Newsletter of the Indian Academy of Sciences

Inside...2006 Annual meeting ..................... 1

2007 Elections ................................ 3

2006 Associates ............................. 5

INSA-NASI join in scienceeducation initiatives ........................ 6

Springer agreement ....................... 6

Raman Professor ............................ 7

Special issues ................................ 7

Public lectures ................................ 11

Discussion meetings ...................... 12

Refresher courses .......................... 14

Lecture workshops ......................... 16

Obituaries ....................................... 20

Programme of mid-year meeting .... 27

No. 45 March 2007

The seventy-second Annual Meeting of the Academy was held at Indore during10–12 November 2006 co-hosted by the Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya and theUGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research. About 200 Fellows and 30 invitedteachers participated.

2006 Annual Meeting

On November 9, 2006, the invited teachers had a meeting with the SciencePanel conducted by S Chandrasekaran and S Mahadevan, both from IISc,Bangalore. In addition to a discussion of the various initiatives of the Panel, thecollaboration with Indian National Science Academy was also mentioned. (Seeelsewhere in this issue for further details.)

A decadal vision document titled ‘TowardsAyurvedic Biology’ prepared by MS Valiathanfor the Academy was released during theinaugural session. (This follows a similardocument on Astronomy and Astrophysicsprepared by G Srinivasan and released in 2006).The origin of Ayurveda, its golden age coveringeight centuries, the works of Charaka andSusruta, and the holistic attitude of this systemof health care, are all covered in this document.While releasing the document, the AcademyPresident TV Ramakrishnan mentioned that itis an effort to place before the scientific

Some of the Academy’s office bearers with the hosts at the inaugural session.

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EDITORN. Mukunda

Published byIndian Academy of SciencesBangalore 560 080, IndiaPhone: (080) 2361 2546, 2361 4592email: office@ias.ernet.in

This newsletter is available on theAcademy website at: www.ias.ac.in/patrika/

To receive a regular copy of theNewsletter, please write to theExecutive Secretary of the Academy(madhavan@ias.ernet.in)

Forthcoming Events–200718th Mid-Year Meeting, Bangalore(13–14 July 2007)

73rd Annual Meeting, Regional ResearchLaboratory, Thiruvananthapuram(1–4 November 2007)

Refresher CoursesTopics in Mathematics and PhysicsRamakrishna Mission Vidyamandira,Belur Math (Dt. Howrah)(14–26 May 2007)

Advances in biophysicsCentre for Cellular and Molecular Biology,Hyderabad (25 May–8 June 2007)

Experimental physicsAnna University, Chennai(28 May–10 June 2007)

Marine geology and geophysicsNational Institute of Oceanography, Goa(22 October–2 November 2007)

Lecture WorkshopsQuantum mechanics, quantum fieldtheory and group theory & tensorsMar Ivanios College, Thiruvananthapuram(1–3 August 2007)

community, especially that of India, the unique scientificopportunities that arise out of viewing Ayurveda from theperspective of contemporary science, its tools and ideas. MSValiathan, an eminent cardiologist and medical scientist, and aprofound scholar of Ayurveda, has been pioneering the idea thatthis is a fertile field for original scientific research at the highestlevel.

The presidential address by TV Ramakrishnan was on ‘Strongcorrelations, local constraints and gauge theories for electrons insolids’. The focus was on phenomena where explanations haveemerged over the past two decades, and involving hightemperature superconductors, manganites and heavy fermionsystems. It is interesting that the concept of local gaugeinvariance, so fundamental to the studies of all basic interactionsin nature, is relevant even in these complex systems.

R Gadagkar

MS Valiathan

P Rama Rao

TV Ramakrishnan

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Two symposia were held as part of the programme – oneon ‘The state of Indian science: problems, prospects andindicators’ put together by R Gadagkar; another on‘Genetically modified crops’ organized by Deepak Pental.In the first symposium, the convener argued for the settingup of an institution to periodically assess the health ofIndian science.

MS Valiathan described medical research in the countryand especially its special position in the case of tropicaldiseases. Deficiencies of the current health care system,and the need for more basic research, were highlighted.P Rama Rao’s presentation looked at the state of highertechnical education, and some of its continuinginadequacies. There is a shortage of quality teachers,

T Ramasami

Deepak Pental

MGK Menon

inadequate facilities and nonexistent research. TRamasami outlined the plans of the Science andTechnology Ministry, especially to attract talentedstudents to science as a career.

The second symposium had five speakers touchingdifferent aspects of a sensitive subject: breeding ofmustard; production of promoter modules for use invarious transgenic varieties; stress-tolerant varieties; Btcotton production and economic consequences; and theproblem of eradicating the ‘bollworm beast’.

MGK Menon delivered the S Ramaseshan MemorialPublic Lecture on ‘The changing face of science’. Histributes to Ramaseshan recalled steps taken to rejuvenatethe Academy, especially its publications activities andthe new appearance and role created for Current Science.Menon spoke of science as a part of human culture, andpointed out its explosive growth in recent decades leadingto very large scale collaborations in specific areas, alongwith tremendously improved communication tools.

The second public lecture by Andre Beteille on‘Universities at the cross-roads’ could not be delivered,but the text has since been published in Current ScienceVol. 92, No. 4, pp. 441–449, 25 February 2007.

A very detailed report on the entire meeting appearsin Current Science Vol. 92, No.5, pp. 574–578,10 March 2007.

Cultural Programme during the annual meeting

Aggarwal, RakeshAll India Institute of Medical Sciences, New DelhiAreas of interest: Gastroenterology; liverdisease; viral hepatitis; epidemiology, healthand economics

Ajayaghosh, A.Regional Research Laboratory,ThiruvananthapuramOrganic materials; photosciences;macromolecular chemistry

Bajpai, SunilIndian Institute of Technology, RoorkeeVertebrate paleontology; biostratigraphy;paleobiogeography

2007 ELECTIONSFellows

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Bhattacharyya, ArchanaIndian Institute of Geomagnetism, NaviMumbaiIonospheric physics; geomagnetism;space plasmas

Dabholkar, AtishTata Institute of Fundamental Research,MumbaiQuantum gravity; superstring theory; blackholes

Gokhale, Rajesh SudhirNational Institute of Immunology, New DelhiChemical biology; natural productbiosynthesis; metabolic pathways

Grover, AnilUniversity of Delhi South Campus, New DelhiPlant abiotic stress responses; plantbiotechnology; molecular biology

Gupta, P K.Centre for Advanced Technology, IndoreLasers; biomedical applications of lasers;nonlinear optics

Balaji, V.Chennai Mathematical Institute, ChennaiAlgebraic geometry; representation theory;topology

Jain, SanjayUniversity of Delhi, DelhiMathematical modelling of complex systems;biological and social networks; computationaland systems biology

Jhunjhunwala, AshokIndian Institute of Technology, ChennaiTelecommunications; computer networks;fibre optics

Jog, Chanda J.Indian Institute of Science, BangaloreGalactic dynamics; interacting and star burstgalaxies; interstellar molecular clouds

Katoch, Vishwa M.National Jalma Institute, AgraTaxonomy and epidemiology ofmycobacterial diseases

Lohia, AnuradhaBose Institute, KolkataCell cycle of protozoan parasites; moleculargenetics; regulation of gene expression

Mittal, SanjayIndian Institute of Technology, KanpurUnsteady aerodynamics; finite elementanalysis; high performance computing

Palit, Dipak KumarBhabha Atomic Research Centre, MumbaiUltrafast spectroscopy; photo & radiationchemistry; chemical reaction dynamics incondensed phase

Radhakrishnan, JaikumarTata Institute of Fundamental Research,MumbaiCombinatorics; information theory

Ramaswamy, MythilyTIFR Centre, BangaloreNonlinear functional analysis; elliptic partialdifferential equations; control problems

Rangarajan, P. N.Indian Institute of Science, BangaloreEukaryotic gene expression; infectiousdiseases

Sankaran, ParameswaranThe Institute of Mathematical Sciences,ChennaiTopology; algebraic groups

Sarkar, Debi PrasadUniversity of Delhi South Campus, New DelhiBiochemistry; molecular virology; cell biology,biotechnology

Sen, SandeepIndian Institute of Technology, New DelhiSequential and parallel algorithms;probabilistic analysis; randomization;computational geometry

Shashidhara, L. S.Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology,HyderabadDevelopmental biology; evolution; genetics

Shenoi, S Satheesh ChandraNational Institute of Oceanography,Dona PaulaPhysical oceanography; ocean-atmosphereinteraction; satellite oceanography

Singh, Harkesh B.Indian Institute of Technology, MumbaiMain group chemistry; organochalcogenchemistry; organometallic chemistry

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Srinivasan, NarayanaswamyIndian Institute of Science, BangaloreProtein functions; bioinformatics ingenomics; metabolism and signaltransduction

Swamy, Musti J.University of Hyderabad, HyderabadProtein chemistry and protein-ligandinteraction; lipid phase behaviour &polymorphism; lipid-protein interaction

Tahseen, QudsiaAligarh Muslim University, AligarhZoology; nematology

Vijayraghavan, UshaIndian Institute of Science, BangalorePlant developmental genetics; microbialgenetics; gene regulation

Yadav, Veejendra K.Indian Institute of Technology, KanpurSynthetic organic chemistry; physical organicchemistry

Honorary FellowsGross, David J.University of CaliforniaCalifornia, USA

Imry, YosephThe Weizmann Institute of ScienceRehovot, Israel

K C NicolaouUniversity of CaliforniaSan Diego, USA

ASSOCIATES 2006

Begum, AyeshaUniversity of Cambridge, CambridgeAreas of interest : Radio astronomy

Bharali, GautamIndian Institute of Science, BangaloreAnalysis in several complex veriables

Joshi, Yogesh MIndian Institute of Technology, KanpurRheology of Complex fluids, soft matterand glass transition

Kumar, BrijeshJawaharlal Nehru University, New DelhiQuantum mechanism and quantummany-body physics

Sarkar, Ram rupCentre for cellular and Molecular Biology,HyderabadMathematical and stochastic modelling ofbiological systems, and nonlinear dynamics

Sriram, V.National Centre for biological Sciences,BangaloreMitochondrial remodellings

Sunoj, RaghavanIndian Institute of Technology, MumbaiComputational and theoretical organicchemistry

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agreement effectively safeguards the interests of theAcademy, namely

(1) Academy retains ownership, full copyright andcomplete responsibility for constitution of EditorialBoards.

(2) All editorial policies, receipt, processing,refereeing of submissions, acceptance/rejectiondecisions, frequencies of issues, special issues,sizes of individual issues, will be in Academy’shands.

(3) Production, pricing and distribution of thedomestic editions within India will be handledsolely by the Academy; this edition will continueto be available world-wide on the Academyserver, with free open access to full text uponpublication, including all earlier issues; there willbe no page charges to authors, including forcolour illustrations.

(4) The Academy will include the Springer logo andtitle on the domestic editions.

(5) The international editions will be co-publishedby the Academy and Springer, the on-lineversion will be put up on SpringerLink,based on electronic files supplied by theAcademy; print versions will be produced byAcademy for distribution outside India bySpringer.

(6) The international on-line editions onSpringerLink will be available at substantialdiscounts to all developing countries includingIndia and as defined by HINARI, AGORAand INASP; and will be distributed elsewherein the world by Springer on subscriptionbasis, the rates being fixed by mutualconsultation.

(7) The international print versions will be marketedby Springer to all countries overseas. Todeveloping countries, the subscription rates willbe available at rates lower than the rest of theworld.

(8) The initial co-publication agreement between theAcademy and Springer is for 3 years, 2007–2009.

It is our hope that with this arrangement, the world-widevisibility of our journals will improve substantially, and inthe course of time both impact factors and quality ofsubmissions will also improve.

SPRINGER AGREEMENTSince the appearance of the previous issue of Patrika,Academy has entered into an agreement with Springerfor copublication and international sales anddissemination of all its ten journals. The carefully drafted

INSA, NASI JOIN INSCIENCE EDUCATION

INITIATIVESBoth the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhiand the National Academy of Sciences of India,Allahabad, have expressed their willingness and interestin cooperating with Academy in the various activities ofthe Science Education Panel. Already this year’s SummerResearch Fellowship Programme for students andteachers is being organized jointly by all three Academies,and the number of Fellowships offered has doubledcompared to 2006. Fellows of all three Academiesare being requested to guide selected students andteachers.

In addition, INSA and NASI will also join Academy inorganizing and conducting both Refresher Courses forteachers and Lecture Workshops for students andteachers. Three representatives each from INSA andNASI will be permanent invitees to the Academy ScienceEducation Panel, and these programmes will be plannedin a coordinated manner.

The expenses for all these activities will be sharedequally by the three Academies.

R Gebauer and R Narasimha signing the agreement on behalf ofSpringer and Academy respectively.

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RAMAN PROFESSORAnne McLaren, the Academy’s twenty-third RamanProfessor, was in India for about 4 weeks in November–December 2005 to take up the Chair (see Patrika 43).She again was in India for three weeks in October–November 2006 to complete her assignment.

Anne is a Principal Research Associate of The WellcomeTrust and Cancer Research Institute at the University ofCambridge in UK and is also a member of the EuropeanMolecular Biology Organization (EMBO).

On her latest visit Anne visited several institutions inBangalore such as IISc, the Centre for Human Genetics,and the Manipal Hospital and took part in a conferenceon ‘Genes, development and disease’. She also deliveredan Academy public lecture on ‘Science and ethics ofstem cell research’ on 28 October (for summary, seeCurrent Science, Vol. 92, No.4, pp. 424-5, 25 Feb. 2007).

Anne also visited Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhiwhere she lectured at the LV Prasad Eye Institute, theCentre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, the Centre forDNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Laconis Institute,Global Hospital (all at Hyderabad), Sankara Nethralaya,Vidyasagar Institute of Biomedical Technology andScience, and the Swaminathan Foundation (all atChennai), TIFR, Mumbai and at Delhi the National BrainResearch Centre, the Institute of Genomics andIntegrative Biology, the Indian Council of MedicalResearch, the Delhi University and finally the ApolloHospital. In her parting message Anne McLaren said thatshe felt deeply grateful to all concerned for enabling her“to visit many excellent institutions and meet so manyinteresting people”.

SPECIAL ISSUESStructural dynamics andearthquake engineering

Guest Editors: D Roy and CS ManoharSadhana, Vol. 31, No.4, August 2006, pp. 291–503

Sources of uncertainty in structural dynamics aretraceable to modelling errors as well as inherentimperfections in structural geometry and excitations,among others. Given that the most acceptable routetowards a rational description and modelling of this

uncertainty is through the use of probability theory andstochastic processes, new advances in the theory andapplications to stochastic structural dynamics assumegreat significance. This is particularly true, for instance,in the broad field of earthquake engineering owing to thewell-researched and widely appreciated stochastic modelsfor earthquake excitations. Earthquake-resistantstructures are designed to display controlled inelasticbehaviour. Added to this, the need to model the nonlinearbehaviour of structural systems, stochastic modellingnaturally adds to the complexity of analysis posing achallenge to researchers. Indeed, for most stochasticallydriven nonlinear systems of engineering interest, exactanalytical solutions are hardly available and the analysthas to fall back on either a clever analytical approximationor a direct numerical simulation. Approximate analyticaltechniques, unfortunately, have not been widelysuccessful in accurately predicting the response ofstrongly nonlinear and higher dimensional systems.Therefore the research focus has, to an extent, veeredround to the development and exploration of novel formsof simulation tools, e.g. Monte Carlo simulations usingnumerical integrations. Here again, developments ofaccurate schemes for stochastic numerical integrationsface many more challenges than such developments inthe context of deterministic systems. Even from anintuitive viewpoint, a stochastic trajectory would generallyhave more variations over a given length than itsdeterministic counterpart. In order to allow for this, sucha trajectory cannot be modelled as C∞ i.e., the modellinghas to be consistent with the fact that it is differentiableonly a limited number of times. In order to account forsuch non-smoothness, different calculi (such as Ito,Stratonovich or Malliavin calculi) have been developed.Of these, Ito calculus has been particularly useful fordeveloping approximate analytical and numerical toolsin stochastic structural dynamics. Over the last fewdecades, these analytical and numerical tools have beenexploited to solve problems in many different areas ofengineering relevance, as reflected partly in the paperspublished.

This special issue consists of eleven papers reflectingthe progress of research in some of the broad areas onstochastic structural dynamics and applications toearthquake engineering. The topics covered includerandom eigenvalue problems through an asymptoticexpansion of multi-dimensional integrals, Monte Carlosimulations of an ecosystem with two competing species,stochastic averaging applied to determine the PDF ofstrongly nonlinear dynamical systems, a study on explicit

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tRNA researchGuest Editor: Umesh VarshneyJournal of Biosciences, Vol. 31, No. 4, October 2006,pp. 437–496

The history that brought it all alive: It began with aninteresting conversation between Richard Giegé andUttam L RajBhandary (Tom) that took place at the 20thInternational tRNA Workshop in Banz, Germany inOctober 2003. ‘t’ or ‘transfer’ RNAs are the central playersin the transfer of the information contained in the languageof genes, which are usually DNA molecules, to the

solar wind acceleration. High speed solar wind fromcoronal holes interacting with neighbouring slow wind formthe corotating interaction regions (CIRs), which constituteanother source of geomagnetic storms. Although the CIR-related storms are of smaller magnitude, they are morefrequent and related to other effects such as productionof relativistic electrons in the magnetosphere.

The set of papers in this special issue grew out of thepresentations at the International Solar Workshop onTransient Phenomena on the Sun held at the AryabhattaResearch Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES)during April 5–7, 2005. This Workshop was part of theGolden Jubilee celebrations of ARIES, and broughttogether solar-terrestrial researchers from India and abroadfor a three-day deliberation on issues related to solar andsolar-terrestrial physics. The importance of internationalcollaboration in data acquisition, analyses, theory andmodelling is well recognized as evident from the growthof International Space Weather and Living with a Starcommunities in recent years.

This special issue has a large concentration of paperson the origin of CMEs and flares, and their space weatherconsequences. The open data policy of the solar andheliospheric observatory (SOHO) mission has fuelledmany of the reported studies. There are also papers onthe quiet solar atmosphere and solar wind and theirconnection to the solar interior and the dynamo inparticular. India has a long tradition of solar-terrestrialstudies over the last century. Continuation of this traditionis reflected in the instrumentation papers including thosediscussing the extension of the observational capabilityto space. The papers also reflect the new openness indata policy of the international community that haspromoted enhanced scientific return from various databases constructed from ground observatories andspace-based observations.

dependence of strength reduction factors of elastic-plasticoscillators on ground motion parameters, combiningstochastic finite element with the response surfacemethod for estimating structural reliability, nonlineardynamics of large deformations of a beam sliding on twoknife-edge supports, particle filters applied to theidentification of nonlinear structural dynamical systems,importance of sampling in time-varying reliabilityanalyses, improved damage indicators through a multi-resolution analysis, and stochastic analysis of randomroad profiles on vehicle dynamics.

Transient phenomena on the SunGuest Editor: Wahab UddinJournal of Astrophysics and Astronomy,Vol. 27, Nos 2/3, June/September 2006,pp. 57–372

Transient phenomena occur on the Sun on many time-scales putting out flashes of electromagnetic radiationand material ejection superposed on the thermal radiationand solar wind. The discovery of coronal mass ejections(CMEs) in the early 1970s and their connection to theinterplanetary transient phenomena observed by space-borne instruments have dramatically improved ourunderstanding of the Sun–Earth connected system. CMEsrepresent the most energetic aspects of solar eruptionsthat affect not only Earth’s space environment but alsoother planets in the solar system and ultimately theboundary of the heliosphere. The famous October–November 2003 events known as the Halloween CMEsamply demonstrated this by producing measurable effectsthroughout the heliosphere. CMEs are also consideredto be the main contributor to the solar energetic populationobserved in the interplanetary medium by driving fastmode shocks that accelerate the particles. Direct impactof the CME plasma with its enhanced magnetic field isresponsible for the large geomagnetic storms that havea number of consequences in geospace and on Earth’ssurface. Although we understand the solar-terrestrialconnection via the mass and photonic emissions fromthe Sun, we are far from understanding when the eruptionsoccur on the Sun and how they evolve while propagatingthrough the interplanetary medium. For example, weunderstand CMEs as a magnetic phenomenon on theSun but do not have direct measurement of magneticfields in CMEs. We have to work mainly with photosphericmagnetic field measurements. Small-scale transientssuch as nanoflares, on the one hand, are related to thesteady emissions from the Sun via coronal heating and

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WHEPP-9Guest Editors: Pankaj Agrawal and Ajit M SrivastavaPramana, Vol. 67, Nos. 4/5, October/November 2006,pp. 559–983

The Ninth DAE–BRNSWorkshop on HighEnergy PhysicsP h e n o m e n o l o g y(WHEPP-9) was held atthe Institute of Physicsin January 2006. Thisinternational workshopfocussed on workinggroup activities. Oneparticular aspect ofthese workshops is theinteraction betweentheorists and

experimentalists. This workshop also coveredinterdisciplinary areas and became themain conference of the Indian phenomenologicalcommunity.

At the ninth Workshop, talks were presented on areas ofcurrent interest. The major activities revolved around fourworking groups, viz. collider physics, neutrino and

language of proteins.More correctly, tRNAsinterpret the informationpresent in messengerRNA, whose sequenceis derived from that ofthe gene. tRNAmolecules function asadaptors that bringamino acids to theprotein synthesizingmachine, the ribosome,in an orderly fashion and

in a way that mirrors the array of base triplets (the codons)specified on messenger RNA. Richard and Tom thoughtit important to bring together people who had worked ontRNA, especially in the early days, in order to exchangepersonal recollections about the history of the field. Thatdiscussion led to this special issue of Journal ofBiosciences which contains six of the presentations atthe Workshop which make a substantial contribution tothe history of tRNA research.

Advanced functional materialsGuest Editors: D Bahadur and Satish VittaBulletin of Materials Science, Vol. 29, No. 6, November2006, pp. 547–647

The first Indo–Singapore Symposium on ‘Advancedfunctional materials’ held in February 2006 at Mumbaiwas organized jointly under the aegis of the MaterialsResearch Society of India, Mumbai Chapter and IIT,Mumbai.

The main objective was to bring together leading scientistsand technologists from India and Singapore to discussvarious developments in materials for the 21st centuryand beyond. It was also expected to act as a platform forfostering scientific and technological collaborationsbetween the scientific groups of India and Singapore.Participants were from India, Singapore, France andMyanmar. It had 4 areas as theme topics: (a) biomaterials,(b) magnetic materials, (c) electronic materials and (d)optical materials.

A total of 124 papers covering the four areas werepresented which included 23 invited talks and the restwere poster presentations. Among the manuscripts thatwere submitted, a total of 12 contributed papers whichincluded the best poster award papers, were selected forfurther reviewing and these papers appear in this specialvolume along with some of the invited papers.

astroparticle physics, flavor physics and model building,and QCD and QGP. Activities of the working groupsinvolved talks, intensive interaction and collaborativestudies. Such activities led to numerous fruitfulcollaborations. On the last day of the Workshop, onecoordinator from each working group presented asummary of the activities. This volume contains theproceedings of the Workshop brought out in two issuesof Pramana.

Inorganic chemistryGuest Editors: Ajai Kumar Singh and Ashok KumarGanguliJournal of Chemical Sciences, Vol. 118, No. 6, November2006, pp. 441–643

This special issue was based on lectures and oralpresentations at the Eleventh Symposium on ModernTrends in Inorganic Chemistry (MTIC-XI) held at theIndian Institute of Technology, New Delhi in December2005. The MTIC series of symposia (held every two years)have emerged as a primary forum for scientific fraternity

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Physics of ADSGuest Editors: V Kumar, PK Nema, S Kailas, SBDegweker and S GanesanPramana, Vol. 68, No. 2, February 2007, pp. 141–376

Accelerator-driven sub-critical system (ADS) isthe technology ofnuclear energy andincineration of thenuclear waste. Althoughit has a history of only adecade, many countrieshave drawn roadmaps ofdevelopment of thistechnology. ADS isidentified to be theforerunner of hybridtechniques of nuclear

power generation and will be more acceptable to thesociety from the point of safety and ecology because itis sub-critical and is capable of reducing the danger ofnuclear waste. In a way, ADS will be a new kind of systemof nuclear energy using a source of high energy neutrons,independent of the kind of nuclear fuel, i.e. fissile, fertileor even higher actinides, having features of incinerationof nuclear waste at a fast rate. Thus, ADS being capableof using thorium as a fuel in a big way, extends thepossibility of India to be self-reliant in nuclear energybecause of high reserves of thorium in the country. In2003, the Department of Atomic Energy started aprogramme of physics studies of ADS under its 10th planand recently it consolidated its three-stage Indian nuclearprogramme to use thorium in PHWR in the second stageand APHWR+ADS in the third stage.

and mathematical approaches in biology. While onecan debate about the meanings of these terms, themost general definition of computational biology hasbeen adopted to include the use of computationaltechniques, tools, software, databases, dataanalyses, modelling and simulations to address biologicalproblems. The contents of this volume cover differentaspects of complexity in biological systems and considerproteins, genes, interactions, pathways, processes andcells.

The papers encompass both the technical and thescientific components of computational biology and thearticles have been arranged so as to reflect an increasinglevel of complexity, beginning with genes and genomesand going on to cells.

of the country to focus on the current status and futureprojections of research in frontier areas of inorganicchemistry, including organometallics, bio-inorganicchemistry, catalysis and materials chemistry. The widerange of topics covered in this volume reflect the currenttrends of research in inorganic chemistry in India and theeditors hope that practitioners of inorganic chemistry willfind the issue useful.

Operator theory, quantumprobability and non-commutativegeometryGuest Editor: VS SunderProceedings: Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 116, No. 4,November 2006, pp. 375–551

An international conference on “Operator theory, quantumprobability and non-commutative geometry” wasorganized in December 2004 by the Indian StatisticalInstitute, Kolkata. KB Sinha, a distinguishedmathematician, was felicitated at the conference onhis sixtieth birthday. In view of the high level of some ofthe talks, it was decided to bring out this special issue ofthe journal containing the papers presented at theconference.

Computational biology

Guest Editors: N Srinivasan, R Sowdhamini and AlokBhattacharyaJournal of Biosciences, Vol. 32, No. 1, January 2007,pp. 1–180

The third Indo–FrenchBioinformatics meetingwas held at the NationalCentre for BiologicalSciences, Bangalore, inJune 2005. The subjectmatter covered at themeeting was quitediverse and representedthe rapidly changingcontemporary phaseof biocomputing. Theidea of devoting a special

issue of Journal of Biosciences to the evolving field ofcomputational biology was an offshoot of this meeting.

A number of different terms, such as ‘computationalbiology’, ‘bioinformatics’ and ‘in silico biology’ arecommonly used to refer to applications of computational

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PUBLIC LECTURESHuman impact on atmosphericcarbon dioxide and global climate

Jorge L. SarmientoPrinceton University, New Jersey, USA27 September 2006, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

Atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements from trappedair bubbles in Antarctic ice cores demonstrate that it ishigher today than at any time in almost a million years.Other less certain measurements suggest that the last

time the Earth saw such highlevels may be more than 20million years ago. The increasedtrapping of solar radiationthat this is causing, incombination with other humaninduced changes in the Earth’sradiation balance,led to adiscernable heating of the Earththat will continue into the future.

The primary causes of the increased carbon dioxide aredeforestation and the burning of fossil fuels. But the rateof increase is less than would be expected if all the carbondioxide humans adding to the atmosphere stayed there.This is because of dissolution of carbon dioxide in the

From the point of R&D of the technology, collection ofhigh precision nuclear data of high energy reactions ofneutrons, developing methods of shielding of high energyneutrons and study of the effects of higher order (n, xn)reactions on the fuel cycles are big tasks on one sideand the challenge of developing high current (tens ofmilliampere) accelerator and design and modelling ofspallation target on the other. In the Indian context,development of even a proton accelerator of microamperecurrent will be treated as the first indigenous development.A Workshop on the Physics of ADS for Energy andTransmutation (WP-ADS-E&T) was planned as part ofthe activities of our ILTP project to exchange views,initiate collaborations, take stock of the present scientificachievements of the advanced laboratoriesand to plan future activities jointly. Besides two informaltalks at the Workshop, 30 presentations on the sixtheme subjects were presented. After due reviewprocess, 23 papers were found suitable and included inthis volume.

ocean and the postulated uptake by land plants. Forthe past five decades, since Charles David Keelinginitiated what has been characterized as the mostimportant geophysical record of the century, themeasurements at Mauna Loa that first demonstratedthe atmospheric carbon dioxide increase beyonda shadow of doubt, scientists have developed awide range of methods to unravel the oceanic andterrestrial contributions to the rate of increase ofcarbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This lecture was aprogress report on that quest, documenting theremarkable and sometimes surprising developmentsthat have occurred over the past decade, andending with some reflections on what we need to doto get the situation back under control and whatmight happen if we do not.

Science and ethics of stem cellresearchAnne McLarenGurdon Institute and Wellcome Trust, Cambridge, UK28 October 2006, Raman Research Institute, Bangalore

Stem cells are cells with a choice: they can eitherdivide to make more cells like themselves, or they canmake specialized cells. Many tissues in our bodiesdepend on stem cells to replenish cells that are shedor used up, like skin, blood and gut cells. Research isnow in progress to see how far these stem cells canbe used to repair damage elsewhere in the patient’sbody, for example in the heart. As with all newmedical treatments, ethical issues arise, in particular thepsychological risk of raising patients’ hopes unduly. Forthe future, there is even greater promise in pluripotentstem cell lines, which can grow indefinitely outside thebody, and can be treated in such a way as to make anycell type. Such stem cell lines can perhaps be madefrom bone marrow and from brain cells, and certainlyfrom early human embryos. Here the ethical concernsare greater, since the embryos (usually donated byinfertile couples in IVF clinics who no longer need themfor their own treatment) are used up in making the stemcell lines. Many countries (including India) now allow this,some countries also allow cloned stem lines to bemade by transferring body cell nuclei into donated eggscleared of their own genetic material (so-called(therapeutic cloning). The consequences of increasedunderstanding of serious and intractable diseases wereexplored by the speaker in this lecture. A summary ofthis lecture appears in Current Science (Vol. 92, No. 4,February 2007, pp. 424–425).

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DISCUSSION MEETINGSInverse problems with specialreference to atmospheric transportOrange County, Coorg23–26 November 2006

An ultra-high precision system to continuously monitoratmospheric CO2 concentration was installed at Hanleto extract from it the spatiotemporal CO2 fluxes bydeconvolving the atmospheric transport. Since otherorganizations had expressed an interest in installing asimilar system, it was proposed to discuss a prioriconceived spatially distributed sites in the country wheresuch measurements would add to the reliability ofinverted flux estimates. Secondly, establishment ofWMOT accredited laboratory at some appropriateinstitution in India for analysis of air samples collectedin flasks in the country was discussed. With this inmind the discussion meeting was held. This meetingheld at Orange County was attended by 18 participantsfrom various institutions in India and France.

earthquakes, and a great deal can now be done to limitthe damage caused by both. Tsunamis especially areoften preceded by a large drop in sea level, which cangive people time to escape upwards if they realize whatis happening.

Memory and creativity in physics

Vinay AmbegaokarCornell University, Ithaca, USA7 March 2007, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

A man hath sapiences threMemorie, engin and intellect also. . .

- Chaucer

The epigraph from the secondnun’s Canterbury tale pithilydistils, from Greek and Arabsources, a summary of thecreative process in many humanendeavours – including the“exact” sciences. Creativity inthe latter context is, however,unusualin that reasonable peoplecan agree when a mistake has

been made. An anecdotal illustration of this bracing truthwas given in this lecture.

Crystal nucleation and ‘anti-vander Waals’ liquids

Daan FrenkelFOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics,Amsterdam, Netherlands25 January 2007, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

The first stage of crystal growth is the “nucleation” of anembryonic crystal. The nucleation of crystals has beenstudied for more than a century but is still not wellunderstood. Insight into crystal nucleation comes from

an unexpected direction:the work of van der Walls. In the1880s, when Kamerlingh Onnesstarted on his programmeto liquefy helium, he wasconfident that it could bedone because he was guided byvan der Waals’s principle ofcorresponding states. However,this principle only applies to

molecules that have similar interaction potentials. Formany systems, for instance protein solutions, the law ofcorresponding states breaks down — and this hasimportant consequences for protein crystallization.

Living with earthquakes

Dan McKenzieUniversity of Cambridge, UK23 February 2007, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

Most large earthquakes occur onplate boundaries. They oftenbreak an entire plate boundaryin sequence, from one end to theother, as has happened in SouthAmerica during the last century.In Indonesia such a sequencehas just begun, with two hugeearthquakes in 2004 and 2005.The vertical movement

associated with their movement produced tsunamis.Spectacular pictures, from the air and from satellites,show the uplift of the Sumatran coastline caused by thesetwo shocks.

When the faults are on land, as they are in northern India,the vertical motions are still visible, even in cities. ManyIndian cities are at risk, either from tsunamis or from

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The first day of the meeting started with an introductionby VK Gaur (IIA, C-MMACS, Bangalore) to global carbonfluxes and their uncertainty. He mentioned the need formore stations in India for better estimates of CO2 inthe country. PK Gupta talked on outstanding issues ininverse problems and gave an overview on inverseproblems. A comparative estimate of CO2 for land andoceans from different models was given by PhillippeBousquet.

The second day had a talk by Michel Ramonet (LSCE,France) who described the CO2 network all over theworld and suggested a few stations in India. Heemphasized the necessity of an analysis unit in India.The analysis of the collected air samples need to bedone using gas chromotograph or mass spectrometer.Peter Rayner (LSCE, France) spoke on differenttransport models in atmospheric inversions andnumerical modelling schemes and advection schemesin the transcom reference frame. Phillippe Bousquet(LSCE, France) talked on source/sink attribution throughinverse modelling at climate scales.

On the third day, the first talk was by Peter Raynerwho talked about network design for surface CO2

inversions. Attri (IMD, New Delhi) spoke about their workon CO2 and related area with other organizations in India.Yogesh Tiwari (IITM, New Delhi) showed interest intaking care of a few stations in India in the effort ofmonitoring CO2 stations in India among the networkstations proposed by Michel Ramonet (LSCE, France).Vikram Reddy (Pondicherry University) mentioned theimportance of having a station in Pondicherry for theIndian network. This was followed by a talk on methaneemissions and their estimates in Europe by PhillippeBousquet.

The last day was devoted to a talk by PS Swathi (C-MMACS, Bangalore) on the work done in C-MMACSon estimation of carbon fluxes. The meeting ended witha talk by Peter Rayner on carbon cycle data assimilation.

Mathematical finance

Orange County, CoorgNovember 29–December 3, 2006

Mathematical finance has been one of the most activeresearch areas in probability and statistics communityin recent years and the main objective of this meetingwas to gather together interested scientists from Indiaand boost this activity, which has so far been rather

sporadic in our country. There were 24 participants fromthe finance industry and the meeting contained twelvelectures and two discussion sessions. Three main topicscovered were: risk processes, interest rate models andvolatility estimation.

Risk processes play a significant role in insurance andother areas. S Ramasubramanian (ISI, Bangalore) gavea series of lectures on this topic in which the basicframework of the Cramer–Lundberg model and therenewal model of insurance risk were reviewed. Ruinproblem in both models was described. Renewal typeequations and Pollaczek–Khinchin formula for ruin/survival probability were discussed. Exponential decayof ruin probability in small claims case, and power lawdecay in case of sub-exponential claim sizes wereelaborated upon for the Cramer–Lundberg model.Minimizing ruin probability through investment in riskyasset and/or through reinsurance was outlined in thecase of Cramer–Lundberg model. Asymptotics ofoptimally controlled risk processes were surveyed.

K Suresh Kumar (IIT, Mumbai) gave a series of lectureson interest rate models which focused on modelling andpricing of interest rate derivatives. He gave a briefdescription of the basic notions like money marketaccount, T-bond, stochastic discount factor, swaps,caps, floors, short rate etc. A substantial part of hislectures was on short rate model approach also knownas the Vasiczek methodology for term structure. Anaffine formula for the T-bond was derived usingno arbitrage argument. The pricing of interestrate derivatives was obtained using the forwardmeasure approach. The final part of his talks wasdevoted to the Heath–Jarrow–Morton (HJM)methodology where he showed the importance ofvolatility structures of forward rates in the pricingscenario. As an illustration he discussed the Hull–Whitemodel for short rate to show how the short ratemodelling approach is a special case of HJMmethodology in the context of derivative pricing.

A Subramanyam (IIT, Mumbai) gave a series of lectureson volatility estimation. He explained the importance ofthe estimation of volatility in the pricing of options andother derivatives and discussed estimating volatilityinterpreted as the standard deviation of the returnsobtained in unit time. Various estimators based on high,low, open and close prices were described, assumingthe Black–Scholes model. Subsequently he describedmodels in which volatility is allowed to be random. The

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species phylogenetic systematics; phylip; evolution ofnasuta; genome evolution; biogeography; molecularphylogeny of silkmoths; evolutionary dynamics ofmariner.

Advanced topics in chemistryLady Doak College, MaduraiNovember 7–20, 2006

No. of participants: 29

Course Director: R Ramaraj (MKU, Madurai)Course Co-ordinator: C Kalaneethy Christopher (LadyDoak College)

Resource Persons: V Krishnan (JNCASR, Bangalore),AK Shukla (CERI, Karaikudi), MV Sangaranarayanan(IIT, Chennai), M Palaniandavar (BharathidasanUniversity), J Gopalakrishnan and S Yashonath (IISc,Bangalore), P Ramamurthy (University of Madras), TKChandrashekar (RRL, Thiruvananthapuram), R Ramaraj,PR Athappan, S Rajagopal, K Pitchumani and SMuthusubramanian (all of MKU, Madurai).

The course consisted of four technical sessions of 90minute duration followed by laboratory sessions. Thetopics of the course included advanced topics inchemistry like solid state chemistry and materialsscience, nanomaterials, bio-inorganic chemistry, greenchemistry, electrochemistry, molecular modelling andsimulations, spectroscopic techniques like NMR, ESR,fluorescence spectroscopy. The laboratory sessionsincluded experiments in green chemistry, absorption,emission studies, and nanoparticles. Each participantwas given a copy of the books on nanotechnology, greenchemistry and solid state chemistry.

The teacher participants were from institutions inAhmednagar, Durg, Ernakulam, Koothuparamba,Madurai, Mandya, Nagpur, Perambalur, Pune, Salipur,Sambalpur, Sarugani, Sikkim, Tirunelveli, Vellore andVirudhunagar.

REFRESHERCOURSES

Phylogenetic biologyUniversity of Mysore, ManasagangotriJuly 10–22, 2006

No. of participants: 32

Course Director: HA Ranganath (Bangalore University,Bangalore)Course Co-ordinator: SR Ramesh (Univ. of Mysore,Manasagangotri)

Resource Persons: Amitabh Joshi (JNCASR,Bangalore), Amruthavalli (CIST, Mysore), KNGaneshaiah and R Uma Shaanker (UAS, Bangalore), RGeeta and John Wiens (SUNY, Stony Brook), J Nagaraju(CDFD, Hyderabad), Praveen Karanth (IISc, Bangalore)and HA Ranganath (Bangalore Univ.)

Teacher participants were from Amaravati, Bangalore,Bhimavaram, Dharwad, Ernakulam, Gorakhpur, Kolar,Mysore, Nagpur, Nanded, Orissa and Pune.

Topics of some of the lectures and laboratoryexercises: Tree; parsimony analysis; characterevolution; molecular evolution; Bayesian methods; langur

product price model of Taylor and ARCH/GARCHmodels was discussed. A method of estimating volatilityassuming it can take on only finitely many values wasoutlined. Finally he presented a model in continuoustime for the returns by subordinating a Brownian motion.Estimation of ‘actual volatility’ using the ‘realizedvolatility’ was also discussed at the end.

Srikanth K Iyer (IISc, Bangalore) gave two lectures oncredit risk in which he explained the basic problems incredit risk and elaborated upon the credit+model.

Two discussion sessions were held. The first wasinitiated and moderatd by Vijay Phansalkar (FinancialConsultant, Pune). He described a trading strategybased on the directional change in volatility of theunderlying stock and mentioned that this particularstrategy has been immensely successful for a certaincompany. The second discussion session was initiatedand moderated by Sanjeevan Kapshe (SEBI, Mumbai)in which ten challenging problems in finance weredescribed.

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Experimental chemistryUniversity of Hyderabad, HyderabadNovember 27–December 10, 2006

No. of participants: 16

Course Director: A Samanta (University of Hyderabad)

Resource Persons: D Basavaiah, M Durgaprasad, KCKumara Swamy, S Mahapatra, T Jana, LalithaGuruprasad, DB Ramachary, R Nagarajan, PRaghavaiah, TP Radhakrishnan, A Samanta, MJSwamy, AK Bhuyan and SK Das (all of University ofHyderabad).

The teacher participants were from Ahmedabad, Ankola,Annamalainagar, Bangalore, Channapatna, Jalandhar,Kolkata, Nandgaon, Nashik, Samastipur, Shillong,Thanjavur, Visakhapatnam, VV Nagar, Warangal.

Extracts from the reportThis refresher course, which was the first of its kind inchemistry organized by the Academy was formulatedkeeping in view the need to strengthen the experimentalchemistry programmes at the undergraduate andpostgraduate levels in the country. The course involvedexperiments covering all major branches of chemistry.The course comprised 12 laboratory experiments, 13lectures and a demonstration experiment. The laboratoryexperiments were in organic chemistry, inorganicchemistry, physical chemistry, materials chemistry andcomputational chemistry. Each participant was provideda book on experimental chemistry by Anil J. Elias,Universities Press, 2002.

The course began with a lecture by KC Kumara Swamyon laboratory safety in which he discussed at lengthincidents of common accidents in the laboratory, theprecautions to be taken to avoid such accidents,practices desirable inside a chemistry laboratory andthe need to maintain proper laboratory records. Thelecture was followed by an out-door demonstration ofthe use of different types of fire extinguishers, blankets,etc. in extinguishing accidental fire in the laboratory.

The first day was devoted to demonstration experimentof the course in which the participants were acquainted

with a single crystal diffractometer. P Raghavaiahdemonstrated the use of diffractometer and explainedthe key steps involved in crystal structure determination.He also showed specialized application such asdetermination of Miller indices of crystal planes, aconcept familiar in undergraduate curriculum.

The experiments in organic chemistry includedpreparation, purification and characterization of organiccompounds, preparation of 2-phenylpent-4-en-2-ol,synthesis of isoborneol and borneol by stereoselectivereduction of D-camphor using NaBH4. Realizing theimportance of computational tools in understandingchemical problems and interpreting the results, one daywas devoted to computational studies usingcommercially available software.

T Jana designed an experiment on synthesis ofpolymeric materials where polystyrenes of three differentmolecular weights were synthesized by emulsionpolymerization using different concentrations of sodiumdodecyl sulphate as emulsifier in the reaction mixture.In a subsequent experiment, the first in physicalchemistry, the molecular weights of synthesizedpolystyrenes were determined using viscositymeasurements.

The inorganic chemistry experiments consisted ofpreparation of cis-and trans-bis(glycinato)copper (II) andtris(thiourea) copper (I) complexes. This experiment wasintroduced to highlight geometrical isomerism incoordination complexes, taking examples of simplesquare planar copper (II) compounds, synthesis ofalum from aluminium foil.

The physical chemistry experiments includeddetermination of the pKa value of an indicator, methylred, using colorimetric/spectrophotometric measure-ments, and principles of chemical kinetics. The otherexperiment was fabrication of silver nanoparticles byreduction of silver nitrate using glucose, followed byaddition of starch as a stabilizing agent.

Although experiments involving titrations are in thesyllabi of most undergraduate courses, precipitationtitration as a method of quantitative analysis has notfound its place in the college curricula. An experimentwas introduced on the estimation of silver by thismethod.

The last day of the course was devoted to a morninglecture by A Samanta followed by an interaction sessionwith the teachers.

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Speakers: Ahmed Kamal and M Lakshmikantam(from IICT-Hyderabad), MS Shashidhar (NCL, Pune),KR Prasad (IISc, Bangalore), D Basavaiah, M J Swamy,KC Kumara Swamy and M Periasamy (all from Universityof Hyderabad)

Participants: 440 students and faculty from 22 colleges– affiliated to Universities of Osmania, Andhra andKakatiya

Topics covered: Development of new drugs;transesterification reaction in crystals; chemistry ofbiomolecules; the Baylis–Hillman reaction; designinga green synthesis; chirality in industry; allenes andalkynes as substrates in homogeneous catalysis; andconcepts of chirality in organic reaction mechanism andsynthesis.

Frontiers in chemistryGovt. Model Science College, JabalpurSeptember 15–16, 2006

Convener: N Sathyamurthy (IIT, Kanpur)Co-ordinator: Anil Kumar Bajpai (Govt. AutonomousScience College, Jabalpur)

Speakers: N Sathyamurthy, JN Moorthy, RN Mukherjeeand YD Vankar (all from IIT, Kanpur)

Participants: 180 students and teachers from collegesin Jabalpur

Topics covered: Atoms; molecules and theirinteractions; molecular recognition and supramolecularchemistry; modelling hydrolytic enzymes; modernreagents in organic synthesis; and carbohydrates.

Frontiers of physicsUniversity of MumbaiOctober 9–11 2006

Conveners: Rohini M Godbole (IISc, Bangalore) andRV Gavai (TIFR, Mumbai)Co-ordinator: Anuradha Misra (University of Mumbai)

Speakers: Rohini M Godbole and V Nanjundiah (IISc,Bangalore), Noba Mondal, Rajiv V Gavai, Sunil Mukhi,M Barma, Arnab Bhattacharya (all from TIFR, Mumbai),S Umasankar and UA Yajnik (IIT, Mumbai), R Nityananda(NCRA, Pune), Ajit Kembhavi and Varun Sahni (IUCAA,Pune).

Participants: 170 students and faculty from universityand colleges in Mumbai and Ratnagiri

Topics of lectures: High energy physics; astrophysicsand cosmology; condensed matter physics.

Tensors and their applications inengineering sciencesIndian Institute of Science, BangaloreDecember 11–23, 2006

No. of participants: 11

Course Director: CS Jog (IISc, Bangalore)

Resource Persons: CS Jog, Diptiman Sen, KS Gandhiand R Narasimhan (all of IISc, Bangalore)

Topics covered: Indicial notation; vectors; rigid-bodydynamics; second-order tensors; orthogonal tensors andits properties; symmetric and skew-symmetric tensorsand their properties; differentiation of Cartesian tensors;fluid mechanics of interfaces; covariant and contravariantcomponents of tensors; differentiation of curvilineartensor components; applications of tensors to problemsin elasticity; solutions in linearized elasticity; applicationsof tensors to problems in fluid mechanics and classicalplasticity.

The teacher participants were from Bhopal,Chandigarh, Jabalpur, Jalandhar, Kolkata, Manipal andThiruvananthapuram.

Frontiers of organic chemistrySt. Pious College, HyderabadSeptember 1–2, 2006

Convener: M Periasamy (University of Hyderabad)Co-ordinator: Mala Das Sharma (St. Pious College)

LECTUREWORKSHOPS

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Molecular endocrinologySree Narayana College, KannurOctober 26–27 2006

Convener: K Muralidhar (University of Delhi)Co-ordinator: K Sudha (Sree Narayana College, Kannur)

Speakers: K Muralidhar, G Anilkumar (Sree NarayanaCollege, Kannur)

Participants: 92 Post-graduate students and faculty fromvarious colleges in Kannur and universities such asCalicut, Pondicherry, Bharathidasan, Mangalore andVellore

Lectures delivered: Nature of reductionist biology andmolecular endocrinology; structural basis of hormonalactivity; biosynthesis and regulation of hormonesecretion; mechanisms of hormone actions; nuclearreceptors; steroid receptors and techniques in molecularendocrinology.

Modern biologySt. Pious College/Univ. of HyderabadOctober 27–28 2006

Convener: A S Raghavendra (University of Hyderabad)Co-ordinator: Vindhya Vasini Roy (St. Pious College,Hyderabad)

Speakers: PM Bhargava, Ramesh V Sonti (both fromCCMB, Hyderabad), AR Reddy, P Appa Rao, ASRaghavendra, M J Swamy (all from University ofHyderabad), D Balasubramanian (LVPEI, Hyderabad),J Nagaraju and Shekhar C Mande (from CDFD,Hyderabad)

Participants: 400 students and faculty from universitiesand colleges in Hyderabad

Topics covered: Attack and defense in pathogenplant interactions; how plants fight drought; bio-inoculantsfor sustainable agriculture; signal transduction in stomatalguard cells; DNA and its applications to fingerprinting;understanding biology through protein structures; lipidmembranes; biotechnology.

Basic concepts in modern biologyAmrita University, KollamDecember 28–29, 2006

Convener: V Nagaraja (IISc, Bangalore)Co-ordinator: G Anil Kumar (Amrita Vishwa VidyaPeetham, Kollam)

Speakers: V Nagaraja, D N Rao, R Manjunath (all fromIISc), George Thomas (Interfield Laboratories, Kochi) andMartin Reick (Amrita University, Kollam)

Participants: 43

Lectures delivered: Regulation of gene expression;restriction enzymes and DNA repair; concepts ofimmunology; plant biotechnology; biological rhythm inmetabolism.

Emerging trends in research inscienceChrist College, BangaloreJanuary 12–13, 2007

Co-ordinator: Mayamma Joseph (Christ College,Bangalore)

Speakers: Vasant Natarajan, Rohini M Godbole,G Rangarajan, P N Rangarajan, S Umapathy,S Ramakrishnan (all from IISc), Sanjeev Jain(NIMHANS), and R L Karandikar (Cranes Software,Bangalore)

Participants: 90 students from 10 colleges in Bangalore

Lectures delivered: Ultra cold atoms near absolutezero; glimpses of physics at the heart of matter;traditional, modern and futuristic vaccines; themaddening hunt for madness genes; chaos; cryptography;laser spectroscopy; polymers as a unique class ofmaterials.

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Frontiers in animal sciencesGoa University, GoaFebruary 5–6, 2007

Convener: SK Saidapur (Karnatak University)Co-ordinator: AB Shanbhag (Goa University)

Speakers: SK Saidapur, Ramesh Bhonde (NCCS, Pune),Mewa Singh (Mysore University), LS Shashidhara(CCMB, Hyderabad), and Victor Smetacek (Alfred WegnerInstitute, Germany)

Participants: 120 students and teachers fromdepartments of life sciences of Goa University and 6other colleges in Goa

Topics of lectures: Natural selection in action; stemcells and regenerative medicine; distribution patternsof wild mammals; a fly’s view of development; primatesocieties; comparative and functional genomics;islet neogenesis from stem cells; arms race in theplankton.

Nonlinear dynamicsGovt. Arts College, CoimbatoreFebruary 9–10, 2007

Convener: M Lakshmanan (Bharathidasan University)Co-ordinator: S. Vijayalakshmi (Government ArtsCollege, Coimbatore)

Speakers: M Lakshmanan and S Rajasekar (both fromBharathidasan University), K Ganesan (VIT, Vellore), VM Nandakumaran (CUSAT, Cochin), K Murali (AnnaUniversity, Chennai), K Porsezian (PondicherryUniversity), V Selvarajan (Bharathiar University,Coimbatore) and P Rajasekaran (GovernmentAutonomous College, Coimbatore)

Frontier lectures in biotechnologySt. Aloysius College, MangaloreJanuary 30–31, 2007

Convener: V Nagaraja (IISc, Bangalore)Co-ordinator: Asha Abraham (St. Aloysius College),Mangalore

Speakers: V Nagaraja, P N Rangarajan, D N Rao,K Somasundaram and Utpal Nath (all from IISc).

Participants: 200 students and faculty from colleges inMangalore

Lectures delivered: Regulation in gene expression; stemcell therapy; cancer diagnosis and therapy; gene therapy;abzymes and protein engineering; plant stem cells; affinitypurification of enzymes and their kinetic properties; plantmolecular genetics; restriction enzyme; vaccine designand development.

Frontier lectures in biologyKarnatak University, DharwadFebruary 1–3, 2007

Convener: Bhagyashri A Shanbhag (Karnatak University)

Speakers: D P Kasbekar (CCMB, Hyderabad), VinayLuthra, Bhagyashri A Shanbhag, S K Saidapur (all fromKarnatak University), S Kartik (IISc, Bangalore),J Nagaraju (CDFD, Hyderabad), T Nandedkar (NIRRH,Mumbai), A P Gore and S A Paranjpe (Pune University).

Participants: 150 undergraduate and post-graduatestudents and faculty from life science departments andcolleges in Dharwad

Topics covered: Conservation and biodiversity;evolutionary biology; genetics and molecular biology;nanotechnology; biostatistics.

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Participants: 151 students and faculty from the homedepartment

Topics of lectures: Solitons; nonlinear oscillators; chaosin technology and chaotic cryptography; laser systems;nonlinear electronic circuits; optical solitons in fibrecommunications.

ChemistryMangalore UniversityFebruary 10–11, 2007

Convener: Uday Maitra (IISc, Bangalore)Co-ordinator: A M A Khadar (Mangalore University)

Speakers: PK Das, Uday Maitra, G Mugesh, KR Prasad(all from IISc, Bangalore)

Participants: 115 students and faculty from variousdepartments of the university and other colleges inMangalore

Lectures delivered: Symmetry and spectroscopy;stereochemistry and conformation; bioinorganicchemistry; transition state theory; bio and medicinalinorganic chemistry; chirality and bio-active naturalproducts in drug development; chromatography.

Frontier lectures in biologyBangalore UniversityFebruary 22–23, 2007

Convener: HA Ranganath (Bangalore University)Co-ordinator: Geetha Bali (Bangalore University)

Speakers: T K Kundu (JNCASR, Bangalore), Gaiti Hasan(NCBS, Bangalore), Mewa Singh (University of Mysore),

V Nagaraja, Umesh Varshney, K Muniyappa, Utpal Nathand R Medhamurthy (all from IISc, Bangalore).

Participants: 400 students and faculty from BangaloreUniversity

Topics of lectures: Gene expression; diseases andtherapeutics; calcium signalling mechanisms;mechanism of protein biosynthesis; distribution andconservation of wild mammals in Karnataka; telomeres;genetics of organ development in plants; molecularaspects of hormonal action.

Frontier lectures in physicsBangalore UniversityMarch 1–2, 2007

Convener: H A Ranganath (Bangalore University)Co-ordinator: Ramani (Bangalore University)

Speakers: G S Ranganath and C R Subrahmanya (RRI,Bangalore), Vikram Jayaram, S V Subramanyam, T NGuru Row, and N Balakrishnan (all from IISc, Bangalore).

Participants: 150 Post-graduate students and facultyfrom Bangalore University

Topics covered: Phases of water; nanostructured monoand multilayed nitride hard coatings; the world of highpressure; charge density analysis in molecular crystalsvia x-ray diffraction techniques; satellites and navigation;trends in information technology.

Recent trends in chemistryAvinashilingam University, CoimbatoreMarch 26–27, 2007

Convener: R Ramaraj (MKU)Co-ordinator: R Shyamala (Avinashilingam University,Coimbatore)

Speakers: S Chandrasekaran, S Ramakrishnan (IIScBangalore), A Ajayaghosh (RRL, Thiruvananthapuram),M Palaniandavar (Bharathidasan University, Trichy),P Ramamurthy (National Centre for Ultrafast Processes,Chennai) and MV Sangaranarayanan (IIT, Chennai).

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Perdur Radhakantha Adiga(elected 1982) was born on 5May 1935, into a priestly,orthodox family, in a smallvillage, Barkur, South Kanara,then part of MadrasPresidency. He was one of tensiblings and had his earlyschooling in Udupi.

He obtained his M.Sc. fromUniversity of Kerala and his Ph.D. from the IndianInstitute of Science, Bangalore in 1963, working at theDepartment of Biochemistry under the supervision ofthe late PS Sarma. He elucidated the inter-relationshipsof trace elements and metal toxicity on growth andintermediary metabolism of fungi and insects. Duringthis time, he initiated work on the unusual amino acid,N-oxalyl-diaminopropionic acid, neurotoxin present inLathyrus sativus. His group demonstrated by elegantexperiments that this compound was responsible for thedebilitating neurological disease, neurolathyrism,prevalent in large tracks of North India. This seminalcontribution established the link between an unusualamino acid and brain function. He also discovered anew amino acid, homoarginine. LK Ramachandran andAN Radhakrishnan, both Fellows of the Academy,inspired and enabled Adiga to sharpen his experimentalskills and scientific thinking. In recognition of hisexcellent contributions, he received the Giri Memorial

OBITUARIES

Medal for the best Ph.D. thesis submitted to IISc in1963.

Adiga carried out his post-doctoral work at the Universityof Hawaii in Honolulu, with T Winnick and at the McGillUniversity in Montreal. In Honolulu, he worked on thehormones of the anterior pituitary and at Montreal onthe effect of thyroid-releasing hormone and LATS onthe pituitary and of thyroid-releasing hormone on thethyroid. This led to elegant studies on the role of cAMPon hormone release as well in transcription andtranslation in target tissues on which the hormones act.This work made a significant impact on ourunderstanding of the mechanism of hormone action.

Adiga returned to India when he accepted the positionof a senior research fellow at the Department ofBiochemistry in IISc where several of hiscontemporaries held faculty positions. The facilitiesavailable then were primitive and the financial supportmeagre. He accepted this challenge and initiated severalinnovative programmes. His early work on thebiosynthesis and hormonal regulation of polyamines inplants reflected an incisive mind and an extensiveknowledge on inter-relationships of metabolic pathways,laying the foundation of the area known today asmetabolic engineering. His contributions are evident inthe invited review he published in J. Plant Growth andRegulation.

Adiga and his small group recognized at that time theimportance and national relevance of work on humanreproduction and the valuable information that can beobtained using good model systems. There was anexplosion of knowledge at that time on the regulation ofgene expression by steroid hormones, especially themolecular aspects of the biosynthesis of estrogen-induced egg-protein in the chicken, vitellogenin. He wasattracted by the observation that riboflavin-binding protein(RCP), present in both the egg white and yolk, mayhave a function in reproduction. This was indicated bythe observation that hens deficient in this protein wereable to lay eggs, but these eggs failed to hatch. Adigawas marvelled at the mechanism adopted by nature inproviding all the nutrients required for developing theavian embryo, outside of the maternal system control.This problem appeared to pose many challenges; herewas a protein, which was hormonally modulated,appeared to be essential for embryonic development,and importantly not in beaten track. For the rest of hislife, he pursued his studies on RCP along theevolutionary tree — from the chicken to the mammal,

Participants: 140

Topics of lectures: Polymers and polymer science;rational design of molecular architecture; bio-inorganicchemistry; fluorescence spectroscopy; thermodynamicanalysis of electron transfer process at electrode-electrolyte interface; structures and functions ofcertain copper containing molecules; time-resolvedtechniques in photochemistry.

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biochemical and biophysical properties, function in foetaldevelopment, structure correlated to immunologicalfunction, etc. He identified many other vitamin carrierproteins, elucidated their biological function andhormonal regulation.

In early 1980, he was posed a challenge, “chickensare chickens, move on mammals’. He rose to thechallenge and characterized the protein in rodents andprimates. He showed the requirement of RCP inmammalian reproduction and suggested thedevelopment of a novel immuno-contraceptive, usingRCP as a vaccine for the development of antibodies inthe female, which could effectively block the action ofmaternal protein. This led him logically into a study ofthe molecular immunology of these proteins usingpeptides and monoclonal antibodies. Formal retirementin 1997 from IISc did not deter him from continuing hisresearch to define the immunotopology of RCP. Usingmodern molecular immunological and biologicaltechniques, his group identified stretches of amino acidsequences that could effectively replace the entiremolecule as contraceptive vaccine. Even with a reducedresearch group, his list of publications post-retirementis outstanding in terms of impact factor and numbers.He published over 150 papers in all high impact journalsand guided over 20 Ph.D. students.

Adiga received several awards such as the ShantiSwarup Bhatnagar Award in 1980, the Sanjay GandhiAward in 1982, Sreenivasaya Memorial Award of theSociety of Biological Chemists in 1984, and the INSAM.R.N. Prasad Memorial Award Lecture. He was Vice-President of the Society of Biological Chemists andIndian Society for Human Reproduction. He was electeda Fellow of Indian National Science Academy in 1984.

Adiga died of a cardiac arrest on 13 September 2006.He leaves behind his wife and two daughters.

Vishnu Ganesh Bhide(elected 1974) was born on 8August 1925 to S GaneshTrimbak Bhide and Shantabaiin Darypur in the AmraotiDistrict of Maharashtra. He didhis B.Sc. in 1945 with adistinction in mathematics anda first rank and gold medal inM.Sc. in 1947, both fromNagpur University. His Ph.D. in1953 was also from Nagpur on the topic of electricaldischarges. He joined the Institute of Science, Nagpur

in 1947 as a faculty member. For further studies, hewent to UK to gain first hand experience in the newlydeveloping field of solid state physics and he obtaineda second Ph.D. in 1955 from the University of London.On his return, he rejoined the Institute at Nagpur butwas soon transferred to the Royal Institute of Science,Bombay where he became the Head of the Departmentof Physics from 1956 to 1966. In 1966, he joined theNational Physical Laboratory as a Deputy Director. In1982 he joined the University of Poona as a professoruntil 1984 when he was given the reins of the Universityas its Vice-Chancellor until 1988. During this period hetook several initiatives to enhance the scientific andeducational infrastructure in and around the universityincluding the science and technology park. Between1989 and 1990, he was the Director of the Inter-University Consortium.

Under extremely difficult circumstances, Bhide followedhis dream of doing good experimental research in India.He developed a new method based on multiple beaminterference technique to delineate ferroelectric domainsand to study domain dynamics. His work on audio andradio frequency electroluminescence in ferroelectricsdemonstrated domain switching and the existence of avery thin layer of low dielectric constant on the surfaceof ferroelectric BaTiO3 crystals. Bhide pioneeredresearch work on Mössbauer spectroscopy in thecountry, using the Mössbauer spectrometer that hehimself made. Using this technique, he brought out theexistence of temperature-dependent soft mode whichdisappears at about the Curie temperature and causesferroelectric phase transition. Using Mössbauerspectroscopy, he investigated a number of ferroelectrics,ferromagnetics and antiferromagnetics. He developed amethod to evaluate the lifetime of nonequilibrium chargestates of Ni, Co ions formed as a consequence ofelectron capture decay of Co57 in CoO, NiO, and otherlattices. He also investigated high spin–low spinequilibria in a variety of rare earth cobaltites. Hedemonstrated that localized electron–collective electrontransition occurs in LaCoO3 at 1210 K. Similarly, theitinerant electron ferromagnetism in La1-xSvxCoO3 wasstudied in its finer details using Mössbauerspectroscopy. Bhide also studied the effect of chemicalbinding in a large number of metal oxides, intermetalliccompounds using X-ray spectroscopy, particularly theextended fine structure of absorption edges. Along withhis students, he developed knowhow for making liquid

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crystal displays. Bhide’s reports ‘Cryogenics: surveyand outlook’ and ‘Solar energy: hope and challenge’ notonly initiated research in these two important fields inthe country but formed the basis for subsequentdevelopments. He developed a concept for structuredselective coating for solar collectors. He alsocontributed to the development of amorphous siliconsolar cells.

Bhide made many pioneering contributions to scienceeducation in the country. He was a member of theNational Council of Science Education, editor of ‘PhysicsEducation’, and Chairman of the physics study groupwhich brought out text books and laboratory manualsfor schools on behalf of the National Council forEducational Research and Training.

Bhide was greatly interested in popularizing scienceamongst masses. During his later years his specialinterest was in exposing children to the marvels ofscience and to make them interested in learning thebasic concepts of science and to motivate them inbecoming scientists. For this purpose he started the‘Bal Vigyan Chalwal’ (Children’s Science Movement) inMaharashtra with its headquarters in Pune. With thehelp of industries and like-minded people he establishedan institution called ‘Exploratory’ where school childrencan play with scientific gadgets and make learning anexploratory process. Now this establishment in a five-storey building is a unique centre of its kind in India.He was a member of the Panel on University ScienceEducation of the Indian Academy of Sciences which in1994 prepared a very useful document on theimprovement of science education in the country.Several recommendations contained in that documentnow form part of the programmes of the Academy underits Science Education Panel.

Among the honours he received were fellowships of theRoyal Astronomical Society, the Indian National ScienceAcademy and the National Academy of Sciences, thepresidentship of the Maharashtra Academy of Sciences,and membership of the International Commission onApplications of Mössbauer Spectroscopy. He was arecipient of the Sir CV Raman Award, the Saha MemorialAward, the K Ragadhama Rao Memorial Award of INSA,and Padma Shri in 1992.

Bhide passed away on 25 June 2006 leaving behindhis wife Prabha, a son and a daughter.

Asima Chatterjee (elected1975) the grand old lady ofIndian science, passed awayon 23 November 2006 inKolkata.

Born on 23 September 1917,she showed early promise as abrilliant student. She obtainedthe M.Sc. degree from CalcuttaUniversity in 1938 and D.Sc. in1944 from the same university under the guidance ofPK Bose. Incidentally, she was the first woman to beawarded D.Sc. of any Indian university. In 1940,Chatterjee joined the Lady Brabourne College, Kolkata,as the Head of the Chemistry Department and in 1944was appointed Honorary Lecturer in Chemistry, CalcuttaUniversity.

She worked with LM Parks, University of Wisconsin(1947) on naturally occurring glycosides, withL Zechmeister, California Institute of Technology,Pasadena (1948–49) on carotinoids and provitaminsand with Paul Karrer, NL at the University of Zurich(1949-50) on biologically active alkaloids which becameher life-long interest ever since. After her return to Indiain 1950 she vigorously pursued investigations on thechemistry of Indian medicinal plants, particularlyalkaloids and coumarins.

In 1954, she was appointed Reader in the Departmentof Pure Chemistry of the Calcutta University and shenever ever looked back. In 1962, she became the KhairaProfessor of Chemistry, one of the most prestigiousand coveted Chair of the Calcutta University that sheadorned till 1982. She continued as the HonoraryCoordinator of the UGC Special Assistance Programmeto intensify teaching and research in natural productchemistry sanctioned in 1972 and promoted to the Centreof Advanced Studies on Natural Products in 1985 inrecognition of her contributions to the Department.

Through her untiring efforts, she could fulfill her life-long dream to establish a Regional Research Institutefor carrying out research on Indian medicinal plants forthe development of Ayurvedic drugs along with anAyurvedic Hospital for systematic clinical trials througha unique Centre–State collaboration under the aegis ofthe Central Council of Research in Ayurveda and Siddhain Calcutta. As the Honorary Principal Coordinator, shenurtured this Institute till the fag end of her life.

She successfully developed the anti-epileptic drug,Ayush-56 from Marsilia minuta and the anti-malarial drugfrom Alstonia scholaris, Swertia chirata, Picrorhizakurroa and Ceasalpinna crista and the patented drugs

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have been marketed by several companies. She wasalso associated with several pharmaceutical industries.

She made significant contributions in the field ofmedicinal chemistry with special reference to alkaloids,coumarins and terpenoids, analytical chemistry, andmechanistic organic chemistry. She published around400 papers in national and international journals, andmore than a score of review articles in reputed serialvolumes. Her publications have been extensively citedand much of her work included in several textbooks.

She edited and revised the 6-volume BharatiyaBanoushodhi (Calcutta University) and was the Chief-editor of the 6-volume series, The Treatise of IndianMedicinal Plants (CSIR).

She was elected a Fellow of the Indian National ScienceAcademy (1960), received the Shanti Swarup BhatnagarAward (1961) and was conferred the prestigious PadmaBhusan (1975) by the Government of India. Her manyawards include the C.V. Raman Award of the Hari OmAshram Trust by UGC (1982), Sisir Kumar MitraLecturership of INSA, Asutosh Mukherjee Gold Medalof Indian Science Congress Association (1989) of whichshe was the first lady scientist to be elected as theGeneral President (1975), Goyal Award (1992) by theGoyal Foundation, Kurukshetra University, the SilverJubilee Award (1995) of the Central Council of Ayurvedaand Siddha, and the Eminent Teacher Award (1996),Calcutta University. She was conferred D.Sc. (Honoriscausa) degree by a number of universities. As ascientist-academician, Chatterjee was nominated in1982 by the President of India as a Member of theRajya Sabha which she served till 1990.

Chatterjee achieved meteoric rise to celebrity againstheavy odds by dint of her exemplary indomitable spirit,total commitment, iron will, hard work, insatiable urgefor the pursuit of knowledge.

She was a religious lady passionately devoted tothe ideals of Ramakrishna having implicit faith inthe philosophy of Swami Vivekananda. She wasinterested in vocal music since her childhood. As amatter of fact, she received specialized training inclassical music, specially in Drupad and Kheyal forfourteen years and stood second in the All Bengal MusicCompetition in 1933. She was a unique example ofharmony and commitment between professional anddomestic life.

Her husband, the late Baradananda Chatterjee, arenowned physical chemist and Vice-Principal of theBengal Engineering College Sibpur, Howrah pre-deceased her in 1967. She is survived by her only child,Julie.

Asoke Gopal Datta (elected1973) was born on 20 January1928 in Kolkata to Satya GDatta and Kamal Bala. Hecompleted his B.Sc. in 1948and M.Sc. in 1950. He startedhis scientific career with thestudy of the biochemistry ofmalarial parasites and mode ofaction of antimalarial drugs anddemonstrated the presence of the atri-carboxylic acidcycle in malarial parasites. He further showed thatantimalarial drugs of the quinoline group inhibit theoxidative decarboxylation of α-ketoglutarate in theparasites more efficiently than in host tissues andthereby exert their antimalarial activity. On the basis ofthese studies he got the D.Phil. (Sc.) degree fromCalcutta University in 1954.

He proceeded to Ottawa, Canada with an NRC Post-Doctoral fellowship in1955 and studied the carbohydratemetabolism of Acetobactor melanogenum. During histwo years’ stay at Ottawa, he isolated three enzymesfrom the above organism and showed that glucose iscatabolized via a non-phosphorylated pathway toα-ketoglutarate which finally is oxidized to CO2 and H2Ovia the tricarboxylic acid cycle.

In 1957, he joined the famous enzymologist, EfraimRacker at the Public Health Research Institute of theCity of New York to study various aspects of themechanism of enzyme action.

Returning to India in 1960, he joined the Bose Institutewhere he studied the regulation of metabolic pathwaysin rice seedling during early developments. In 1964 hejoined the Indian Institute of Experimental Medicine(IIEM) and started work in three different directions:(a) biochemical studies on peroxidases and iodinases,(b) erythrose as an inhibitor of the growth of Vibriocholerae and (c) carbohydrate metabolism ofLeishamania donovani.

His group started the programme of investigations onperoxidases and iodinases in 1968 and made someinteresting observation that the goat submaxillary glandcontains an unusual enzyme which catalyses theformation of diiodotyrosine from monoiodotyrosine.Pursuing studies in this direction, his group was able topurify two peroxidases to homogeneity, one from goatsub-maxillary gland and the other from goat thyroid gland.On the basis of all these properties, the two enzymeswere established as isoenzymes. Datta also carried outcomparative studies of soluble and particle-bound

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peroxidases and iodinases from mouse thyroid andsubmaxillary glands. He was also able to demonstratethat the submaxillary peroxidase is increased on surgicalremoval of thyroid gland and thyroxine acts as arepressor to the synthesis of peroxidase in submaxillarygland in rats.

Working from a different angle, he was able to showthat application of cold stress to rats causes increased14C-phenylalanine incorporation into protein.

In 1971 Datta made the interesting observation thatcobalt and vitamin B12 stimulate the peroxidase andiodinase activities of submaxillary gland and showedthat vitamin B12 acts through cobamide coenzyme andcobalt through a humoral factor, erythropoietin.

Working on further aspects of erythropoietin, Datta andhis colleagues showed that kidney slices can incorporate14C-phenylalanine into erythropoietin in vitro and cobaltincreases 3 to 4-fold the rate of incorporation.

In 1973 Datta was invited by BL Horecker and SUdenfriend to the Roche Institute of Molecular Biologyas a visiting scientist to work on a collaborative projecton the participation of fructose bis–phosphatase in theregulation of gluconeogenesis. Here he was able to purifyand crystallize rabbit muscle fructose bis-phosphataseto show that citrate and histidine are naturally occurringactivators of the enzyme. He also made significantcontributions to the structural study of this enzyme,crystallized from muscle, liver and kidney. Besides theabove projects, Datta started working on a collaborativeproject with the physicians of Calcutta Medical Collegeand Hospital to find out the biochemical etiology of adreaded disease, Toxemia of Pregnancy, whoseoccurrence in India is very high.

Datta retired from IICB in 1988 but continued as anemeritus scientist until 1993. He passed away in Kolkatain December 2005 but this was known to the Academyonly recently. He is survived by a son.

Indar Singh Luthar (elected 1977), an eminentmathematician, passed away atChandigarh on 7 December2006. Son of Ved Kaur and HariRam, Luthar was born on 31March 1932 at Sialkot (now inPakistan). He had his earlyeducation at Sialkot where hisfather was a Headmaster. Hehad a brilliant academic record.For his doctoral studies,

he went to the University of Illinois, Urbana where hewas awarded one of the two prestigious pre-doctoralG.A. Miller Fellowships. After his Ph. D. in 1957, beforereturning to India, he spent a year at the Institutefor Advanced Study in Princeton. He joined thePanjab University, Chandigarh in 1958, became aProfessor in 1966 and worked at the University until hisretirement in 1992. Along with R.P. Bambah, he playeda leading role in shaping the Department of Mathematicsinto an internationally recognized Centre for AdvancedStudy.

During his career at the University, Luthar held manyimportant academic positions: Chairman, Departmentof Mathematics (1974–81), Dean, Foreign Students,(1979–80); and Dean, University Instruction, (1982–84).He was Editor of Mathematics Student (1977–81). Healso held several visiting assignments abroad: Universityof Illinois (Urbana), University of Northern Illinois(Dekalb), University of Colorado (Boulder), Universityof Oxford, Universidad des Los Andes (Merida), andthe University of Bahrain.

Luthar worked in several areas of mathematics, includingalgebra, analysis and number theory. His work ispublished in international journals of repute. He wasalways keen to learn new subjects and, whenever hedecided to do, so, he would invariably turn to themasters. He supervised the doctoral research of sevenstudents. Luthar was a keen expositor of mathematicsat all levels and wrote seven books at the graduate andpostgraduate levels. His lectures were alwaysmeticulously prepared.

Luthar is survived by Jyoti, his wife, a son (Vineet) anda daughter (Meera).

Sumangali Kidambi Srinivasan (elected 1977) passedaway in Chennai on 21 October2006. He was a scholar andteacher of great repute.

Born at Kanchipuram on 16December 1930, Srinivasancompleted his high schooleducation in Cheyyar. He joinedthe Vivekananda College atMadras and obtained his B.A.(Hons) degree in 1953. Later he worked with AlladiRamakrishnan and received his M.Sc. degree (byresearch) in 1955 and Ph.D. in 1958, both from theUniversity of Madras. After submitting his doctoral thesis

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he worked with Messel for a year as a post-doctoralfellow at the University of Sydney. He returned to theUniversity of Madras, accepting a senior researchfellowship of the National Institute of Sciences of India.

Srinivasan joined the Department of Mathematics atthe Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1959 atits very inception and served till his superannuation inDecember 1990. He was appointed Professor in 1967and Senior Professor in 1974. His contributions to IITin general and to the Department of Mathematics inparticular are too many to be enumerated. He was chieflyresponsible for the development of the department andcontributed immensely to course design and curriculumdevelopment. Although his research interests were inapplied mathematics, he had been actively engagedin the teaching of pure mathematics to M.Sc.(mathematics) students. In fact, one of his importantcontributions was the incorporation and maintenance ofa high percentage of pure mathematics courses in theM.Sc. curriculum programme. The phenomenal growthof advanced research in the field of stochasticprocesses and applications at IITM during 1960–1990was due to his dynamic stewardship. He held variouspositions at IITM, as Head of the Department, Dean ofAcademic Research, Member of the Board of Governors(the topmost administrative body of IITM), each ofthese with a rare skill characteristic of him. In additionhe served in a host of other important committees.

Srinivasan’s research interests are in the field ofstochastic processes and their applications, quantummechanics and fields, statistical physics andfluctuation phenomena, mathematical biology andoperations research. He published 150 papers inestablished journals. His major research contributionsare: Development of the theory of point processeswith special reference to modelling in the broad areaof physical sciences; formulation of stochastic kineticequations in the context of fluctuating phenomena;completion of the fluctuation problem of electromagneticcascades; theory of production of multiple particles inelectromagnetic phenomena; development of the theoryof stochastic integrals and differential equations withspecial reference to stochastic modelling; developmentof a comprehensive stochastic model of a single neuron;determination of the photon counting statistics ofGaussian beams of arbitrary spectral profile;development of a unified approach to the theory of

queues and inventories; development of the theory ofreliability of two-unit redundant systems.

His work in the 1950s with Alladi Ramakrishnan laidstrong foundations for his work in cascade theory,stochastic integrals and differential equations dealingwith noise phenomena. His familiarity with cascadeshowers motivated his investigations in high energyphysics, pion physics and scattering theory. Hiscontributions in the area of point processes are mainlythe extension of the theory of product densities tomultidimensional and non-Euclidean spaces on the onehand and irregular point processes, on the other. In thelate 1960s he was attracted to the area of operationsresearch due to the rich non-Markov structures presentin the stochastic models of queues, inventories andreliability. His scientific curiosity and creativity seemedto increase with time. In the 1990s he switched back tophysics and was interested in developing complexmeasurable processes with particular reference tomodelling quantum phenomena. He continued to be veryactive in research till the end.

He is the author of several books such as: ‘Stochastictheory and cascade processes’ (1969), ‘Stochastic pointprocesses and their applications’ (1974) and ‘Stochasticpoint processes’ (1974) co-author of ‘Introduction torandom differential equations and their applications’(1971), ‘Stochastic processes and their applications’(1976), ‘Stochastic models for spike trains of singleneutrons’ (1977), ‘Probability and random processes’(1978) and ‘Probabilistic analysis of redundant systems’(1980).

He was President of the Operations Research Societyof India (1975–76). Apart from being an academician ofrare order, Srinivasan was an individual with humanvalues. He was also a great lover of music and likedgardening. He leaves behind his wife Vijayalakshmi andfour sons.

Frank Albert Cotton Twentiethcentury dawned with a greatlegacy for inorganic chemists:

the coordination theory of AlfredWerner. Lack of reliablestructural tools and bonding

theories did dampen thisarousal in the following yearsbut not for very long. By the

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decade of 1950s the no-looking-back posture ofinorganic chemistry was firmly in place. Quantummechanical valence theories had arrived, ligand fieldtheory has been rediscovered, mechanistic ideas wereshaping up, spectral and magnetic (including resonance)tools were becoming available, X-ray crystallographywas slowly coming nearer to chemists, ferrocene hasbeen discovered and so has been titanium-catalysedolefin polymerization, proteins and metalloproteins wereno longer mere fuzzy objects. For inorganic chemistrythe 1950s defined a watershed, an era of unprecedentedhope and promise. It was the best of seasons for youngtalents to arrive. Preeminent among the arrivals wasFrank Albert Cotton.

Frank Albert Cotton (elected 1985) received his Ph.D.degree in 1955 from the Harvard University working onmetallocenes in the laboratory of Geofferey Wilkinson.In the same year he took up an instructorship at MITand at 31 became the youngest full professor. In 1972he moved to Texas A&M University where he held thepositions of Doherty-Welch Distinguished Professor andDirector of the Laboratory for Molecular Structure andBonding. He became a legend and played a signal rolein transforming Texas A&M into a world-class researchinstitute.

Cotton was born on 9 April 1930 in Philadelphia wherehe attended public schools, Drexel University andTemple University from where he received a Bachelor’sdegree in 1951. He wanted to enjoy “the thrill ofdiscovery and the challenge of finding out somethingthat perhaps no one has yet.”

Cotton’s research spread its wings over many importantphases of inorganic chemistry – those of d-blocktransition metal chemistry in particular. The findings ofhis vast activity spanning over fifty years and involvingmore than 100 Ph.D. students and 150 postdoctoralassociates have been documented in about 1600 papers.Cotton had the foresight to consciously adopt the singlecrystal X-ray diffraction method as a structural toolfrom his early days at MIT. That was years before thetechnique was to become commercial and routine. Hehad an early and very successful stint with high-resolution three-dimensional structure determination andmode of action of an important enzyme —staphylococcal nuclease. But his true love was withinorganic molecules.

He made major contributions to the understanding ofspectroscopic properties of metal carbonyls anddynamical behaviour of fluxional organometalliccompounds. But his most important work concernedmetal–metal bonding. Although a few isolated instanceswere known earlier, it was Cotton who beginning in early1960s systematically brought to light how verywidespread and fascinating such bonding could be ind-block chemistry __ hardly any metal is now excluded.This journey was propelled by a remarkable symbiosisof skillful synthetic experiments with a panoply ofphysical methods and theoretical tools. Observed bondorders fell in the range 1–4 and thus the scientificcommunity heard of double, triple and quadruplemetal–metal bonds. Cotton’s work in this area iscorrectly said to have “transformed our understandingof how the chemistry of about half the elements in theperiodic table really works”.

Cotton wrote or edited a large number of influentialbooks. Two of these have become legends: Advancedinorganic chemistry and chemical applications of grouptheory. The former co-authored with G Wilkinson firstpublished in 1962 is now in its sixth edition. Itincorporates more than four thousand referencesto literature and is like a bible of inorganic chemistry.His second book in 1963 did the magic of instantlybringing the principles of group theory and its chemicaluse within the easy grip of every willing chemist for thefirst time. Cotton founded the important, annual seriesProgress in inorganic chemistry and edited the first tenvolumes. The chemistry of metal–metal bonds has beenchronicled in the major book Multiple bonds betweenmetal atoms co-authored with RA Walton. Cottoninvented the commonly used terms like ‘metal cluster’and ‘hapticity.’

Starting in 1962 when he received the ACS Award inInorganic Chemistry, Cotton was honoured with manyprestigious medals, awards, fellowships, honorarydegrees and editorships. This includes the Wolf Prize,Lavoiser Medal, Priestley Medal, Robert A Welch Prize,Paracelsus Prize, King Faisal Prize and the NationalMedal of Science. The jury of the Wolf Prize identifiedhim as the “preeminent inorganic chemist in the world.”Two awards bearing his name __ the FA Cotton medaland F Albert Cotton Award for Synthetic InorganicChemistry __ have been instituted to honour distinguishedchemists.

Cotton passed away on 20 February 2007. He issurvived by his wife and two daughters.

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Tentative Programme of 18th Mid-Year Meeting13–14 July 2007

Venue: Faculty Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

13 July 2007 (Friday)

0930–1030 Session 1 – Special Lecture

G. SundararajanInternational Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI),Hyderabad

The indentation of materials to probe their mechanical behaviour

1030 Tea break

1100 –1300 Session 2 – Lectures by Fellows/Associates

1100 Sanjay JainDelhi University, Delhi

Modelling the self-organization and collapse of complex networks

1130 Musti J. SwamyUniversity of Hyderabad, Hyderabad

Biophysical investigations on the structure, phase behaviour and membraneinteractions of stress-induced lipids

1200 V. SriramNational Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore

Role of mitochondrial fission and fusion during programmed cell death

1230 Yogesh M. JoshiIndian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

Rheological study of aging soft glasses of laponite

1300–1430 Lunch break

1430–1700 Session 3 – Lectures by Fellows/Associates

1430 Rakesh AggarwalAll India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

Epidemiologic, clinical and laboratory aspects of hepatitis E

1500 V. BalajiChennai Mathematical Institute, Chennai

Holonomy groups of bundles on algebraic varieties

1530 Tea break

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1600 Anuradha LohiaBose Institute, Kolkata

Endo-reduplication and irregular division lead to heterogeneity of genome contentin Entamoeba histolytica

1630 Amitava RaychaudhuriHarish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad

Let’s talk about INO

1800–1900 Session 4 – Public Lecture

G. Madhavan NairDepartment of Space, Bangalore

Highlights of Indian space programme

1930 Dinner

14 July 2007 (Saturday)

0930–1030 Session 5 – Special Lecture

E.D. JemmisIndian Institute of Science, Bangalore

A structural chemistry for boron

1030 Tea break

1100–1300 Session 6 – Lectures by Fellows/Associates

1100 Raghavan B. SunojIndian Institute of Technology, Mumbai

Probing mechanism and selectivity in organic reactions throughcomputational methods

1130 Satheesh Chandra ShenoiNational Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, Goa

Why is the Bay of Bengal warmer than the Arabian Sea?Role of ocean dynamics

1200 Sandeep SenIndian Institute of Technology, New Delhi

Geometric clustering in high dimensions

1230 Dipak K. PalitBhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai

Ultrafast dynamics of intramolecular charge transfer and hydrogen bond