Ram Ramaswamy, Author at And then...

Bridging the Gap(ps)

I have remarked earlier that our campus seems to be quite adept in not transmitting as much information as might be possible quite easily: the informal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that seems to operate on so many fronts. And being connected, something that’s inevitable in these times, is more via the giant Facebook in the sky than on closer, campus based entities.

I don’t know how many have been looking at the UoH Herald, the online newsletter being run by the PRO’s office with some help from the S N School’s Department of Communication. Their byline: UoH HERALD is an attempt to save paper but connect with the world on the happenings on the campus. That said, they are doing a great job, and for the most part offer a very comprehensive news service for many things that happen on campus.

As many of you have (woefully!) remarked, we really do need a better website– the one we have at present hardly does us justice. Apart from being difficult to navigate, it is also a wonderful place to hide any information one needs to! Some effort is being made to change that, and hopefully the next academic year will see us with a new website. Meanwhile, there are some plans afoot (and near at hand) to change the way in which we connect within the campus in the coming months, and while I will post about things as they happen, I thought I would alert the campus community to the first of the bridging initiatives that we are trying.

UoH Google Apps. With the help of Google we have created a service for the whole campus community that give each member of the campus personalized email accounts. You can choose to be (details on how to get the account is given below) Your.Name@uohyd.ac.in or even Your.Initials@uohyd.ac.in. This has the same features and custom settings as the ubiquitous Gmail with 25 GB space and the usual set of frills…

Google Apps comes with a Calendar function which enables a master online calendar for UoH. Every public event can be posted, sharing information and enabling all to participate. (SMS alerts also possible!) Profiles of people, Departments and Centres, Seminars, events all possible at profiles.uohyd.ac.in/. This service is free and is open for each member of the UoH Community to edit and design. I hope that all Departments, Schools- faculty and students will make good use of it. Essentially unlimited space will be available for storing materials like lecture talks, audio, video, podcasts, and so on.

All this starts with getting your mail id: write to gapps@uohyd.ac.in to request one, along with a scanned copy of your currently valid UoH Identity Card, and a choice of username (give two options in case one is taken already…).

What else can we do to connect? Send in your suggestions to me at my new account: rr@uohyd.ac.in.

… and this

I was asked by the Dr. K V Rao Scientific Society to be at their annual meeting and also to give away their annual awards on the 13th of the month. Founded in 2001 by the friends and family of Dr. Rao (who retired as Superintendent Chemist at the Geological Survey of India) the KVRSS seeks to actively promote and encourage young scientists. This is a rare entity, an orrganization devoted to science promotion at all stages, including the grassroots- they run a number of programmes to nurture talent at the district level as well as recognising the work done in institutes of higher learning.

It was therefore a very good feeling to see that three of the awardees this year were students of the UoH, Pidishety Shankar of the School of Physics, Supratim Basak of the School of Chemistry, and M Hanumantha Rao of the ACRHEM. It was equally heartening to see a number of young students from all across the state receive commendations, and the confidence with which all the awardees spoke was very reassuring.

Another achievement of the student body is the victory of our University Football team in the Fourth Inter-state A. P. football tournament that was held at IIIT-H. As one of the team members and vice-Captain, Achyut Kulkarni wrote in a mail to me, this is a first for our University, and a feather in the captain, William Haokip‘s cap! The team came by my office along with the Physical Education Officer and their coach-

The team members are, in addition to William Haokip (Captain) and Achyut Kulkarni( Vice-Captain), Kedar Kulkarni, James Tuglut, Kunga Chongloi, Joel, Asif Ali, Bujair, Sai Abhinav, Muanpuia Tlau, Mesevito Terhiijah, Subhash Nayak, Nrusingha Behera, Sense Alaji, Leon Dailiam, and Yunus Bava.

It was such a pleasure to have all that energy in the office that day- a nice change from the usual goings on. Thanks for coming by, guys, and keep the UoH flag flying high!

Scope this,

The National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI) in Allahabad is the oldest of the three scientific academies in India. Founded in the year 1930, with the objectives to provide a national forum for the publication of research work carried out by Indian scientists and to provide opportunities for exchange of views among them, the NASI Memorandum of Association was signed by seven distinguished scientists: Meghnad Saha, K. N. Bahl, D. R. Bhattacharya, P. C. MacMohan, A. C. Banerji, Ch. Wali Mohammad and N. R. Dhar. Several colleagues at the University are currently Fellows of NASI.

In recent collaboration with Elsevier, publishers of numerous scientific journals and books, NASI have introduced the NASI-Scopus Award for young scientists. From the Elsevier site, I gathered that the Elsevier Scopus Awards, started in 2005, recognize and reward the talent, knowledge and expertise of young scientists around the globe in a variety of disciplines. Currently, 15 countries have participated in the award, each marked with an event co-organized by Elsevier with prestigious national consortia, funding body or society. Traditionally, these academic groups nominate an award committee to recognize scholarly output, citations, and prestige of their region’s outstanding researchers across a range of subject areas. Publication and citation information provided by Scopus helps the committee to assess country-wide research strengths and rising talent.

Winners are selected after a fairly rigorous process, so it is particularly gratifying that one of our own has been named the NASI-SCOPUS awardee in Physics for 2013, one of 8 this year: Dr S Venugopal Rao of the ACRHEM.

Venu came to ACRHEM in 2007 from IIT-Guwahati, where he had joined the faculty of the Physics department after a postdoc in Scotland. His doctoral work was at the UoH, on Incoherent Laser Spectroscopy for the measurement of ultra-fast relaxation times and third order nonlinearities in a variety of organic molecules.

The philosophy of the Scopus Awards program is to celebrate science, and this has been emphasised over the years that the awards have been given.

Our heartiest congratulations, Venu!

Going back

I studied at Loyola College, Madras from 1969 to1972 when I graduated with a B. Sc. in Chemistry. Until last week, when two events took me back there, I had not returned, though I have kept in occasional touch with several of my classmates and many other batch-mates. My years at Loyola were formative, although I should admit that in the callowness of youth, I did not always appreciate just how crucial the discipline of the institution- as well as the freedom it gave me- were. As was the early exposure to a research environment that had nurtured (and been nurtured by) great scholars like Fr. L M Yedannapalli, the physical chemist, and the mathematician, Fr. C Racine – apart from the presence of superb teachers like Klaus Bechtloff, Emmanuel Raja, A V Ramaswamy and N S Gnanapragasam, among others. We keep discussing now whether we should have teachers from outside India in our Universities, but at such institutions then this was not considered much of an issue- Racine was French, Bechtloff was German, and I can also remember an excellent course of lectures on quantum mechanics given by a visiting Belgian, M Mareschal (on the invitation of Dr Gnanapragasam) that was open to all chemistry majors. As I realize more now, those were the good times.

What took me back after all these years was the special ceremony that we organized in order to deliver the Doctor of Science (honoris causa) degree that we had awarded the eminent mathematician C. S. Seshadri in 2012. A collateral advantage was that the same ceremony, we were able to give David Mumford the D. Sc. (h. c.) that we had awarded in 2011. Neither of them is able to travel to Hyderabad to receive the doctorate, so we did the next best thing and went to Loyola College, Chennai. As it happens, Seshadri is an alumnus (as is M S Narasimhan, the other eminent mathematician whom we honoured in 2012 and who spent a few days at UoH in October last year) so it made a lot of sense for us to have the function in the recently built LS Hall at Loyola. A number of eminent mathematicians and other colleagues from a number of institutions- Madras University, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, IIT Madras, Chennai Mathematical Institute, Central University of Tamil Nadu- were there. The ceremony was just about two hours long, and included, in addition to the citation and the degree award, a short seminar on Seshadri’s work and an appreciation of the mentorship of the Rev. Fr. C Racine.

Racine was the moving force that inspired generations of bright students to go into mathematics research. Ordained as a Jesuit priest in1929, he obtained a Ph D in mathematics in Paris in 1934, studying with the finest: his mentors were Élie Cartan and Hadamard and his friends included André Weil and Henri Cartan. From 1939 till his death in 1976, Racine was in Loyola, and I recall seeing him walking in the grounds when I was a student (though he had stopped teaching after his retirement in 1967). Prof. Narasimhan gave a memoir and appreciation of Racine at the function, and here is what I gathered from that talk.

Father Racine had worked with the French mathematicians Hadamard and Élie Cartan and counted among his friends Andre Weil and Henri Cartan among others. More importantly, Racine was well acquainted with the then current trends in mathematics and brought three things to Loyola College, and to Madras University. The first was a new mode of teaching- no rote, no static lectures, a new style of presentation and discussion that engaged the student. The second was the introduction of new courses at the higher levels- something that Madras University had not heard of, a flexible curriculum! And finally, the most important- Racine encouraged his students to go beyond, to find the best places that they could do mathematics in. And so a number of them went to TIFR: K. G. Ramanathan, C. S. Seshadri, M. S. Narasimhan, Raghavan Narasimhan, C. P. Ramanujam…. As well as those who went elsewhere, and that list is even longer…

Going back to Loyola was one way of acknowledging debts, and it reminded me of the Princeton alumni song, “Going Back to Nassau Hall”, the notes of which ring loud every June on the Princeton campus when the alumni gather. 6 April was also the 88th College Day, so I was able to return to Bertram Hall (which I had last seen in 1972 when I wrote the B Sc final paper for Inorganic Chemistry, with sweat flowing freely down my forearm…). The tradition of a strong alumni group, that meets and remembers the value that the institution adds to education is very important, and a good way of recalling ones debts to one’s alma mater. And American universities have learned well to capitalize on the goodwill of this group, the Alumni.

At the UoH we are only slowly beginning to realise the value of forming Alumni Associations and fostering an external support group for the University- after all, the Alumni are the one group that has the highest interest in the standards of the UoH! We recently had Dr Ch Mohan Rao, Director of the CCMB come and share his experiences with us, and earlier, Sri R V Balaram of the IRS did so too. We need to have more of our old students come back and tell us what makes the UoH such an enabling environment, and how we can make it better. I’m sure we already have enough illustrious alumni who can show us just how much can be achieved… We have an Alumni Cell at the University- do write in with your suggestions, here.

Radical Visitor

Karoline Pershell is Assistant Professor of Mathematics, University of Tennessee at Martin. She is spending a semester with us at the University as a Fulbright-Nehru Teaching Scholar. After coming across her blog, Radical India (its a math joke, see the image on the right) I thought I would request her to do a guest post on this blog, to tell us about her experience at the UoH. She was kind enough to respond positively (Thanks, Karoline!), and here is her post, titled

Hearty Thanks.

When I applied for the Fulbright-Nehru Teaching Scholar position in the summer of 2011, I had never considered where in India I would be placed. With so many universities and IIT’s in the country, it was serendipitous that my online searches from the other side of the globe showed me the Mathematics Training and Talent Search Programme, with the founding organizer at the University of Hyderabad. A few email exchanges later, and I told the US consulate that I would like to go to U of H. I arrived on December 28, began classes on January 2, and it has been an exciting semester!

Based on student comments, I think I have demanded a lot from them on a daily and weekly basis, but my students in the Integrated Masters of Science program have risen to the challenge! I am impressed by their questions, by their participation, by their enthusiasm for the material in class, and excitement for their studies outside of class.

My students have made my time here extremely rewarding. Through them I have learned about Indian culture, Hinduism, holidays, festivals, customs and even visited some of their homes. I have learned about their career ambitions and attempted to help in whatever way I can, by passing along opportunities or just encouraging their passions.

I have taken advantage of so many (too many??) things UoH offers, like plays and festivals, lectures and conferences, and sports! (Yeah…I didn’t know what a wicket was when I came here. Silly Americans.) I have traveled outside of Hyderabad as well, in an attempt to get to know a little more about India (Jaipur, Delhi, Agra and Kochi), while spreading the love of math. (See photos of doing math on an elephant… )

It was strange to find myself amongst a group of all Americans at a recent conference in Kochi for the Fulbright-Nehru scholars, researchers and students who are in South and Central Asia. I greatly enjoyed hearing about the work that Fulbrighters across the subcontinent are pursuing and excited that I am lumped together with such amazing people.

Besides sharing research, I believe many Fulbrighters used this time with other Americans to commiserate, to look at someone from your own culture and have the person validate that you have had a rough go during the year, as travel always requires compromises.

However, I can’t complain.

Everything has run so smoothly for me since before I arrived that I assumed other Fulbrighters were having similar experiences. I had taken for granted the incredible work that Professor Kumaresan (Dean of the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Hyderabad) and Prof KPN Murthy (Director of the Center for Integrated Studies) have done.

From my health to my living arrangements, from my transportation to my course load, Prof Kumaresan has brought me to Hyderabad as his guest and given me the autonomy to run my course as I deem appropriate. Profs Kumaresan and Murthy are passionate about the students learning to problem solve for themselves (as opposed to regurgitate on exams). I think I convinced the mathematics chair that I feel the same way, and as such he had enough faith in me to: teach a required course for the majors; adjust the grading scale to place emphasis on the homework and outlines (things which are necessary to learning the material, but often are not given any allotment in the grading scheme); and to require daily writing from the students.

Like Kumaresan, I believe we need to teach the students to think, and that may mean stepping back and showing them how to teach themselves. As my semester is winding down, I realize how far from the norm my class is, and appreciate the opportunity that the Department of Mathematics and the Center for Integrated Studies is giving me to share my passion with the students, and expose the students to possibly a different teaching style.

Finally, I would like to highly recommend the University of Hyderabad as a location for future Fulbright placement. The opportunities at the university for a professor to teach or do research are probably similar to other universities throughout India, but the level of assistance, respect and freedom in the classroom that is given to professors far exceeds that of anything I have heard from other Fulbrighters.

Being dropped alone in a foreign country can be daunting (see sign of poisonous snakes on campus), but the reception I have received in Hyderabad has made me feel at home.

Untitled 5

Thank you for this opportunity and I hope that I have given back to UoH at least a fraction of all that UoH has given me.

Cheers,

Karoline

PS: Please notice that I am a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar: the exchange goes both ways! Please consider applying for a Fulbright-Nehru position for Indian citizens at http://www.usief.org.in

REPUTAT10N

THE
The big news for us in the past few days is of course that we are No. 10 in the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings of Academic Institutions in India. Just so that it is clear as to what this means, I went to the THE website and learned that this ranking is from data compiled by Thomson Reuters. The ranking is based on responses from around 16,300 leading peer-reviewed academics from across the world who were asked to nominate no more than 15 of the best institutions in their field of expertise.

39% of responses were from the Americas, 26% from Europe, 25% from Asia Pacific and 12% from the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia; 18% of the respondents were from the physical sciences, 21.3% from engineering and technology, 22.1% from the social sciences, 15.4% from clinical subjects, 12.7% from life sciences and 10.5% from the arts and humanities.

Who were the other 9 in the top 10? IISc, five of the IITs (Bombay, Kanpur, Delhi, Madras, Kharagpur). AIIMS. Along with us, the other universities are Delhi and Aligarh. One can critique methodology, analysis and inference all one wants, but still its nice to be up there in the list, although most of the others in the top 10 are so different from the UoH, one wonders about the nature of the ranking… Reputation is such a tenuous (and ephemeral) thing, and as Iago realized, so valuable.

And value it, we do. What we seem to do with much less felicity, though, is to ask the right questions (as the THE people seem to have!) and when (or if) asked, our answers are often wanting… I had actually started on this post a while ago, sparked by some concern on the poor flow of information on campus, almost as if we have an informal DADT (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell!) policy on all issues. But that’s really for another post.

Which finally brings me to what makes a ranking that is based on the opinion that other academics have of us. In no specific order, this would probably have to include

Research papers, which is where most others read about our work
Books that our faculty and students publish
Seminars and Conferences, where they may have participated…
Scholars on campus, who they have heard of
Alumni, our best ambassadors
Visitors to our campus who talk about us…

There doubtless are many other factors, of course, but like I said it’s good to be on the short list… And it also gives us an idea of what we need to work on to get higher up there…

March 5: A Date with the UGC Task Force on Gender

There will be a discussion with members of UGC Task Force on Gender on Gender Issues on our campus on Tuesday 5th March in the Auditorium of the School of Humanities at 10:30 am. The terms of reference of the Task Force is broad. Apart from issues of safety and security, the Committee is interested in knowing the space that women (students, faculty and employees) have in the academic and non-academic life of the university community. Some themes around which the discussion may be centered are

Around CASH (its scope, its activities, accounts of its functioning by the members and the complainants)
Women’s hostels (facilities, safety, security, lighting, timings, toilets, discrimination, restrictions etc.)
Transport (within and from the University for students at different levels)
Students groups and if they take up any issues concerning women students
Issues of caste, ethnicity, region and religion – how do they effect women’s mobility, mobilization on the campuses.
Women students and student politics – ability to participate, adequacy of representation,
Issues of class 4 women employees and their access to grievance redressal
Issues related to health care facilities – presence of a trained gynaecologist in the health centre, adequate care and medicines.
Moral policing by groups/individuals on the campuses
Academic equality: the academic space accessible to women, relationship between colleagues, students, supervisor-student and so on…
Individual and group experiences of women on campus

The UGC would highly value written representations on all the above issues individually or
by a group. Anonymous representations are also accepted.

Paint Pray Run (@ the UoH)

RUN!: The Hyderabad Runners, arguably “the best running club in India” will have the 4th Edition of their Club Run on Sunday 17th February, 2013. This edition of the Club Run includes 10K, 21K and 3K segments.

HR have been promoting running in the cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad with the aim of making running the most preferred form of fitness and leisure activity. This run begins and ends in the University campus and will include road and a bit of trail run. The route will be identified by route markers.

There will be aid-stations at every 2 kms providing runners with water, electrolytes, fruits and first aid. Since it is a Sunday, there is likely to be low traffic, but you should be careful in running.

To register, go online and fill the online registration form. Spot registration on race day will be allowed.If you have any queries, you can contact the members of the registration committee via email at any time, Ajay Reddy – ajyrds@gmail.com and Sunil Menon – sumeno@microsoft.com

Date: 17th February, 2013
Time (Half Marathon): 6.15 AM.
Time (10K): 7 AM.
Time (3K): 7.15 AM.

Starting Point: University of Hyderabad, Gachibowli, Hyderabad. Collect your bibs on Sunday 17th, @ the race venue at The University of Hyderabad from: 5:00am to 5:45am.

This is the First of the UoH Half Marathons… Which means, of course, that I’m hoping that that this will be an Annual feature. Perhaps even a Full Marathon in time to come?? Enjoy!

PRAY!: Today is Saraswati Puja, a festival that carries much meaning for any University. Learning provides the only true liberation, and that is a lesson worth remembering.

PAINT!: The Sarojini Naidu School, in collaboration with the IndiraGandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya in Bhopal are organizing a 10 day workshop of Tribal Paintings- some great painters have come to our campus and will conduct a workshop with the Fine Arts Department. And also paint some of our public spaces… Come visit the S Radhakrishnan Lecture Hall Complex next week, and the S N School anytime between now and the 24th…

Gang aft agley

Recent events, more of a personal nature than public, brought Robert Burns’ To a Mouse to mind. The University lives, as it were, from plan to plan, and like those best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men in the poem, they don’t always work out quite as one wanted. The plan above should really be Plan with the capital P, referring to the Five Year Plans that are overseen by the Planning Commission. We are now into the twelfth (XII) of the Plans that started on April 1, 2012, the date being quite a cruel joke on all of us.

The UoH did well in the XI Plan. Well, in this context, is really in the money that was granted to the University via the UGC and other funding agencies, the total being about Rs. 210 Cr, and one should also count the additional grant that came as a result of the OBC expansion, Rs. 154 Cr. This really enabled the University to dream big, building new hostels, new buildings, new major equipment, new infrastructure, and so on, and the results are there for all to see.

For the XIIth Plan, the UGC and the MHRD initially asked us to dream even bigger, and keeping the then rate of growth of the Indian economy in mind, the Central Universities were asked to project plans that were three or five times the grant we got in the XIth Plan. That’s serious! But that was also at a time when the body politic seemed robust and secure, and also not in a state of limbo as it has seemed to be in the recent past…

Anyhow, we rose to the call and made a XII Plan Proposal that was commensurate with these ambitions. Big plans. But now, when it has come to the implementation stage, there have been subtle (and not so subtle) indications that the budget allocations will be nowhere near as generous as they (or anyone) had hoped… The economy has not been so good, there are massive cuts, everyone is suffering, one “reason” after the other. But more to the point, ten months after the so-called start of the new Plan, we still have no clear idea of what the UoH has been allotted, not in terms of money, not in terms of positions, and not in terms of programmes.

The fact of the matter is, a five year plan period does not really make much sense anymore, least of all for the higher education sector. The world changes too fast in five years, and so do priorities. And five years is not a natural timescale on which anything particular happens in the world of academe, so why quantize it that way? There is no logic to it, and the fact is that by the end of every sacred Plan Period there is always unspent money. (And that accounts for something like Rs 65 Cr out of the 210 that we got in the entire Plan, which comes to nearly one third of the total amount!) I think it would serve us far better if we made proposals for shorter periods – it would help us project our needs better, it would help us to adapt to changing scenarios, and it would help the University to stay competitive instead of locking us into a firm commitment that may eventually evolve into something unrealistic over five years…

One plans and plans, and plans so… and then! Being at a University should prepare one for such uncertainty though. As it happens, I find myself admiring Burns more with the passing years, and seeing through his eyes and words, more of the universality of the human condition. The next stanza of the poem captures perfectly the angst of the moment,

Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e. On
prospects drear! An’ forward, tho’
I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

So what’s Gang aft agley? Och, the sorry fate of the best-laid plans of mice and men…

UoHTube

Over the past year(s) we have had several “Distinguished Lectures” at the University- namely special lectures by eminent scholars that we hope will address a range of issues that are of general interest. In reverse order, these have been

Veena Das, Politics of the Urban Poor. 11/1/13
Joseph Stiglitz, Macro Economics in crisis: An agenda for rejuvenating the discipline. 4/1/13
William Dalrymple, The Return of a King: Battle for Afghanistan (1839-43). 10/12/12
Michael Berry, The maggot in the apple: peaceful coexistence of incompatible theories. 18/10/12
K Srinath Reddy, Public Health Needs An ‘All of Society’ Approach. 17/9/12
Vasudha Dalmia, Nature, Science, and Civilization: Agyeya’s Anti-city Novel (1952). 30/8/12
Walter Russell Mead, America’s Sticky Power. 7/8/12
Maria Cristina Marcuzzo, Re-embracing Keynes Scholars, Admirers and Sceptics in the Aftermath of the Crisis. 9/3/12
Andrew Sheng, The Seven Distortions of the Global Economy. 25/1/12
David Hume, Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor and the Control of Macrophage Differentiation. 10/1/12
Mriganka Sur, Brains, Minds and Machines. 6/1/12.
Herbert Gleiter, Can Poly/ Nano-glasses open the way to an age of Glassy Materials? 15/11/11
Barbara Harriss-White, Capitalism and Common Man. 11/11/11
David Shulman, A South Indian Concept of Nature: Notes from Telugu Kavya. 8/8/11
Girish S. Agarwal, Quantum Interference between Independent Photons. 4/8/11
Yu Yongding, China’s Development Strategy over the Past Three Decades. 28/7/11
Palagummi Sainath, The Media: Another Kind of Convergence. 20/7/11
V. S. Ramachandran, Neurology: from molecules to metaphor. 19/7/11

In addition to these, there have been any number of lectures by equally distinguished persons- Rudy Marcus, Mahasweta Devi, Romila Thapar, M S Narasimhan… many others.

A new initiative to share this bounty with the public has led us to put several of these lectures onto YouTube. The most recent three of the above lectures, as well as the speech by Rudy Marcus are all on YouTube, and we have a photoblog as well! All courtesy our recent S N School graduates Gautami and Manikrishna. And the PRO, Ashish Jacob…

Enjoy, and please also let your friends know! The special lectures of the UoH are now available for all. Here are the links. Veena Das, Joseph Stiglitz, William Dalrymple, and Rudy Marcus. There will be more as time goes on… So mark the blog space, and you can always search for . Thats large!