IITK Alumni amongst Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awardees

Here is the email (edited) we all received from Dean.

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This year, three of our alumni have made the Institute proud through their outstanding academic contributions while working in three different institutions in India. They have been awarded the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for the year 2011. The details are as follows:

1.  Dr. Sirshendu De, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, has been awarded in the area of Engineering Sciences. Earlier, he has also received several other awards and honors, including Fellow of INAE (in 2011), and IIChE-Herdillia Award (in 2010). Professor De has obtained three degrees from IIT Kanpur in Chemical Engineering (B.Tech. in 1989, M.Tech. in 1992, and Ph.D. in 1996). For project work in all three programs, his supervisor was Prof. P K Bhattacharya.
2. Dr. Shiraz Minwalla, Professor, Department of Theoretical Physics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, has been awarded in the area of Physical Sciences. His earlier recognitions include Swarnajayanti Fellowship (DST, 2005) and Fellow of IAS, Bangalore (2011). Shiraz Minwalla was an Integrated MSc student in Physics and graduated from IIT Kanpur in 1996. He was the recipient of the President's Gold Medal. He got his PhD from Princeton, and then moved to Harvard, first as a junior fellow, and then became an Assistant Professor. Later he joined TIFR, Mumbai, where he has been since then. Shiraz Minwalla is a string theorist and has made notable contributions in many areas. Shiraz is a very inspiring teacher and his lectures are available on the web.
3. Dr. Mahan Maharaj (formerly Mahan Mitra), Associate Professor, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Belur Math, Howrah, has been awarded in the area of Mathematical Sciences. Dr. Mahan obtained his M.Sc. (Integrated) from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of IIT Kanpur in 1992, and obtained his PhD from University of California, Berkeley, in 1997. Dr. Mahan's research interests are at the interface of Kleinian groups, hyperbolic geometry and geometric group theory.

Hearty congratulations to these outstanding alumni!

Departments to participate in fundraising from alumni

The Board of Governors of IIT Kanpur has approved the creation of "Department Excellence Fund" in each department of the Institute.

Now any alumnus giving a gift to the Institute would have more options to specify for the use of his/her funds. Till now, an alumnus could specify the use of funds only if the gift was substantial, like setting up of a scholarship, or a chair, etc., or could contribute to the batch fund, or to a very small number of open campaigns at any point in time (like Prof. Sampath Chair). Most of the contributions went to the common pool of undesignated funds, which were used for excellence related projects across the Institute. Many alumni felt that an option to contribute to a specific department should be there, though one could still make an undesignated contribution to the Institute common pool.

This is also an attempt to involve departments in alumni relations. Departments typically have a closer and more personal contacts with alumni (through BTP/thesis supervisor, and other faculty members as well), and encouraging departments to use those contacts to build a strong relationship with alumni is certainly a need of the hour.

Whether this move will really bring alumni and institute closer, it will depend on both stake holders. If departments don't start reaching out to alumni to do fund-raising, alumni aren't going to designate their gifts for the departments. And if alumni continue to send their contributions to the common pool, departments won't feel encouraged to reach out to alumni. Some of us who have interacted with alumni in the past know how useful such interactions can be, not just for fund-raising but a large variety of support that these alumni can provide to us. And the Institute certainly understands that it needs to give this idea a strong push. And hence it has also promised to the departments that initial funds gifted by alumni to the Department Excellence Fund will be matched by the Institute (the time limit and money limit has not been specified, but still it is a good idea).

I strongly encourage all alumni to designate their gifts to the Institute for Department Excellence Fund of any department that they want to support.

Nominations Invited for alumni awards

 Here is an email (edited) that I received from IIT Kanpur Alumni Association:

As you know every year prestigious Distinguished Alumnus Awards and S K D Award are given to alumni for their exemplary services in their field. The Alumni Association is initiating the award process for this year. 

1. Distinguished Alumnus Award

We invite nominations for the Distinguished Alumnus Award (DAA), which is the highest award conferred by IIT Kanpur upon its alumni. This award is given in recognition of achievements of exceptional merit. The past DA awardees can be viewed at http://www.iitkalumni.org/daa/lastyearsDAA.asp. Nominations can be made by anyone including alumni, faculty of IITK, Head or an appropriate person of the organization where the concerned alumnus/alumna has been working.

Nominations can be made under the following categories  ;

(i) Entrepreneurship (ii) Management (iii) Professional Excellence (iv)Academic Achievements (v) any other activity that benefits humanity at large.

Self-nominations are discouraged. For more details please see: http://www.iitkalumni.org/daa/daamain.asp

2. Satyendra K Dubey Memorial Award

Nominations are also invited for Satyendra K. Dubey Memorial Award 2011-2012. Satyendra K. Dubey Memorial Award was instituted by IIT Kanpur in the memory of Mr. Satyendra K. Dubey (BT/CE/1994/IITK) and his exemplary life and supreme sacrifice. He sacrificed his life to uphold the integrity and dignity of his profession. Any alumnus / alumna / faculty member / staff member of any IIT can nominate any alumnus of any IIT for the award. The award will be given to one who has distinguished himself / herself by displaying highest professional integrity for upholding human values. For more details please visit:

http://www.iitkalumni.org/sda/lastyearSDA.asp

 

It is requested that nominations be accompanied by as much relevant material (in form of bio-data, Newspaper articles/profiles, information on other awards and commendations etc.) as is possible for the nominator to supply.

 

Nominations for the Distinguished Alumnus Award and the Satyendra K Dubey Memorial Award may be sent at the following address:

Secretary, Alumni Association
'69 & '80 Outreach Building
IIT Kanpur
Kanpur - 208 016
Email: alumni@iitk.ac.in and ks@iitk.ac.in

Or by filling online form at
http://www.iitkalumni.org/daa/nomination.asp
or http://www.iitkalumni.org/sda/nomination.asp

The last day for submitting the nominations is October 31, 2011.

A Student Commits Suicide at IIT Kanpur

Here is the communique we received from Director's office:


Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur deeply regrets to inform the tragic and untimely death of Mr. Mahtab Ahmed (Roll No. 11397), a first year student of B. Tech in the Department of Material Science and Engineering on September 22, 2011 at around 5:00 PM.

Mr. Mahtab Ahmed was born on June 18, 1994. He was a bright student and was quiet disciplined. Mr. Mahtab Ahmed hailed from Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh. He was staying in D-307, Hall 9 in the Institute.

The entire community of the Institute, comprising students, faculty and staff members is deeply aggrieved by the unfortunate death of a young and bright student of the Institute. The entire IIT Kanpur community is by the side of the parents and family members of the departed soul in this hour of grief and extends its heartfelt condolences.

We all pray to God Almighty for bestowing peace upon the departed soul and give courage to the bereaved family members for bearing this irreparable loss.

Update on 23rd Sep: Here are links sent by Pavan (In comments, they are not clickable, hence putting them here again):
facebook page of Mahtab where he suggests that he might not live long.
Another picture from facebook page of Mahtab

Distinguished Teacher Awards 2011

Like every year, we celebrated teachers day on 5th September. The following two faculty members were conferred the "Distinguished Teacher Award."

• Dr. Arvind Kumar Sinha, Department of HSS
• Dr. Swagto K. Ray, Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Conflict of Interest

As faculty members of a premier institute, we get invited to be members of several committees. Sometimes, we have to evaluate others.

Consider a theoretical example. Suppose, I am asked to be a member of an AICTE inspection team which is going to evaluate an engineering college. After I have accepted to be the member, if I were to call up the principal of this college (and they, by now, know that I am on the inspection team), and offer consultancy on how to prepare for AICTE team visit. I am sure this will be considered as an obvious case of conflict of interest.

I have been offered consultancy assignments by organizations who have a large project in my area of expertise (and I am sure I can provide value for money). But I also know that if I was not in the review team, they probably would not have asked. Hence I have passed up all such opportunities.

But I realized this week that there are faculty members who don't see any problem in such an arrangement. Hopefully, such people are in a very small minority.

Branch Change

Yesterday, there was a meeting of Academic Senate, and one of the agenda item was to permit branch changes to undergraduate students who were admitted in 2010. As per rules of the Institute, no general category student could be allowed a change of branch (and only two reserved category students were allowed a change of branch). Of course, there is a tradition in the Institute that students who get all 'A' grades in the first year, and hence a CPI of 10.0, are allowed a change of branch of their choice. Continuing this tradition, 7 students, all with a CPI of 10.0, were allowed change of branch.

What is interesting is that the existing rules did not allow even a single branch change to general category students, and if we include every type of branch change, only one percent of the first year students could be allowed a change of branch.

Till 10 years ago, we had amongst the maximum number of branch changes in the IIT system, and now we have the lowest. Something has gone seriously wrong, and we need to fix it.

Conservative branch change rules are one of the many factors that get discussed on various admission counselling sites on the Internet, and therefore discourages at least a few students from choosing IIT Kanpur.

Also, a liberal branch change regime reduces the stress on students. They don't see JEE as the final word on their life. They see that they have yet another chance to do what they like. If we could liberalize our rules, we will be doing a service to the society by reducing stress.

Further, a liberal branch change regime encourages people to ignore last year's closing ranks and choose what they like. In today's context, a lot of students and parents argue that they should fill up the choices in the order of closing ranks since it will be easier for them to change branch to the "lower" branch next year. If they opted for the "less popular" branch this year, it would be impossible to go to "more popular" branch next year. But if there is a reasonable chance that someone can indeed go from "less popular" to "more popular" branch next year, at least a few brave souls would ignore the closing ranks data in filling up their choices, and start thinking of their innate passion.