta 1985) Prof. T. A. Abinandanan graduated from IT-BHU in metallurgical Engineering 1985. Currently he is a professor in the Department of Materials Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. His profile can be found at: http://materials.iisc.ernet.in/~abinand/index.html. He is most popular because of his excellent blog Nanopolitan (http://nanopolitan.blogspot.com) which has higher education in India as a major theme. He has occasionally been quoted and interviewed by media. Yogesh K. Upadhyaya takes the opportunity to talk to him about his views: Q.1: Welcome, Sir. Please tell us about your famous nanopolitan blog Thanks, Yogesh, for this interview, and for focusing it on my blog. The way I started my blog is simple; I was reading quite a few blogs during much of 2004, and I was very impressed by how effectively some of the bloggers used it for participating in debates and discussions on topics of public interest. This facet of blogs appealed to me, so I too decided to take the plunge sometime in late 2004. The only thing that I was certain about at that time was that my blog would not be about me, me, me. Sure, I knew it would be about things that interested me; but I also knew it would not be about, for example, what I ate for breakfast. Some of my blog's main themes emerged over a period of time. As of now, they are: higher education in India (structural and financial problems, how to solve them, policy interventions), economics (development, poverty, welfare state) and psychology (happiness research, and tricks our minds play on us). Interestingly, it is my views on other topics (the 100 dollar laptop, or the Bangalore-Bengalooru controversy) that have been quoted in the mainstream media. Most people read my blog through their feed aggregator programs such as Google Reader or BlogLines. So I have no idea how many people read my blog. But I do know that about 300 people visit every day; most of them get there through searching for things like the "100 dollar laptop" or "women in science". Here's something more important than page hits: comments. I have had excellent comments from quite a few people whom I respect. I am just glad that my blog gives me a forum to write about (and link to) things of interest to me, and that a bunch of thoughtful people find it interesting enough to keep reading it (and, of course, commenting on it). I have another blog (which I call nanopolitan 2.0) at http://nanopolitan.wordpress.com for topics related to science in general, and materials science in particular. Unfortunately, I am not able to update this blog as often as I would like. In addition, I also contribute to two other blogs: "How the Other Half Lives" (http://www.theotherindia.org), and DesiPundit (http://www.desipundit.com). Q.2: How you manage your blog? I like reading, and I read a lot of stuff on the web. I read all kinds of things: news, interesting articles on natural and social sciences, higher education, etc. The stuff I read comes from many newspapers and journals, and many more blogs. In order to save time, I use web feeds (also known as RSS feeds). I use Google Reader (which 'aggregates' all the web feeds in one place) to scan quickly through all the material that comes in, mark the interesting ones with a "star", and read only the starred items a later at a leisurely pace. Typically, scanning the feeds takes less than 15 minutes, while reading the interesting content could take up to an hour or so. Some of what I actually do read is so interesting -- or so important -- that I share it with my blog's readers. Many of my posts are just links to interesting articles elsewhere on the web; some of them are accompanied by a few comments. Q.3: What is your advice for someone to start a blog? I am not sure I am qualified to give advice; but I can pass on the advice that everyone seems to agree on: (a) make sure your blog has stuff that you are truly passionate about, and (b) keep updating it at least a few times a week. These two pieces of advice are for those whose blogs are about issues of public interest, and for whom getting a bigger audience is important. However, this is not the only purpose behind a blog; one can also use the blog for more private purposes: sharing photos and stories with one's friends and family, or with a community of like-minded enthusiasts on a particular subject. For such blogs, the person behind the blog is more important than the number of visitors. Q.4: What is your opinion about the state of education affairs in India? Hmmm, I can give a long answer to this question, and it would be a huge rant, which is not good for my heart (nor is it good for yours or your readers'!). Here's the short answer. We need many genuine universities that offer education at all levels (bachelors, masters and doctoral) in all areas: humanities and arts, natural and social sciences, and professions (engineering, medicine, law, and management). In other words, we need many, many universities like our beloved BHU! Interestingly, the National Knowledge Commission has recommended that we aim for setting up at least 10 National Universities in the next three years. Q.5: Please tell us about your work at IISc. In the Department of Materials Engineering, I have a small group of postgraduate students working on exciting problems in microstructures and how they evolve. For example, if you take particles of a material, compact them and heat the compact, the interparticle voids shrink with time, and eventually vanish. In this process -- called sintering -- the voids are the microstructural feature of interest, and their shrinkage is the process of interest. In materials science, microstructures are ubiquitous: polycrystals, precipitates, eutectic mixtures, voids, and dendrites. Their endless variety poses wonderful challenges in modelling, and keeps us enthralled. Q.6: How do you feel about your IT-BHU days? Oh, my IT-BHU days were the best! While committed teachers and structured classes gave us the knowledge we sought, the freewheeling atmosphere in the hostels and the gymkhana gave us a chance to shape our destinies in our own unique way. We could do pretty much what we wanted, and pretty much everything was available there. Thus we had some of the most talented people in all kinds of things: music, football, cricket, bridge, quiz, theater, movies, crossword, poetry, dumb charades, journalism... It was all amazing, exuberant and fun. And humbling, too, because I got to see such immense talent in so many different fields! My most enduring memories revolve around our 'bridge sessions' that would just go on and on for hours together. Even during exam times! And, I must mention my first encounter with 'bhang': it didn't give me a high, but it knocked me out for two full days! I just slept, slept and slept some more! Two broad things about IT-BHU students that -- in retrospect -- appear very important: their cosmopolitanism (being last rankers, we were from all over India!) and their flat social structure (we were all on first name basis, and there was very little groupism). There is one thing that I hated when I was there -- and I hate it even more every time I think about it. And that is being told -- again, again and all over again -- that we were second to none, and that IT-BHU was as good as the IITs. This betrayed a certain lack of confidence -- a loser attitude, in fact -- among the administrators. I just hope the current crop of students is not fed this vicious message in every public meeting. Q.7: Thank you, Sir. Thanks for spending some time with us. It has been my pleasure. Thanks, Yogesh, for this wonderful opportunity. Blog links: http://nanopolitan.wordpress.com http://nanopolitan.blogspot.com Update on IIT Front Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 The process of converting selected colleges (including IT-BHU) into IIEST is temporarily under hold. This is because there is resistance from the West Bengal and Kerala govt. to completely hand over their colleges to central govt., as required for upgrade to IIEST. There is encouraging news about Andhra govt. agreeing for an IIEST status for Andhra University-College of Engineering, Visakhapatanam: http://www.business-standard.com/strategist/storypage.php?leftnm=6&subLeft=8&chklogin=N&autono=270776&tab=r It is hoped that other state govts. will also follow the path in coming months. Meanwhile, government has announced setting up of 3 brand new IITs in the states of Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/IITs_to_come_up_in_Bihar_Andhra_and_Rajasthan/articleshow/870671.cms Disclaimer- The above views are my personal views, and do not reflect that of our institute. Yogesh Upadhyaya (chemical 1977) Google Video on KashiYatra 2006 Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 Below please find amazing video about Kashi Yatra and other activities of IT-BHU. It includes: KashiYatra 2006 (in part 1 & 2) Prayas-by technical Activity Center, IT-BHU Robotic Grip-Team Competition by TEC The list may include video not related to IT-BHU. http://video. google.com/ videoplay? docid=-613782604 38570493& q=bhu&hl= en http://video. google.com/ videoplay? docid=-454445076 1339118713& q=bhu&hl= en (Forwarded by Nitin Mohan ECE 1999) Niel Bohr (1885-1962) and physics exam question Chronicle Editor @ Jan 12, 2007 It's a true story about a physics exam at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. The exam question given to the students was: Explain how one can determine the height of a skyscraper using a barometer. One of the students answered: "Tie a rope to the top of the barometer and lower it from the top of the building to the ground. The length of the rope plus the length of the barometer is the height of the skyscraper." The professor gave the student an F (failure) for this unexpected answer. The student protested and claimed the answer was absolutely correct. A committee of several professors was set up to look at this case. The committee had to agree that the answer was correct, but they concluded that it didn't indicate whether or not the student had a grasp of the concepts of physics. They decided to give the student a 6-minute oral exam where he was asked to present his understanding of the problem and physics in general. The oral exam started, and for the first 5 minutes the student just sat there thinking in silence. The committee reminded him that time was running out. The student replied that he had several relevant answers, but couldn't decide which one to choose. The committee said he now had to submit his answer. The student said: "You could take the barometer to the top of the building, drop it over the edge and measure the time it takes for the barometer to hit the ground. The height of the skyscraper can be determined from: H= 0.5g x t x t. Of course, this will destroy the barometer. As an alternative, and if it is a sunny day, you can measure the length of the barometer and then place the barometer upright on the ground and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow. The height of the skyscraper can be determined from a simple proportional calculation. As yet another alternative, you could walk up the stairs of the skyscraper while counting vertical barometer lengths along the wall. The number of barometer lengths from the bottom to the top times the length of the barometer is the height of the building. If you want to be really sophisticated, you could tie a short length of string to the top of the barometer. You then swing it like a pendulum and measure the period of oscillation, both at the ground and on top of the skyscraper. The height of the skyscraper can be determined from the difference in gravity as determined by: T = 2pi x square root (l/g) .If you want to be really conventional, you can measure the barometric pressure both at the ground and on top of the skyscraper. The height of the skyscraper can be determined from the difference in mill bars of pressure. However, we students are encouraged to be independent and innovative to further scientific thinking. I therefore think the best method, by far, is to knock on the building superintendent's door and offer him this really neat barometer if he will tell you how tall the skyscraper is." The student passed the exam. The student was Niel Bohr, the only Dane to win the Nobel Prize in physics (in 1922). For famous quotations from Niel Bohr, please visit http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Quotations/Bohr_Niels.html Readers Feedback Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 Many thanks for sending me the link to the issue of chronicle that has the Sambhavna story. Some inaccuracies have crept in the article - Bhopal group for information and action is not part of the Sambhavna group. Sambhavna trust and Bhopal group for information and action are two distinct entities. Thanks again and with best wishes for the great job you are doing, Sathyu-Satinath Sarangi (M. Tech. Metallurgy 1978) sathyu[AT]gmail.com Dec 21, 2006 I did my Mech. Eng and passed out in 2002. I joined the alumni few weeks ago. It's very informative. I also went through the December Chronicle. Is there any section where we can add some incident of our batch or some puzzles etc? Regards, Jyotishka Ray (Mech 2002) jyotishka.ray[AT]tatamotors.com Dec 21, 2006 I apologize for not being able to send you a good piece. Thanks for including information. I will try to send you a more informative piece later that you could use for a later issue of Chronicle. I appreciate both your help and your interest in publicizing our organization's work. Best regards, Aniruddha Vaidya (Electrical 1991) asvaidya[AT]gmail.com Dec 22, 2006 Dalai Lama visits Sarnath Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 The Dalai Lama (L) is greeted by monks before a prayer session at Sarnath in Varanasi. (Reuters) Dec 2006-Times of India Santa Claus in Varanasi Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 A man dressed as Santa Claus greets priests at Dashasamedh ghat in Varanasi. (PTI) Dec 21 2006-Times of India New Year in different languages Arun @ Jan 12, 2007 Below please find New Year’s Greetings in different languages: Greek Kenourios Chronos Gujarati Nutan Varshbhinandan Hawaiian Hauoli Makahiki Hou Hebrew L'Shannah Tovah Hindi Naye Varsha Ki Shubhkamanyen Hong kong (Cantonese) Sun Leen Fai Lok Hungarian Boldog Ooy Ayvet Indonesian Selamat Tahun Baru Iranian Saleh now mobarak Iraqi Sanah Jadidah ......click here to know more (Forwarded by Anup Bagla Chemical 1977) About ITBH