ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: November 2008 News

Welcome to the ITBHU Chronicle, November 2008 Edition News Section.

BHU News

Prof. Vanashree Banerjee visiting George Washington University under Fulbright Scholar Program

Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008

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http://media-newswire.com/release_1078154.html

(Media-Newswire.com) - WASHINGTON - Five GW professors have been named Fulbright Scholars for the 2008-2009 academic year. Steven Balla, associate professor of political science, will lecture on regulatory policy in China and the United States at Peking University in Beijing; Christopher L. Cahill, associate professor of chemistry, will research collaborative studies of lanthanide materials at Cardiff University ( United Kingdom ); James Arthur Miller, chair of the University's department of American studies and professor of English and American studies, will lecture on and research black Atlantic literature at the University of Witwatersrand ( Johannesburg ); Sarah Orndorff, assistant professor of global health, will lecture on and research gender, law, and transition in Albania at the University of Tirana ( Albania ); and Brian Victor Rowe, assistant director of GW's Career Center, will join the U.S.-Germany International Education Administrators Program seminar at the German-American Fulbright Commission in Berlin.

GW also will host 10 visiting foreign professors to teach and research at GW during 2008 - 2009 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Vanashree Banerjee ( Banaras Hindu University; India ) and Yuming Piao ( Yanbian University; China ) - Columbian College of Arts and Sciences; Irina Bystrova ( Russian Academy of Sciences ), Muttukrishna Sarvananthan ( Point Pedro Institute of Development; Sri Lanka ), and Lifang Song ( Renmin University of China ) - Elliott School of International Affairs; Jae Min Lee ( Hanyang University; Seoul ) and Vasyl Nepyivoda ( National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine ) - GW Law School; and Leonard Damien Laborie ( University of Paris-Sorbonne ) - School of Media and Public Affairs. Imtithal Abdullah M. Althumairi ( King Saud University; Saudi Arabia ) and Hiromi Ehara ( Teikyo University; Tokyo ) also will join the university as Visiting Fulbright Scholars.

Since its establishment in 1946, under the legislation introduced by GW Law School alumnus and the former U.S. Sen. J. William Fulbright, L.L.B. '34, the Fulbright Program has provided approximately 286,500 people with the opportunity to observe each others' political, economic, educational, and cultural institutions; to exchange ideas; and to embark on joint ventures of importance to the general welfare of the world's inhabitants. The program has enabled 108,160 Americans to study, teach, and research abroad, and 178,340 students, scholars, and teachers from other countries to engage in similar activities in the United States. The program operates in more than 155 countries.

The Fulbright Program, America's flagship international educational exchange program, is sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Financial support is provided by an annual appropriation from Congress to the Department of State, with significant contributions from participating government and host institutions in the United States and abroad. The presidentially appointed J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board formulates policy guidelines and makes the final selection of grantees.

For more information about the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, visit http://fulbright.state.gov.

For more news about The George Washington University, visit the GW News Center at www.gwnewscenter.org.

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Introducing Professor Vanashree Banerjee

http://gwenglish.blogspot.com/2008/10/introducing-professor-vanashree.html

Professor Vanashree Banerjee is currently with us at GW from the Department of English at Banaras Hindu University through a Fulbright Visiting Scholar Fellowship. Professor Banerjee is currently teaching one course, English 173.11, Modern and Contemporary Indian Drama. Before coming to GW, Professor Banerjee has been teaching for almost twenty-four years, and has been widely published in Indian and international journals. In addition to Postcolonialism and Indian Drama, Professor Banerjee has research and teaching interests in Anglo-American fiction, feminism, contemporary literarure in English, American Drama, Shakespeare, Post-Structuralist theory, and American Poetry. Professor Banerjee's latest book, co-edited with Sukbir Singh, Twentieth Century American Fiction: T.S. Eliot's Children (2006), is concerned with the ubiquitous presence of The Waste land in twentieth century fiction. The book contains eighteen essays by American and British writers and brings tothe fore the knowledge that American novelists have been continuously inspired by Eliot's innovative literary techniques. In addition to GWU and Banaras Hindu University, Professor Banerjee has taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla. We at the GW English blog welcome her to GW, and we look forward to seeing the contributions she will make to our intellectual community.

Posted by Rajiv Menon at Wednesday, October 08, 2008

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Kerala Rathna Award for Dr. Narendra Kumar

Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008

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(Chronicle note: Dr. Narendra Kumar is Treasurer of aapiusa.org. He did Master of Surgery (M.S.) in Otolaryngology at Institute of Medical Sciences, BHU in 1981. He is Secretary/Treasurer of BHUMAANA (Banaras Hindu University Alumni)

http://indiapost.com/article/communitypost/4435/

Sunday, 11.16.2008, 09:53pm (GMT-7)

Â India Post News Service

(Dr. Narendra Kumar, Michigan)

DETROIT: Dr Narendra R. Kumar, a leading physician from Michigan and treasurer of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) has been awarded the prestigious Kerala Rathna Award by Global Kerala Initiative- Keraleeyam for enhancing the image of Kerala outside the state with his dedicated service.

The awards will be presented at a gala function to be held in New Delhi in the first week of January 2009 to coincide with the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas celebrations in Chennai. Dr. Kumar is an Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgeon and Medical Director, Sound a Sleep diagnostic lab, Saginaw, Michigan.

A former national president of Association of Kerala Medical Graduates (AKMG) with 2000 members from USA and Canada, Dr. Kumar did his medical degree from Trivandrum Medical College and post graduate degree from Banaras Hindu University and is very active in the Trivandrum Medical College and Banaras Hindu University Medical Alumni Associations in the US.

He was instrumental in raising over $ 500,000 as alumni donations to implement AKMG Learning Resource Centers, state of the art electronic medical libraries in Government Medical Colleges in the State of Kerala. Global Kerala Initiative-Keraleeyam is a registered society and one among the premier non-governmental organizations in the Kerala State with its activities focused in areas like promotion of Kerala culture abroad, propagation of tourism, rehabilitation of HIV positive and the terminally ill children.

It had instituted the award last year to recognize and honor those persons who distinguish themselves through their services for the welfare and development of Kerala State and members of the society. With the help of different Government Agencies and NRI Associations, Keraleeyam conducts festivals outside India to promote the culture and tradition.

This year's festival was held in Zurich, Switzerland Nov 7 and 8 in co-operation with the Indian Associations. Global Kerala Initiative-Keraleeyam is a registered society and one among the premier non-governmental organizations in the Kerala State with its activities focused in areas like promotion of Kerala culture abroad, propagation of tourism, rehabilitation of HIV positive and the terminally ill children.

He can be contacted at: kum73@aol.com

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Additional Links:

1) American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin

http://www.aapiusa.org/about/contact.htm

2) Website of Dr. Narendra Kumar

http://www.narendrakumarmd.com/

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IIT News Update

IIT news in brief

Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008

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a) Soon, IITs may be turning out doctors too

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Soon_IITs_may_be_turning_out_doctors_too/articleshow/3734448.cms

b) France offers IIT help, govt. wary- Japan ‘betrayal’ shadow on foreign assistance for Rajasthan

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081117/jsp/nation/story_10121864.jsp

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IITs tinker with JEE cutoffs to save face

Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/IITs_tinker_with_JEE_cutoffs_to_save_face/articleshow/3718112.cms

NEW DELHI: Stung by the flak they got for having single-digit subject cutoffs in JEE for two years running — as was reported by TOI in a series of stories — IITs have come up with what seems to be an ad hoc attempt at raising the bar for the next entrance examination due to be held in April 2009.

The formula for calculating the cutoffs has been changed from the needlessly low 20 percentile (the best of bottom 20% candidates) to the more respectable "average of the marks scored" by all candidates in each subject.

In an image makeover to the cutoff procedure, IITs have also changed the nomenclature: the subject cutoff will hereafter be called the "minimum qualifying mark for ranking (MQMR)".

The new procedure announced last week however smacks of adhocism as, far from being a systemic change based on a coherent policy, it seems to be more a frantic attempt to break out of the single-digit syndrome of the last two years.

The application of the MQMR formula to the data of the two years in which JEE had single-digit cutoffs does indicate that the cutoffs in JEE 2009 could just about enter double figures.

If the cutoffs in JEE 2008 were 5 in mathematics, 0 in physics and 3 in chemistry, the MQMR in those three subjects would have been 19, 12 and 18, respectively. Similarly, if the cutoffs in JEE 2007 were 1 in mathematics, 4 in physics and 3 in chemistry, the MQMR in those three subjects would have been 17, 19 and 21, respectively.

Gautam Barua, director of IIT Guwahati, which is conducting JEE 2009, concedes that the cutoffs based on the new procedure "may not turn out to be dramatically higher." Asked why IITs have settled for a marginal improvement in the cutoff procedure, Barua told TOI: "Seeing that the cutoff formula of the last two years produced very low cutoffs, we have attempted to make the screening more meaningful in 2009. We didn't want the cutoffs to be too high or too low. So, after much discussion, we chose the middle path."

The saving grace of the new procedure is that, since it is expected to yield slightly higher cutoffs, JEE 2009 may avert extreme examples like candidates getting admission into IITs despite scoring single-digit marks in one or the other subject.

In JEE 2008, for instance, one general category candidate made it to IIT Kharagpur despite scoring 8 marks in physics.
The new cutoff procedure is the latest in a series of changes IITs have been forced to make ever since they were unable to explain under RTI the basis on which they had fixed much higher cutoffs in their 2006 examination: 37 in mathematics, 48 in physics and 55 in chemistry.

The RTI applicant is a professor of computer sciences in IIT Kharagpur, Rajeev Kumar, who was able to demonstrate before the Central Information Commission that the statistical formulas cited by them for JEE 2006 were wrong and contradictory.

It was on the rebound that in 2007, IITs resorted to the 20 percentile formula, which plunged the cutoffs to single-digit marks. Such low cutoffs in turn allowed less meritorious students to slip into IITs in 2007 and 2008, as reported first in TOI, on the strength of their aggregates even when they scored miserably in one of the three subjects.

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IITs oppose varsity model

Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008

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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081122/jsp/nation/story_10147191.jsp

New Delhi, Nov. 21: The Indian Institutes of Technology have formally opposed a change in their status and form to universities as suggested by a central panel reviewing higher education in India.

Senior officials representing the IITs today told the panel headed by former University Grants Commission chairman Yash Pal that the proposed change in identity was unnecessary, sources attending the meeting said.

Yash Pal’s proposal to convert IITs from mere “undergraduate factories” to full-fledged universities was first reported by The Telegraph on September 13, 2008.

The senior physicist had told this newspaper that he was concerned over the inability of the IITs to produce students who continued in academics and pursued research.

A university-style education may help the institutes encourage postgraduate and research-related studies, he had said.

Today, at a meeting with the panel in Mumbai, officials from the IITs, however, said the proposal was unnecessary and “retrogressive”.

The IIT system, they argued, was superior to that employed in central universities, the sources said.

Like universities, the IITs already offer a menu of varied courses. Apart from management, which all the IITs offer, postgraduate humanities courses are common to all the institutes.

These include courses in language, philosophy, political science, economics and even film criticism. IIT Madras has even started undergraduate humanities courses.

“Adopting the university model of education, with separate departments for postgraduate studies and research, is not necessary to offer a variety of courses,” an IIT director said. The IITs have privately been opposing the proposal since it was reported in this newspaper.

Unlike most other universities, the IITs allow undergraduate engineering students the option of taking courses in humanities, management or from any other department alongside their principal course.

An undergraduate mechanical engineering student can, for instance, study film criticism as an optional subject. Students can choose to be marked in these courses.

“From such a liberal education system, to convert IITs into rigid universities would be retrogressive,” an official from an IIT said.

IIT officials concede, however, that the institutes have principally focused on undergraduate students.

The IT boom in the late 1990s that led to a massive expansion in job offers to engineering graduates contributed to the drift away from research — not just in IITs, but across Indian tech schools, government officials said.

In 2006, 2.3 lakh students graduated from engineering colleges across the country. The same year, just over 1,000 students received PhDs in engineering subjects.

The P. Rama Rao committee, set up to review the IITs in its 2004 report, said: “Securing employment after a B. Tech. has almost become a cultural feature. The troubling trend has been that a candidate takes to a PhD only when other professional career prospects have been denied to him.”

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ITBHU News

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National Education News

Scientists for B. Sc with choice

Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008

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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081102/jsp/nation/story_10051479.jsp

New Delhi, Nov. 1: India’s three largest associations of scientists have jointly proposed changes in university science education, seeking a four-year BSc and freedom in subject choices long denied to students across India.

After the four-year BSc programme, students can directly pursue a PhD, or exit after one more year with a master’s degree, under the restructured post-school science education system proposed by the three science academies.

The academies, whose members include the nation’s top scientists and science policy makers, have called for flexibility in course choices to counter the current practice of straitjacketing students into pre-defined subject combinations.

“Biology students should be able to study physics, mathematics students should be able to study humanities,” said Subhash Lakhotia, a professor of biology at the Banaras Hindu University and one of the architects of the proposal.

A joint paper, circulated by the academies to universities, research institutions, and several arms of the government, analyses the drawbacks of the existing university science education system and pitches options for its restructuring.

But some academy fellows who helped create the document are worried about the lack of response from the university sector. “For one of the meetings to discuss these proposals, the three academies tried very, very hard to get senior officials from the UGC (University Grants Commission), but no one turned up from the UGC,” said a senior scientist, who requested not to be named.

The UGC — India’s higher education regulator — needs to approve every degree offered by institutions that it has recognised.

“The academies don’t have physical power, but they have moral authority and can advise and influence,” said Gautam Desiraju, professor of chemistry at Hyderabad University and a fellow of all three academies.

“There is a realisation that there’s something seriously wrong. We’re not producing the quality of scientists we need,” Lakhotia said. “But the (demand for) change will have to come from within (universities),” he told The Telegraph.

In their paper, the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, and the National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad, have warned that just increasing investments in science education will not improve quality.

The current BSc is compartmentalised and forces students to pick rigid subject combinations, or even specialisations, in the first-year itself. Scientists believe this practice prevents students from acquiring strong foundations in the core sciences.

In the proposed BSc, or BS, programme, students would have to study mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and earth sciences, computers, and humanities during the first two years. They would be able to pick a subject for specialisation in the third and fourth years, but would have to choose electives for at least 15 per cent of course credits from outside their own area.

Students who complete such a programme could directly join PhD or opt out after one year with a master’s, but the academies believe students who complete such a 4-year course would stand a better chance of employment than existing BSc graduates.

The academies have proposed that the four-year programmes should be initially introduced only in institutions with good track records of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and research. But some researchers caution that improving university science education won’t address another key problem that Indian science faces — the brain drain of PhDs.

“Most PhDs go abroad for post-doctoral fellowships,” Desiraju told The Telegraph. “There is social and peer pressure to do post-doctoral work outside India. Students even do post-doctoral work in areas not connected with their PhDs.”

“A restructuring won’t address this problem,” he said.

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Publication News

The Saga of Indian Cannons - Book published by R. Balasubramaniam (Metallurgy 1984)

Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008

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(Chronicle note - We publish the review of the book “The Saga of Indian Cannons” by news media. The book, a blend of history and metallurgy, is written by Prof. Ramamurthy Balasubramaniam, who is professor in the Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering (MME) at IIT-Kanpur. He is alumnus of our institute (Metallurgy 1984). We are also publishing introduction by the author.)

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Review by The Hindu newspaper

http://www.hindu.com/br/2008/05/27/stories/2008052750031400.htm

Showcasing medieval military metallurgy

ASHUTOSH SHARMA

THE SAGA OF INDIAN CANNONS:

R. Balasubramaniam; Aryan Books International, Pooja Apartments, 4B, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi- 110002. Rs. 4500.

Rudyard Kipling’s much fabled Zam Zamah, which is actually a very big cannon, is featured in this colourful collage-cum-compendium, which appears to be a labour of love of the author; else why should an educationist be devoting so much time, energy and money into a project which is essentially fodder only for the gunners, and may be for the military history buffs and military technologists interested in medieval times?

Other Indian cannons dealt with are the Durga tope of the deccani Daulatabad Fort, the karak bijli of Golconda, the Bhawani Shankar of Jhansi, Babur’s tufangchis, Akbar’s multi-barrelled cannons, Sher Shah Suri’s bronze cannon, Tipu Sultan’s ban artillery, Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Sutlej Gun , the Dogra mortars, the Congreve rockets, the Dardennels cannon, and many others dating back in time to the very advent of the then state-of-the-art and classy metallurgy of the Indian subcontinent way back in 15th century A.D.

History

Zam Zamah was also known, in literary circles, as the “Kim’s Gun.” It was cast by Ahmad Shah Abdali, and later changed hands till it finally came into the possession of the English after the subjugation of the Sikhs. Apart from all this lore, song and dance, the cannon along with the gunpowder shaped the contours of empires, geography and history, ever since the Chinese Sung dynasty first used a crystalline white powder in 900 A.D. Babur, the original Moghul, speedily vanquished a vastly superior Afghan force under Ibrahim Lodhi in Panipat on April 20, 1526 with the crafty deployment of cannons with the tufangchis playing hell with the charging Afghan cavalry. Later, the British used it to great effect in their conquest of India, with the artillery gaining the “Royal” prefix. In battle, it is the artillery that inflicts the maximum casualties on the enemy; the casualties from small arms fire of the infantry are nominal.

The technology for casting (forge-welding, copper, bronze, brass, fabricated cast iron, and wrought iron) of cannons came to the sub-continent from the Ottoman Turks (rumis), the Mameluke Egyptians, the Chinese and the Portuguese, many of whom were employed in the service of the local rajas/ sultans/moghuls. There were some Poles, as well as quite a few French soldiers of fortune, who played starring roles in the manufacture, deployment and command of artillery units in the various periods of history. The main concern of the rulers was to ensure central control in respect of the command of the guns, and casting of cannon and ball.

World class

The Mughals faltered in keeping up with the latest Western trends in technology and they paid heavily for this lapse as the Marathas, who had Europeans artillery men in their lashkars, and mounted-raiders reduced Mughal rule to the confines of the very ramparts of Delhi’s Lal Quila by the time Bahadur Shah Zafar came to the throne. The British with their European-manned guns in an “artillery-centric”, sepoy army, made a mockery of even that. R. Balasubramaniam has done a good job by any standard undoubtedly; however, having started with the intention of showcasing only the world class metallurgy in medieval India, he seems to have got carried away by its use in the casting of cannon, and gone on to author this remarkable glossy which is the first of its kind. Kudos are in order as the book is a collector’s item. There are few glaring lapses in this otherwise very high standard work.

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An introduction to the book by the author-Prof. R. Balasubramaniam

(Chronicle note: This is excerpts from the introduction provided by the author about his book.

For full introduction, please click here

(Prof. R. Balasubramaniam)

1) Why I got interested and my interest in cannons and allied matters.

I devout a part of my research activities to highlight the metallurgical tradition of India. It is very clear that Indians were masters of metal like the Chinese were considered as masters of ceramics, from a historical perspective. My attention was first drawn to the Delhi Iron Pillar and I began exploring various facets concerning the Pillar. The Pillar was not made by casting but rather by the process of forge welding, a process that essentially used impact force to weld together pieces of iron. This was the traditional method by which the Indians manufactured their iron objects. It is easy to say that the Indians mastered the art of making large iron objects from smaller iron lumps by forge welding, but it is not at all known how the process actually took place. For example, the Iron Pillar weights 6511 kg. It is really difficult to predict what would have been the method to join smaller lumps of iron (weighing about 20 to 20 kg) to make this large an object.

Once we had collected significant information concerning historical cannons and gunpowder in India, I was keen to share the knowledge with general public. As a first step, I proposed to the Editorial Board of the Indian Journal of History of Science (published by the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi), of which I am also a member, that we bring out two special issues of the journal on the subject of cannons of the Indian subcontinent. This was agreed and soon I began collecting and writing articles for these two special issues. These issues were published in September and December issues of 2005. Incidentally, this was the first time that the journal published thematic issues. (In 2007, we again brought out two thematic issues on the celebrated wootz steel of the Indian subcontinent, and I was closely associated with this also). The issues were well received by learned scholars around the world. During the course of planning and execution of these two special issues, along with the Chief Editor of the journal, I came into contact with several well known scholars on artillery around the world and then I realized that here we have a great tradition that has not been properly highlighted at all to the public at large. It was then that I decided to collect all the information that I had collected and add more interesting details and bring them all out in the form of a book.

Some of my very good friends are involved in this monumental task of collecting information and details of vintage cannons. Dr. S. Jaikishan has catalogued the cannons in Deccan forts and the southern states, Dr. Pranab Chattopadhyaya has covered Eastern India while Dr. Pravin Deshpande has begun his study of cannons of Western India. There is still the important state of Rajasthan to be covered and several other locations apart from the above places. (I am supposed to write on the guns in Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, but I am not getting the time to write down the research that I have already undertaken.) I am helping all these scholars in collecting information. For these studies, some moderate funding has been received from Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi. We have unearthed some really wonderful pieces and soon hope to bring it to the notice of the public. We are in the process of analyzing the large amount of data collected and then we shall possibly first publish them on the internet and then maybe in publications. However, the time required for this task is enormous and the task is not possible without skilled assistants, which I sorely lack.

2) About the Book

The Saga of Indian Cannons is a fully illustrated book, printed completely on high quality art paper and it contains a significant number of color illustrations. The illustrations give the reader a first-hand picture of the beauty of vintage cannons of India, which were originally designed to kill and maim! The book is based on my personal research spread over more than seven years. In the book, I have tried to put the entire history of use of cannons and the engineering involved, all in one single source of reference. What started out as a coffee table book finally took the form of a proper detailed source book of cannons of the Indian sub-continent.

One can purchase the book, by emailing to my publisher Mr. Vikas Arya at aryanbooks@gmail.com or aryanbooks@vnsl.com.

I have covered historical aspects of gunpowder and cannons and then gone on to place before the readers, visual evidence of the artillery heritage of the subcontinent. I have divided the chapters as follows. I have first introduced the devices that were used in the Indian subcontinent before the arrival of gunpowder proper and also highlighted the metallurgical heritage of the country that made it possible to manufacture such wonderful cannon pieces. Then I have discussed how gunpowder and cannon technology developed in the subcontinent, from a historical perspective in the second chapter. While some ideas were borrowed from outside, it must be realized that the Indians soon adapted them with wonderful clarity and excelled in what was learned. That was the beauty of the scientific spirit of the Indians, the willingness to adapt and learn anything new that was worth learning, and, in due course of time, excel in it. The operation of cannon and the typical design of cannons have been highlighted in the third chapter. The engineering aspects of cast bronze and forge welded cannons have been described in the next two chapters. These chapters also contain a catalogue of some significant bronze and forge welded iron cannons. The next two chapters detail the cannons of the powers that used cannons to good effect, namely the Mughals, Rajputs, Marathas, Sikhs and southern imperial states. Some unique innovations that were introduced by the Indians are explained in the eighth chapter. Notable among them is the light cannon that was fired from the back of camels (called shatunal). This was a very powerful way to obtain mobility with artillery and therefore critical in battlefield. This was very effectively used by the Indians. Another notable innovation was the manufacture of cannons with a forge welded inner structure that was cast over with bronze - a variety of cannons that I define as “composite cannons.” This has been discussed in a separate (ninth) chapter. The use of cannons in fortifications is the subject of the tenth chapter. The accessories that helped artillery-centric warfare like carriages, gunpowder, cannon balls, etc. have been viewed in an interesting perspective in the penultimate chapter. The last chapter deals exclusively with rockets, which is also closely associated with gunpowder-centric warfare. Here again is an idea that the Indians perfected but was borrowed, standardized and perfected by the west.

From the book flier:

The fates of nations were decided by the use of cannons. The science of gunpowder and the technology of cannons, from their introduction in the Indian subcontinent in the middle of the fifteenth century up to the pre-modern period, have been illustrated using Mughal miniature paintings and analysis of extant cannon pieces. The massive and wonderful forge welded iron cannons and cast bronze cannons of medieval India have been presented, some for the first time, in this book. The mighty cannons that established Mughal, Maratha, Sikh and Deccan powers have been described. Indian innovations in cannon technology like shaturnal (cannons fired from back of camels), composite cannons (of inner wrought iron bore and outer bronze casting) and bans (battlefield rockets) offer sufficient proof of Indian ingenuity in science and technology.

The book draws inspiration and major material from the original publications on the subject by the author.

2008; pp. xviii+332; Size 22 cm x 31 cm;

Copiously Illustrated; Exclusively on Art Paper;

Bibliography; Index; ISBN-978-81-7305-339-9; Rs. 4500

Information about how to get the book (write to the publisher):

The book is published and distributed by

ARYAN BOOKS INTERNATIONAL

Pooja Apartments, 4B, Ansari Road, New Delhi-110 002

Tel.: 2328 7589, 2325 5799; Fax: 91-11-2327 0385

E-mail: aryanbooks@gmail.com or aryanbooks@vnsl.com

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Additional links: