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It has often been remarked that we are, as a nation, poor archivists. One of the most eloquent institutional administrators- one who has had a long association with the University of Hyderabad and even now is a member of our Executive Council- is P. Balaram of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. As Editor of the journal Current Science, he has on many occasions shared his experiences with the wider readership on a number of issues. When the IISc celebrated the centenary year of its founding, he wrote a number of essays that touched on its origins.

One of them (Current Science, Vol. 94, 10 January 2008) starts “ A weakness for history and the temptation to retreat into the past, in order to escape the pressures of the present, has drawn my attention to two books which have appeared over the last year or so.”  He goes on to discuss the books in relation to the IISc’s history. Later in the editorial, he comments ” In piecing together a documentary record of an institution’s early days I have had tantalizing glimpses of individuals and events.”
In the past few days, I have had some occasion to think about carrying out an exercise to document the campus of the University for a number of reasons. In the process, I (re)discovered an early booklet titled “Ideas Competition for the Design of the Master Plan of the University Campus”.
The two photographs in this post are both from that booklet (a copy of which is in my office, and a copy can be made available) which details a very comprehensive idea of what the founding Vice Chancellor and his team of planners had thought of the University and its role.
At that time, the total area earmarked for us was a little over 2324 acres, and in the 37 years since then, we have gradually seen the extent of the land reduce. In addition to the physical extent, there has also been a reduction in the diversity of the fauna, an increase on the various pressures on the land, a possible increase in the floral diversity as a large number of alien species have been introduced, and of course, development.
It is essential that we document this change, and our approaching 40th anniversary in 2014 seems to be a good time by which we should do this. There are records to be looked at, archival photographs to be collected, a history to be written. Many of the key persons are still with us on the campus, or at any rate accessible. In addition, it would be a good idea to document the environment, the geology, the flora, fauna, and the social history- a way to see what we were, what we are, and give us all an idea of what we can become.
Some- indeed most- of this material should form the basis of the University Archives, both physical and digital. And some of this could be the basis of a book on the University – something that is sorely needed, and would be a good way to celebrate our 40 years. This way, we could lay our own master plan for how we reach our own future milestones, the golden jubilee in 2024… and our centenary in 2074.

The University has a tradition of inviting distinguished academics and other personalities to come lecture to the University community on matters of interest, both scholarly and general. These lectures are intended to attract a wide audience, and are therefore somewhat more like colloquia. Two that we have this month are on the 19th and 20th of July.
Today’s speaker is the distinguished neuroscientist, V S Ramachandran, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, where he is the Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition. He will speak at 4:00 pm today in the DST auditorium on Neurology: From molecules to metaphor.
Ramachandran is internationally renowned. As Wikipedia says, his experiments in behavioral neurology which, despite their apparent simplicity, have generated many new ideas about the workings of the brain.  In 1997 Newsweek magazine named him a member of “The Century Club”, one of the “hundred most prominent people to watch” in the 21st century  and in 2011 Time listed him as one of “the most influential people in the world” on the “Time 100” list. 
Our speaker tomorrow is the well known journalist P Sainath, Rural Affairs editor of  The Hindu.  Sainath was awarded the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay award for Journalism, Literature, and
Creative Communication Arts. Over decades of reporting, he has established himself as among the pre-eminent chroniclers of rural life in our times. Shri Sainath received the A H Boerma Award in 2001 for his contributions.

In July 2004, he was awarded the Prem Bhatia Award for excellence in political reporting and analysis in recognition  of his “outstanding, indeed exceptional, work on the problems of the poorest of the poor, especially in Andhra Pradesh.” Dr. Amartya Sen has called him “one of the world’s great experts on famine and hunger”. Shri Sainath calls himself a ‘rural reporter’, or simply a ‘reporter’ – and photo journalist focusing on social problems, rural affairs, poverty and the aftermath of globalization in India.
P Sainath was born in Chennai and the grandson of the former President of India, Shri V. V. Giri. He was educated in Loyola College, Chennai. His preoccupation with social problems and commitment to a political perspective began when he was a student in college. He is a graduate of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi where he was part of an activist student population. He is now an Executive Council member of the same university. After receiving a Master’s degree in history, he launched his career as a journalist at the United News of India in 1980 where he received the news agency’s highest individual award. He then worked for Blitz, then a major South Asian weekly in Mumbai, first as foreign affairs editor and then as Deputy Editor. For the last twenty-five years he has been visiting faculty at Sophia Polytechnic’s Social Communications Media course and also at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai, inspiring a whole generation of young journalists.
His talk is at 4:00 pm on Wednesday the 20th July, also in the DST Auditorium. He will speak on The Media – Another Kind of Convergence.
Lecturers scheduled in the coming months include Girish Agarwal (Physics),  Srikumar Bannerjee (Atomic Energy), Richard Zare (Chemistry) and Veena Das (Sociology). Watch this space.

It’s probably simplest to just start with what this Blog is about. Like it says, this is the UNofficial site of the VC, University of Hyderabad. Which means that I hope to use it to communicate with the UoH community somewhat informally, and to communicate on matters that relate to the University to the world at large. Unofficial, so that I can also add my own personal thoughts and ideas for the University or about matters that I feel are germane to us.
Some posts may be on academic issues, some on administration, some on events, and probably some on non-events. If there is something that any (and I do mean any) of you in the University would like highlighted here, send me the details and it will make its way onto the blog so long as it is pertinent.
I’d welcome comments and feedback, and like I say on the About page, everything is welcome though I may edit the comments for grammar and spelling, mainly. (Too many messages that are written in smsese or with scant respect for either punctuation or spelling have made me somewhat allergic to expressions like Kewl, Gr8! Or worse…).
The first post is datelined 15 July, 2011. It’s the first day of the academic session, a good day to start.
Last thing, the blog title. I’ve always felt that UoH has a unique position by virtue of the fact that it is located so centrally in the subcontinent. Quite apart from its being a Central (i.e. rather than State) University. If you have a better alternative, do send in your suggestions.