Agriculture Leadership Award to IIT Kanpur

Here is the announcement from Dean, Research and Development:

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I am vey happy to inform you that this year IIT Kanpur is a recipient of the Agriculture Leadership Awards. These awards were given on 19th Sept, 2012 by the Hon'ble Union Minister of State for Agriculture Sri Harish Rawat at a function in New Delhi. Dr. M S Swaminathan was the Chairman of the Jury.

The award is in recognition of the innovative knowledge management model in agriculture extension developed by Prof. T V Prabhakar, Department of Computer Science and Engineering through several projects funded by ICAR, NAIP, BITCOE etc.

The detailed citation of the award says "IIT Kanpur, a premier engineering and research institute of the country, has successfully implemented various agricultural projects with innovative technologies and capacity building for sustainable development. Its Agropedia, a semantically enabled agricultural knowledge management repository is a first of its kind in Indian agriculture. The Institute’s yet another product, Openagri, an open access agriculture research repository, is a focused research space for hosting agriculture documents. IIT-Kanpur’s Voice-Krishi Vigyan Kendra (vKVK), developed to facilitate communication between extension personnel and farming communities is presently reaching to the extension personnel of 90 Krishi Vigyan Kendras and likely to be up scaled by ICAR to all 630 KVKs in the 12th Five Year Plan. KVK-Net and Agrotagger was also developed by this prestigious institution."

Other awardees include:

National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources for exceptional work in conservation of genetic resources

Nuziveedu Seeds Limited for exceptional work in agriculture extension

Suguna Foods Limited for exceptional business leadership in poultry sector in India

Indian Oil Corporation Limited for environment friendly products and farm sustainability

State of Kerala for innovative policy initiatives towards transforming horticulture

State of Madhya Pradesh for visionary leadership and exceptional performance in farm production

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Here is the link to agropedia
And here is the link to openagri
Finally, you can find more about Prof. T V Prabhakar at his homepage

New Director of IIT Kanpur

Here is the communique issued by IIT Kanpur yesterday regarding the appointment of its new Director.

The Institute is pleased to inform that the Hon’ble President of India in his capacity as Visitor of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, has approved the appointment of Prof. Indranil Manna as Director of IIT Kanpur for a period of five years on contract with effect from the date he assumes the charge or till he attains the age of 70 years, whichever is earlier in accordance with the terms and conditions laid down in the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 and the Statutes of IIT Kanpur. An appointment letter in this regard has already been issued to Prof. Manna by the Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Kanpur, which has been accepted by Prof. Manna.

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A brief Curriculum Vitae of Prof. Manna is as follows:

Dr. Indranil Manna
FNAE, FNASc, FASc, FIE, FIIM, PRS

Prof. (Dr.) Indranil Manna is working as Director of Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute (CGCRI) with effect from March 1, 2010. Born on January 22, 1961, Prof Manna obtained his B.E degree from Calcutta University (B.E. College) in 1983 and M Tech degree in 1984 from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur. After a brief stint at Mishra Dhatu Nigam, Hyderabad, he joined IIT, Kharagpur in 1985 as Lecturer and rose to the position of Full Professor in 2003. He was in this position till he joined CGCRI as Director.

Prof Manna is a metallurgical engineer, a renowned educator and a prolific researcher. His significant contributions in the studies of amorphous/nanocrystalline Al-alloys, nano-fluid and laser/plasma assisted surface engineering greatly inspired the scientific community. His early contributions in moving boundary phase transformation are still widely cited. As a teacher, Prof Manna has developed several new courses and taught subjects related to phase transformation, materials engineering, surface engineering, thermodynamics and X-ray diffraction. His research interest spans from structure-property correlation in engineering materials including synthesis/application of nano-materials, surface coating/engineering, phase transition, fuel cells, sensors, bainitic steel and mathematical modeling.

Prof. Manna worked as guest scientist in several institutions of excellence and universities abroad such as Max Planck Institute at Stuttgart, Technical University of Clausthal, Nanyang Technological University, Liverpool University, University of Ulm, etc.

Prof. Manna is a recipient of INSA Medal for Young Scientists, Young Metallurgist and Metallurgist of the Year Awards, MRSI Medal, AICTE career award, DAAD and the prestigious Humboldt Fellowships. He is also a recipient of the Acta Materialia Best Referee Award for years 1999 and 2003, respectively. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Bonn appointed Prof Manna as Honorary DAAD Advisor in India for three years, INAE selected him for Indian National Academy of Engineering-All India Council of Technical Education (INAE-AICTE) Distinguished Industry Professorship for 2007-08 to work with Tata Steel, and the Indian Institute of Metals (IIM) conferred upon him the GD Birla Gold Medal for 2008.

He has published about 225 peer-reviewed papers, supervised 14 Ph.D, 35 M. Tech. and 50 B. Tech. theses, carried out 32 sponsored projects worth over Rs. 16 crore and also obtained a patent on amorphous AlCuTi alloy.

Prof. Manna is a Fellow (FNAE) of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, New Delhi; a Fellow (FNASc) of The National Academy of Sciences of India, Allahabad; and a Fellow (FASc) of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.

Prof. Manna was the President of the Materials Science Section of the 97th Indian Science Congress held in Trivandrum during January 3 - 7, 2010. The INAE has recently awarded him the prestigious "INAE Chair" for two years. To date, he remains the third recipient of this prestigious chair.