December 2012 - And then...

The New Year, and Campus Walk 2013

Let me start with Good wishes to All for the coming year!
Untitled

This New Year’s walk is dedicated to Nirbhaya and is being coordinated by our University’s NSS. The suggestion is to go clockwise (seeing it from above, that is) around the campus perimeter. Starting at the Admin building, we will go via the Health Centre to the small gate, CMSD, through the woods, along the wall to the Mushroom rock, to the TNGO colony… coming back via the South Campus. Here is a poorly edited map of the route, cobbled together with the help of Google Maps. We start at B and end at A.

Untitled I look forward to seeing you on the 1st. We start at 2:00 pm (for any updates, watch this space).

EEE: Earlier Entrance Exams

Today the student enrollment at the University of Hyderabad stands at a little under 5000. Over the past year or so, I have been discussing with the faculty in various departments as to how we can increase this number. One thing is clear- there are no quick-fixes: its going to take effort on all our parts, and that includes the students who are already here as well.

One such effort is to prepone our entrance examination schedule, shifting the entire written examination process to the month of February. Admissions for the year 2013 will therefore have their entrance exams in FEBRUARY 2013.

Reputations are as much built by word of mouth recommendations as they are by high impact publications. And word-of-mouth endorsements come in bulk from students either literally or by example. Anyhow, we need to cover several bases, and so there will be a press conference (my first, by the way) on Tuesday the 18th of December, at the Hotel NKM’s Grand (in Khairatabad) at noon.

All our entrance exams will be held between 21 and 26 February 2013. Tell all of those who may be interested. And even those who may not. And apropos of that, the India Education Review and the online magazine Digital Learning carry interviews with me, a small effort to get some more visibility for the UoH…

The reports, in the Times of India, The Hindu Business Line, The New Indian Express, The Hindu, INN, Full Hyderabad, Education One India and Zimbio.

Share the links, spread the word!

230339_186304748174634_1751772121_n

Recognizing Excellence, 2012

Several colleagues have been recognized for their research excellence in the past year, and here is a sampling of what I was able to collect to present at the Court and Executive Council meetings this month. And just a bit beyond…

Most recently, Dr D B Ramachary, a synthetic organic chemist in our School of Chemistry has been named this year’s B M Birla prize awardee. The B M Birla prizes are awarded to young Indian scientists, below the age of 40 years, who have made outstanding original contributions in their fields. The objective is to encourage uncompromising excellence and to recognise the contributions of such scientists while encouraging others to achieve even higher standards of excellence. The prestigious awards have been instituted by the B M Birla Science Centre, Hyderabad, which is a premier institution for the dissemination of science in the country.

The Gupta Prize was established by M. M. Gupta, Chairman of the Gupta Group in Eluru, to promote Literature, Science, Arts, other intellectual pursuits and Humanitarian services and to honour distinguished persons or Institutions in these fields. Prof. Bethavolu Ramabrahmam of the Department of Telugu is this year’s awardee. He is in distinguished company- earlier awardees include M.S. Subbulakshmi, Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, and Dr. C. Rangarajan. Prof. Ramabrahmam is also the Chair of the Centre for Classical Telugu, and has done exemplary work in publishing classical texts with modern commentary.

KBhanuSankaraRao In the School of Engineering Science and Technology, Dr Dibakar Das has been elected Fellow of the Indian Institute of Ceramics, Dr Srikanth has been named this year’s INAE Young Engineer, and Prof. Bhanu Shankar Rao (who retired from the service of the University recently) has been named the Metallurgist of the year by Indian Institute of Metals.

apparao_p

Prof. P Appa Rao of the Department of Plant Sciences in the School of Life Sciences has been elected to the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. NAAS, established in 1990, is among the youngest of the Science Academies of India. It owes its origin to the vision of the late Dr. B. P. Pal, FRS. The Academy focuses on the broad field of agricultural sciences including crop husbandry, animal husbandry, fisheries, agro-forestry and interface between agriculture and agro-industry.

Dr. Usha Raman of the Department of Communication in the Sarojini Naidu School has just been given an International Research Collaboration Award from the University of Sydney, to work with a group at the School of Public Health and the George Institute for Global Health, specifically, to provide inputs on qualitative methodologies in health research. This is a competitive award which funds a senior academic to come spend 8 weeks at the host institution and interact with early career researchers.

Congratulations all around!