Young Engineer

Our colleague in the SEST, Koteswara Rao V. Rajulapati has been selected for the Indian National Academy of Engineering [INAE] Young Engineer Award this year.  The award which will be given to him in December consists of a citation and Rs. 1 lakh.
Dr. Rajulapati has many original contributions in understanding the microstructure and mechanical behavior of several important metals and alloys. His contributions to the metallurgy of nanostructured materials are significant.  His  doctoral work was the first systematic attempt to understand the role of nano sized second phases on the deformation behavior of nanocrystalline face centered cubic (FCC) metals. He developed unique approaches for fabricating bulk nano grained aluminum and its composites.
Koteswara Rao joined the School of Engineering Sciences and Technology in January 2009  and has taken an active role in building the laboratories to cater both research and teaching needs. He has been instrumental in setting up various laboratories and contributed significantly for the initiation of various research programmes in Materials Engineering and Nano Science and Technology.
Warmest congratulations to him from the UoH community! And thanks to the Dean, SEST, for much of the write-up above.

Tilak Award

 The Lokmanya Tilak Award for 2011 recognizes the contributions of our former vice chancellor, Dr Kota Harinarayana to the progress of society, and the nation.  August 1 marks the death anniversary of Tilak and the award was bestowed on Dr Harinarayana in Pune yesterday. Previous recipients of the award which was instituted in 1983 include Prime Ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Indira Gandhi.
Dr Kota Harinarayana was our VC between 2002 and 2005, and he is credited with the successful design of the LCA (light combat aircraft). As I learned from another blog, all LCA tail numbers start with KH in his honour. That’s another and very high award indeed!

Nina Saxena Excellence in Technology Award 2011

The Nina Saxena Excellence in Technology Award is  an India-wide award  to encourage and promote, technical innovation. This year, our colleague Dr S Maqbool Ahmed is part of the CHACE team that has been shortlisted for the prize.
The award commemorates the spirit and memory of IIT Kharagpur alumna Dr. Nina Saxena  who passed away tragically in 2005. Conferred every year at the IIT Foundation Day, this award is made possible by contributions from IIT Kharagpur Alumni to remember Dr. Saxena’s desire and drive for technical excellence, during her short but illustrious life. (For details, see the site http://www.iitfoundation.org/?p=77)

Dr Ahmed was the  the team leader  of that payload on the Moon Impact Probe Mission of Chandrayaan project. Quoting from Rajesh Kochchar’s blog, “The impact probe MIP which deposited Indian national flag on the Moon also carried a scientific payload, nick-named CHACE, comprising a mass spectrometer. During the 25 minutes of fall on to the lunar surface, CHACE obtained data confirming the presence of water vapour in  the Moon’s atmosphere on the sunlit side.”
There is more to the story, and that can be read elsewhere. This brief post is to give our heartiest congratulations to Dr Maqbool Ahmed!

Ratna Sadasyata


Shortly after  I took over the Vice Chancellorship last month our respected and eminent colleague Nataraja Ramakrishna passed away. One of my earliest and sad tasks on behalf of the University community was to lay a wreath at his feet then…
Dr Nataraja Ramakrishna was one of the founding members of our  University’s Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication. As the first appointed Professor of the Dance Department of the School, he methodically structured the entire dance curriculum and developed a pedagogic practice for teaching dance at the post-graduate level. Through the introduction of the doctoral programme in dance in 1991, he helped systematize the study of dance and brought in new research perspectives. As many as 9 PhDs were completed under his supervision. His association with the Department continued into his final years.
There was cause to celebrate his career once again last Friday. Padmasree Bharatakalaprapoorna Dr. Nataraj Ramakrishna was posthumously conferred the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship (referred to as the Akademi Ratna Sadasyata), along with noted vocalist Girija Devi, dhrupad maestro Rahimuddin Dagar, and mridangam exponent T. K. Murthy.

Guru Nataraj Ramakrishna was an eminent dancer, guru, scholar, and musicologist propagating classical dance in Andhra Pradesh for the last 50 years. He was the architect of Andhra Natyam, a dance form he recreated and made popular. He also reconstructed the “Perini Sivatandavam”, the militant male dance tradition of the tenth Century AD (Kakatiya Period). He revived “Navajanardanam” a great prabanda dance tradition that was being performed in Kunti Madhava Temple at Pitapuram in East Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh for the last 400 years.
He choreographed and staged “Sri Venkateswara Kalyanam”, “Kumara Sambhavam”, “Megha Sandesam” and won the Swarna Kalasam at Ujjain for the production of “Kumara Sambhavam”. He wrote over 40 books on Dance, six of which won him awards from the Government of India. His outstanding books are “Dakshinathyula Natyakala Charitra” and “Andhras and the Art of Dance,” a treatise covering a period of 2000 years.
The University of Hyderabad, in recognition of his seminal contribution to dance, conferred an honorary doctorate on him and has instituted the annual Nataraj Ramakrishna Lecture on Art and Culture in the year 2009. Recently, the University became the privileged custodian of many of his worldly possessions, including his Padma award and other honours.
I would like to thank Professor Vinod Pavarala, Dean of the S N School,  for most of the above write-up.