ALUMNI - Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati and Prof. Ravi Mokashi-Punekar enough, for their...

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12Newsletter

Priyankoo Sarmah

Cover design: Utpal Barua

Priyankoo Sarmah

Priyankoo Sarmah

ALUMNI AFFAIRS AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS IITG 1 www.iitg.ac.in/aa

A lumni Newslet terDirector’s Message

IITG is doing well, and we are growing every year. As you may know, we now have about 4000 students, and our plan is to increase this to 6000 in the next five years. The campus is going to get crowded! Alumni activities are finally taking off, but there is still a lot to be done. The Institute has transferred Rs 25 lakhs to the IITG Alumni Association and we now expect the AA to get its act

together and to start spending this money! I think we are doing better in reaching out to the Alumni and telling them what is happening on campus. We hope to start having class reunions on campus from this year onwards (maybe some time in December).

Gautam BaruaDirector, IIT Guwahati

Message from the Dean of Alumni Affairs and External Relations

Introducing the Alumni Newsletter

It gives me great pleasure to introduce this latest issue of the IITG Alumni Newsletter. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the editorial team led by Dr. Shakuntala Mahanta for their efforts in putting together a wonderful and informative newsletter for our alumni.Apart from some breathtakingly beautiful photographs of the campus contributed by our students, staff and faculty, this newsletter is proud to

have an original drawing by Dr. Utpal Barua for its cover page. We have put in articles on how the campus is growing to accommodate more students and the planned expansion of departments and centers for augmenting our steadily increasing academic and research activities.

Notable achievements by our students, alumni and institute colleagues have also been highlighted along with some articles on campus life that our alumni should find interesting.

I hope this newsletter will help our alumni stay connected with their alma mater, so that they can contribute to the growth and achievements of the institute. We welcome your inputs for future newsletters and urge you to stay connected with us through email and social networking sites and by visiting us whenever possible.

Sanjay K. BoseDean, Alumni Affairs and External Relations

IN THIS ISSUE

Achievements! !Campus Updates! !Campus Events! !Construction exploration!On IITG choreography clubA home far away from homeThe other side of the fence!!

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

PAGE 13 FIRST DAY WITH FIRST YEARITESProf. Sanjay K Bose shares his experience of teaching in IITs and has a tip or two to take home for prospective teachers.

PAGE 15

IITG QUO VADISProf. Arun Chattopadhyay recounts how IITG stood the test of time and developed itself to be a premier educational institute in India

PAGE 17IITG THREE YEARS LATERDiya Gangopadhyay visits the campus three years after graduating to be greeted by a lot of familiar faces and places and an artwork her classmates left behind in the girls’ hostel.

PAGE 19I AM AN ASSAMESE BORN IN KARNATAKAProf. Srinivasan leaves behind one difficult pronunciation in ‘Jorge’, back in California and is pleasantly surprised to encounter another on IITG campus in Dr. Horma!

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY GUWAHATI ! MAY 2012

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http://www.iitg.ac.in/aa



Editor’s Message

Welcome to the ‘freshest’ issue of the alumni newsletter!

Greetings and welcome to the ‘freshest’ issue of the alumni newsletter! I was overwhelmed by the response that we received from the students, alumni, faculty and staff of IITG in making this newsletter possible. In this newsletter, we have reported significant achievements of the students, alumni, and faculty. Campus news and events, and the placement scenario have also been emphasized. Apart from the regular categories, this is the first newsletter to have included a host of articles - short pieces contributed by the alumni and faculty of IITG. First of all, I

thank Dr. Utpal Barua for promptly designing our cover page. I thank the Assistant Registrar Public Relations, Mr. Labanu K. Konwar for providing inputs and the Faculty in-charge of the Placement cell Dr. Saurabh Basu for quickly providing current placement information of IITG. I cannot thank Prof. Chandan Mahanta and Prof. Ravi Mokashi-Punekar enough, for their generosity in providing photographs of the campus. I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to all the members of the alumni newsletter committee, Prof. Sanjay K. Bose, Prof. Ratnajit Bhattacharjee, Dr. Manoj Majhi and Dr. Priyankoo Sarmah. Mr. Prem Kumar Vislawath deserves special thanks for swiftly providing information about anything we needed and the staff of the alumni affairs section, Mr. Dilip Boro and Mr. Dibyendu Debnath for extending their help and assistance whenever the occasion arose. I hope you will enjoy reading this issue!

Shakuntala MahantaAssistant Professor, HSS

The new academic session (2011-2012) commenced from July 2011. A total number of 1322 students (including 3 students in Computer Science and Engineering MTech + PhD dual degree programme) were admitted in various programmes across all the departments and centres

Department/Centre BTech/BDes MSc/MA MTech/MDes PhDBiotechnology 45 — 29 26Chemical Engineering 64 — 52 19Chemistry 38 31 — 39Civil Engineering 73 — 82 18Computer Science and Engineering 73 — 54 7Design 39 — 20 7Electronics and Electrical Engineering 111 — 45 23Humanities and Social Sciences — 46 — 12Mathematics 41 38 — 5Mechanical Engineering 72 — 84 21Physics 37 39 — 20Centre for Energy — — — 4Centre for the Environment — — — 2Centre for Nanotechnology — — — 3Total 593 154 366 206

IITG in Numbers

Number of students staying on campus

Programme No. of Students

Preparatory 10

BTech/BDes 2046

MTech/MDes 678

MSc 229

MA 85

PhD 816

Dual (MTech + PhD) 3

Total 3867

At the 13th Convocation of IITG held on 27 May 2011, 737 students received their degrees in the following disciplines:

BTech/BDes (340)BT: 26, CE: 37, CL: 33, CS: 53, CT: 18, DD: 20, EC: 59, EP: 20, MC: 22, ME: 52

MA DS (13)HS: 13

MSc (87)CH: 35, MC: 26, PH: 26; Total: 87

MTech/MDes (237)BT: 25, CE: 47, CL: 34, CS: 34, DD: 14, EE: 39, ME: 44

PhD (60)BT: 8, CE: 8, CH: 14, CL: 3, CS: 2, EE: 3, EN: 2, EV: 2, HS: 4, Math: 1, ME: 7, NT: 3,

PH: 3


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Research highlight of the article "Evaluation of selected antitumor agents as subversive substrate and potential inhibitor of Trypanothione Reductase: An alternative approach for chemotherapy of Leishmaniasis" published in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 2011: 352, 261-70 by Anil K Shukla, Sanjukta Patra and Vikash Kumar Dubey of the Department of Biotechnology, was published in Nature India.

The article “Effect of Sodium Tetrathionate on Amyloid Fibril: Insight in to the role of Disulfide bond in Amyloid progression”, published in Biochemie, 2011: 93, 962-968, by Nandini Sarkar, Manjeet Kumar and Vikash Kumar Dubey featured as a key scientific article in the Global Medical Discovery website.

"Encapsulation of Curcumin in Pluronic block Copolymer Micelles for drug delivery applications", a research article by Dr. U. Bora, Dr. P. Goswami, Mr. A. Sahu, and Mr. N. Kasoju has been listed as one of the 50 most frequently read articles by the Journal of Biomaterials Applications (March 2010 through October 2011).

Dr. Rakhi Chaturvedi, A s s o c i a t e P r o f e s s o r, D e p a r t m e n t o f Biotechnology, has been awarded the “Prof. Y.S. Murty Medal 2011” by the executive council of the

Indian Botanical Society (IBS) for her work in the area of "Morphogenesis, plant tissue culture and biotechnology" during the 34th All India Botanical Conference at Lucknow from October 10 -12, 2011.

Dr. K annan Paksh i ra jan , Associate Professor, Department of Biotechnology, has been aw a rd e d t h e B OYS C A S T fellowship for the year 2010-2011 by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India, to conduct advanced research at the

Department of Environmental Resources,

UNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands, for a period of twelve months starting from August 2011. Dr. Pakshirajan, has also been awarded the “Hiyoshi Young Leaf Award 2010” by the Hiyoshi Cor porat ion , Japan, for h i s re search on environmental conservation and protection.

IBM USA and IBM IRL India have awarded research grants of US$ 25000 and US$ 5000, respectively to Dr. S. R. Mahadeva Prasanna, Associate Professor, Department of Electronics and Electrical Eng ineer ing, to conduct research which will lead to the

development of computer based methods and tools for speech, hearing and language disorders. The goal behind this project is to provide low cost solutions to aid the speech, hearing and language impaired people in India. Some of the identified directions include development of speech enhancement algorithms for low cost hearing aids, stuttered speech analysis and feedback, dysarthic speech processing and language training tools for the impaired.

SpeechWareNet: In order to bridge the gap between academic research and the development of commercial products for the service industry, the faculty, staff,

research scholars and project engineers associated with the Electromedical and Speech Technology (EMST) laboratory of the Dept. of Electronics and Electrical Engineering (EEE) have incubated a company 'SpeechWareNet' in the Technology Incubation Centre at IIT Guwahati. The goal is to develop voice and medical electronics related products with inputs and ideas from the EMST laboratory. This company is founded and led by Dr. S. R. Mahadeva Prasanna of the EMST Laboratory, Dept of EEE, IIT Guwahati.

Faculty Achievements

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BioTech Ch. Eng. Chem CE CSE EEE HSS Maths ME Phy Energy Environ NanoTech

No. of students who have completed PhD programme after the 13th Convocation, as on 1 March 2012.


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Students’ Achievements

PhD

Mr. Prakash Saudagar, PhD research scholar under the supervision of Dr. Vikash Kumar Dubey has been awarded the best poster prize for his work on "Trypanothione synthetase from Leishmania Donovani: Cloning, expression, characterization and inhibition studies", during the 80th Annual Meeting of the Society of Biological Chemist (India) held at Lucknow during November 12-15, 2011.

Mr. Anil Kumar Shukla, PhD research scholar under the supervision of Dr. Vikash Kumar Dubey was awarded a travel grant by the Department of Science and Technology to attend the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Meeting 2011, held at Vienna.

Mr. Arghya Sett, PhD research scholar under the supervision of Dr. U. Bora has been awarded the first prize in the poster competition category for the poster entitled "Role of PCL in nanoparticle based drug delivery" by Ratul K. Das, Arghya Sett, Naresh Kasoju, Sumithra B., Utpal Bora in the National Conference on Tissue Engineering held at NIT, Rourkela.

Mr. Tushar, PhD research scholar under the supervision of Dr. Latha Rangan has been selected for the award of the prestigious Fulbright Nehru Doctoral and Professional Research (FN-DPR) Fellowship by the United Sates – Indian Educational Foundation (USIEF) for the year 2011-2012.

Research Associate

Dr. Jashmini Deka, a Research Associate in the Department of Chemistry, was honored with the "Materials Research Society of India (MRSI) Young Scientists’ Award - 2011" in the Young Scientists’ Colloquium 2011 held on 4th August 2011 at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata, in recognition of her contribution to advanced materials research during her PhD, under the supervision of Dr. Anumita Paul of the Department of Chemistry.

MTech

The second Prize for the best MTech Thesis Award in the area of VLSI and Microelectronics among 28 Participating Institutes (PI) across India was awarded to the thesis “Design of a 0.5 V low power analog front-end for heart-rate detector” to Naveen Suda, an MTech student in the department of EEE. The research was carried out under the supervision of Dr. Roy Paily, EEE Department.

BTech

Ravi Sethia, BTech 3rd year (CSE) was selected as a “Kairos Global Fellow 2011” to be a part of a 17 member delegation from India to attend the Kairos Global Summit 2011 in New York, from 25th-26th February 2011. He was also selected to be a member of the Indian delegation in the International Seliger Youth Forum 2011, held in Russia. 700 people from all over the world gathered for a 7 day educational camp in the field of innovation and enterprise in July 2011.

Brigosha Foundation

Established and promoted by Brigosha Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Brigosha Foundation, a non-profit organization registered under the Societies Registration Act, XXI of 1860, was set up to support the underprivileged and engage in welfare activities related to the areas of education, environment and healthcare. In August 2011, Brigosha Foundation set up a free-of-cost education centre in the Kating Pahar village. It aims to provide good education to underprivileged children in Kating Pahar, a village adjacent to IITG campus.

The Kating Pahar Education Centre is managed by a 7 member Managing Committee, which includes the President and Principal of the Village Primary School Managing Committee and other senior members of the village (including 2 women members). In the first phase, a 4 month (8 Aug 11 – 8 Dec 11) education program was completed successfully. In this phase, more than 50 students from Standards VI to IX passed their final examinations conducted in December 2011. A two month (20 Dec 11 – 18 Feb 2011) education program (Phase 2) is functional now with the aim to make all these students able to read and write English and be proficient in doing basic arithmetics.


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Alumni Achievements

BTech

Rajeev Gupta, BTech (Computer science), class of 2007, was awarded the Fulbright Nehru Fellowship for Leadership Development. This award will enable him to study for an MBA at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University starting in the fall of 2011.

Pavan Turaga, BTech (ECE), class of 2004, has recently joined as an Assistant Professor at the Arizona State University, with a joint position between the schools of Arts, Media, Engineering (AME) and Electrical Engineering (ECEE)

Sanjay Singh, BTech (Civil Engineering), class of 2004, has bagged the prestigious Economic Times Young Leaders Award. The Economic Times Young Leaders' Programme provided a forum for young managers to pit themselves against their peers and showcase their ability at a global level.

Masters

Pronoy Rai, MA (Development Studies), class of 2011, was recently selected by the Sir Ratan Tata Trust for the award of a scholarship that will enable

him to pursue graduate studies at the Center for International Studies (CIS), Ohio University, USA

Dhriti Sundar Ghosh, class of 2006, MSc (Engineering Physics), was awarded the “Student Innovation Award” by Photonics 21. His award statement cites that he has undertaken excellent research in the development of photonic devices. His research work is entitled “Photonic devices incorporating transparent electrodes made of ultra-thin metal films”.

PhD

Dr. Vigya Kesari, a former PhD student who graduated in 2006 from the Department of Biotechnology (supervisor: Dr. Latha Rangan), and who is currently a Post Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, Canada, has been selected for the award of the “Young Scientist Award 2011-2012”, by the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) for her doctoral work on “Pongamia”.

Ish theater group of Israel performs the play Odysseus Chaoticus at Alcheringa 2012: Urban OdysseyPhoto courtesy: Ravi Mokashi-Punekar


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Extension of Academic ComplexThe first phase of the expansion of the departments of Physics, Chemistry and EEE began in December 2008.

SAC Building Phase-IIThe second phase of Students’ Activity Center has been started with the objective of providing space for other activities like yoga, literary activities, dance, music, counseling unit, anchoring, Fine Arts, Astronomy etc. Thus, construction of RCC twostoreyed SAC building with a total area of 5400 sqm was undertaken by the institute in 2011.

Extension of Girls’ HostelIn the first phase of construction of the girls’ hostel, 172 rooms along with other common facilities like dining hall, kitchen, common rooms etc. was completed.

Boys’ Hostel no. 9To accommodate the increasing number of students, construction of another boys’ hostel with a capacity of 1000 residents with an area of 31,050 sqm started in August 2009.

Campus placement at IIT Guwahati during 2011-12

The placement scenario at IIT Guwahati for the year 2011-2012 has so far been fairly good. A total of 718 graduating students [BTech and BDes (356), MTech and MDes (268), MSc (57), MA (13) and PhD (24)] had registered with the placement cell before the placement activities began. About 100 companies from various sectors have participated in the recruitment process till now (March 5th, 2012). The prominent recruiting

organisations who visited our campus are: Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Schlumberger, Yahoo, ITC etc. The overall placement of the BTech and BDes, as of now, has reached nearly 90%. The highest pay package offered to a BTech students is USD 150,000 per annum, with an average package of Rs. 8.9 lacs per annum while for the MTech students, the highest pay stands at Rs. 18 lacs per annum with an average package of Rs. 7 lacs per

annum. Further, a few MSc students and 15 PhD students have also been placed through placement cell in various sectors.

All our recruiters have expressed satisfaction with the performance of the students in interviews and group discussions. IITG has also lived up to their expectations with regard to infrastructure and facilities to carry out placement related activities on campus.

Xur Taal

To fulfill the need for a music school to cater to the children and residents on IITG campus, the IITG Non-Teaching Employees Association took the initiative to start a music school, ‘Xur Taal’, beginning January 1, 2011. Initially, singing and tabla classes were started, which was followed by acoustic guitar lessons from August, 2011. The school is housed on the first floor of the IITG market complex. Currently, 130 students are enrolled in the school and since its inception the students have participated in the Republic Day, Independence Day and Bohagi Utsav celebrations organised by the institute.

Campus Updates

Placement in different sectors

B.Tech and M.Tech placement

Photo courtesy: Mrinal Chakraborty


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Campus EventsInteractions with Alumni

A farewell tea was organized by the AA&ER Office for the UG and PG students graduating in May 2012. Mr. Sumit Mudgal, President, IITG Alumni Association visited the campus for this on March 31, 2012. He also used this visit to interact with students, faculty and the IITG administration to explore new ways in which our alumni can associate themselves with the institute and participate in our academic and research activities.

On 8th October, 2011, Mr. Manish Jha, an alumnus of IIT Guwahati (2006, ECE), presently working as an Associate Consultant with the transactions and restructuring team at KPMG, visited IITG and held two interactive sessions with the students where he focused on topics varying from the brand value of IITs to placement interview skills. He highlighted the important considerations that are intrinsic to the hiring process, stressing pragmatically on how resumés are shortlisted and what aspects of a person are tested during an interview. He shared his personal experiences on both sides of the interview table, which opened up a fresh perspective for the students.

On Saturday, November 12, 2011, a talk on Flipkart, one of the fastest growing Indian start ups, was organized by the IITG Alumni Association along with the Alumni Connect Campaign. The speaker, Mr. Ankit Nagori, is an IITG alumnus, (B.Des, 2008), currently Vice-President for Business Development and heads the Books and Media Business for Flipkart.

Mr. Nagori is credited with starting the Music, Movies and Games section at Flipkart. He then went

on to talk a little about the e-commerce landscape in India, benchmarked against the USA and China. Flipkart, he said, had 20% of the market share of e-commerce in India.

Flipkart started with selling books as books are easier to sell, and people are more comfortable with the risk of making online purchases when the prices involved are low. Now, of course Flipkart has started selling a lot more expensive products: laptops, mobile phones etc. Nagori ended his speech by talking about the importance of the Alumni Connect campaign. Flipkart, he says, is an organization full of mostly graduates from IITs and IIMs. A while ago, when they had a meeting to discuss recruitment policies, it was suggested that IITG should be visited as well. This resulted in the decision to come to all the 7 older IITs for placements in Flipkart. “You are the brand ambassadors for the IIT you are from, and it is always important to give back to your alma mater,” said Mr. Nagori.

Mr. Soumen Das (Class of 2006, BTech, Mechanical Engineering,) is currently the Guwahati centre director of the TIME institute. He visited the IITG campus and had an interaction session organized by the EDC on the challenges a BTech student faces after his/her graduation. These include

preparation for exams like GRE, CAT, IAS etc. Soumen spoke at length about how to prepare for such exams.

Photo Courtesy: Chandan Mahanta


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The 16th edition of Indian I n s t i t u t e o f Te c h n o l o g y Guwahati’s cultural festival, Alcheringa, took place this February. Different editions, different people, yet the same nostalgia lingers on. Like each year, Alcheringa exceeded all expectations and surpassed all benchmarks set by its previous editions. Spanning four very pleasant spring days the festival was put together by thousands of creative and enthusiastic young minds.

The Urban Odyssey would not have seen a better start than the inaugural speech of our director, Dr. Gautam Barua, offering a few valuable tips which immediately struck a chord with the entire student fraternity. It was followed by a mesmerizing c l a s s i c a l p e r f o r m a n c e by Anoushka Shanker and her troupe, Traveler, playing to touch each soul present. Captivating thoroughly everyone present, Soulmate, the true-blues band from Shillong, summed up in two hours what Friday nights should be like!

Javed Ali was next, with his melodious voice resonating through the packed cricket field delivering the promise of an eternal dreamtime. The closing night s to le the show with Orphaned Land bringing forth Oriental Metal to the receptive ears of the thousands of metal-heads present. Spectacular performances were put up by Ish theater of Israel and the Quaff theater group, enacting “The Real Inspector Hound” starring the accomplished Bollywood actress Kalki Koechlin, among others.

The glitz was not limited to the professionals alone, as the d a n c e r s , t h e m o d e l s , t h e fashionistas, the speakers, the actors and every budding artist who travelled from all over the country to compete in the Urban Odyssey gave the judges a really hard time and the audiences, an e x p e r i e n c e t o r e m e m b e r. Alcheringa 2012 witnessed unprecedented participation, making it the premier college festival of the North-East.

Alcheringa 2012, ‘Urban Odyssey’ lived up to its billing, and more importantly to its promise. For everyone that it reached, it was nothing short of what its name proclaimed. If the indelible mark of a dream is to see it come true then you must come to Alcheringa and let it leave a mark in your memory that you would remember forever.

Srikant JayaramanConvenor, Alcheringa 2012

INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3! FALL 2009

Campus Events

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Photo Courtesy: Ravi Mokashi-Punekar


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Techniche – The annual techno-management festival is the proud product of the vibrant technical culture at IITG and has witnessed a phenomenal growth over the past several years. Starting from a low profile festival which began in a small room, it has now become a major technical festival in the national calendar of college events. We were overjoyed to see our passion and hard work unfold flawlessly in Techniche’11 “Celebrating Innovations” this year.

Technothlon has become a brand, avidly followed by more than 2 lakh participants nationwide. The Guwahati Half Marathon, with the theme “Ignorance is NOT bliss”, saw its popularity spread to the neighboring states with active participattion from the ‘Seven Sisters’ and West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Chattisgarh.

Our lecture series, which is now one of the best lecture series of the nation, has become a major attraction with lectures from intellectuals who have transformed the way things work around us. Joining us this year were Mr. Stephen P. Morse, the chief architect of the Intel 8086 chip (the grand-daddy of today’s Pentium Processor) which sparked the PC revolution 25 years ago; Ian Wright, host of the famous television travel show Globe Trekker and Dr. Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, who has served as the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The Robotics Module showed exceptionally high degree of technical expertise and attracted very high participation from across the country. The Management Module, with events like Brain Child (with total incubation sum of Rs. 50 lakhs), Stratagem, Product Launch and Bluechips, attracted large crowds and enthusiastic participation in Techniche’11.

Jonar Nader, Chairman of Logictivity Pvt. Ltd., said that Techniche’11 was clearly a successful team effort and that the student volunteers worked like professionals. The seeds of Techniche planted by our seniors and our alumni have indeed bloomed and we look forward to an even better and more exciting Techniche’12.

Shailendra JainGeneral Secretary, Students Welfare Board

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Articles

Construction ExplorationAs about 350 of us graduated to our third semester and returned to IITG after the summer, we found a campus that was heavily under construction with many rumours circulating on what exactly were being constructed!

The privileged few amongst us (e.g. VPs, HABs, Gymkhana Secretaries etc.) doled out snippets of information from what they heard at their important meetings and by rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty. It must have been one of them who told us about the four air-conditioned, state-of-the-art lecture halls that we were destined to get for our lecture classes. Places where we could doze in comfort if the lectures got too boring!

Naturally excited at the thought of these luxurious halls of learning that we would get soon, a few of us decided to go and see the place first-hand. So off we went on our cycles on a Saturday afternoon to the construction site where many workers were still hard at work. The halls were all built and the basic structure was in place, with only a splash of paint remaining to be added onto the entire magnificent construction. We admired the huge lecture halls and the small patch of green in between them. We then looked above the green patch and that was when we were all thoroughly puzzled. There, high above our heads, we could see a huge hemispherical metallic skeletal dome. This dome could be seen from quite a distance and did give the lecture complex a touch of uniqueness. They certainly made the lecture halls look very different from anything we had seen before but the functional utility of these domes completely escaped us.

Thinking that the people building the place may know more, we went ahead and asked some of

those we found working on the site. These guys had a wild bunch of theories, ranging all the way from “The national flag will fly from there once the construction is complete!” to “There was some metal leftover so they decided to use it up to make a dome”, but no one seemed to have any concrete information.

We finally gave up and cycled our way to the Coffee Shop below the Computer Center to debate the respective merits of these theories over some ice-cold lemon tea. Hearing our heated discussions, the young lad who served us our drinks at the stall came over. It turned out that he had a theory of his own, based on what he thought he had overheard from the architect and his friends while serving them tea and coffee. Apparently these domes were there to add aesthetic beauty to the construction – a sort of ‘Sistine Chapel’ for the artistic aspirations of the architect!

Vikram Chatterji

On IITG Choreography Club: Cadence

It feels so good to hear about Cadence – the IIT Guwahati Choreography Club, which is going to all these big events and bagging podium positions. That’s exactly what we used to dream of four years back when it was created. Cadence has successfully evolved from a group of 10 members putting up a naive inaugural show in ‘Alcher 07’ to a full-fledged choreography club. I feel really fortunate to be a part of this evolution. The present batch of Cadence has many promising dancers who have proved their talent in huge events like Antaragini-IIMK and Moo-I, IITB. It’s good to see that after each passing year we are getting better and better dancers in Cadence. There was a time when we used to take two months to choreograph a sequence of just ten minutes. Nowadays, our juniors finish it off in just a couple of days and spend most of their time rehearsing. The evolution of Cadence is one of the most satisfying phenomena that I have witnessed in my lifetime. It is like our child. I am still in touch with my juniors. I miss the practice sessions, the late night rehearsals, all the bakar and nautanki, last day night-outs, backstage ‘halla-gulla’, backstage stomach-butterflies – I miss Cadence. Our little seedling is a full-grown tree now - loaded with juicy fruits and yet humbly bending low to everyone’s reach.

Adarsh Bikash Saikia

Photo Courtesy: Saurabh Soni


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Articles

Strange but true! In about thirty years of teaching all over the world, I had never actually taught a first-year course. In my early days at IIT/K, the senior professors in the department would always volunteer to teach the large classes so as not to overload the “freshers” like us. Later, I would still find the task of teaching large classes daunting and was quite happy to stay within my comfort zone and teach my usual clutch of senior UG or PG courses, leaving the large first and second year courses for other braver colleagues in the department. I did teach a couple of large classes in Singapore but these were mostly third-year students who had become quite worldly-wise after two years of college – but more on that later!

Even the first day of lectures was full of surprises! When I walked into my first lecture with a room bursting at the seams with fresh-faced kids, I was mildly surprised to see some very mature faces sitting in the last couple of rows. I could not quite figure out how these people could have made it through the JEE age limits but charitably thought that this might be because of the flexible birth certificates that we Indians sometimes manage to get. It took me a while to realize that these “senior students” were not students at all but fond parents sitting in to sample what their little bundles of joy would be going through for the next four years. I have always wondered what they thought of my performance that day – must have been reasonably acceptable as I do not recall seeing angry outbursts on the lecturing quality of IIT professors in newspapers and blogs later. May be they, like their little ones, were in a little bit of a shock at having to let go of each other after so many years – either that, or both sides were planning on how to celebrate their new-found freedom from each other.

I generally do not teach anything in my first lecture – I prefer to spend the first lecture hour gossiping with the students, trying to get to know them better and put them at their ease. This was quite useful as most of them still seemed a little shell-shocked at having actually made it through to one of the IITs after the traumatic experience of preparing for and taking the JEE exams. If they were looking for an awe-inspiring first lecture, they must have been quite disappointed as I was more than happy to spend that first hour talking about life in general and life at IITG, in particular. I guess it takes a little while for them to get training in survival skills from their seniors and learn that the 75% attendance

requirement is more a piece of wishful thinking on our part and less a rule that is strictly enforced.

It also took me a while to realize that the hungry look I was seeing on their faces was not really there because they were hungry for knowledge – that they were actually plain hungry as their digestive systems had not yet adjusted to the rigours of mess food after years of pampering by Mom’s culinary skills - that instead of parents cajoling them to eat more, they would now have to survive on whatever food came their way in industrial style mess cooking. In that first class, they waxed lyrical on what they could not bring themselves to eat at breakfast and what they were not looking forward to eat for their lunch and dinner. Little did they know that they would eventually adjust to mess food anyway and would come to look at dining out at Soiree and Gobindo Dhaba as gourmet expeditions to treasure – that their taste buds would slip into a coma waiting for the day when they could eat properly once again. (Actually, IITG mess food is a notch or two above what we used to get as food in IIT/K hostels during our UG days. Our general view was that though the food may not actually kill you, it could very well drive you to suicide.)

Teaching in Singapore for six years had been quite a different experience. The class there would sit through lectures impassively with deadpan expressions on their faces regardless of the jokes one would try to make. No one would ask any questions so you could never quite figure out whether what you were teaching was too easy or too difficult. The class would sort of stoically bear through whatever you said and the only sound you could hear (apart from your own voice) was the mild snoring from the rear of the class and the rustle of pages from the boy intently reading the newspaper in the last row. (I bravely accosted the newspaper reader once and asked why he was reading a newspaper in class. His response to this was an all time classic – “Class! What class!” – it turned out that he was just relaxing there because the room was air-conditioned and he did not have even the remotest interest in computer networks!). Then there was the guy who came to class (and sat in the front row) with a video camera in hand and recorded the whole lecture – being recorded for posterity may sound nice but it is actually quite unnerving. The first thing that happens is that one develops a fatal fascination for the camera and it becomes very hard

First Day with First-Yearites Prof. Sanjay K. Bose

continued on page 14

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY GUWAHATI ! MAY 2012INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY GUWAHATI ! MAY 2012

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First Day with First-Yearites

continued from page 13

to look anywhere else. Then, after the class you would worry whether you made a mistake anywhere or whether some of your comments were a little too racy or slightly off colour. Somehow, it was very hard to concentrate on the lecture with that video camera staring at you for the entire hour!

Have you ever made a joke at which no one laughed, or even gave a wan, tired looking smile? Believe me, it is a thoroughly unnerving experience which is made worse by the fact that you then have to tell the class that that was meant to be just a joke and was not something that they had to study for the exams! My daughter (always my sternest critic) would insist that my jokes are really bad ones and that she could sympathize with my class for being made to have to listen to them. She may well be right, but that still does not explain why I could go through lecture after lecture without any response or questions from the class. It was my firm belief that even if I put on a fedora and did a tango in my class in Singapore wearing boxer shorts, I would still not get any response from the students. I was never brave enough to try this as I did not quite fancy being called upon by the Dean to explain my deviant classroom techniques – on the other hand, who knows, he might have even asked me for a tip or two on my dancing exposition before handing me over to the guys from the mental asylum.

The first year class here was very responsive, sometimes boisterously so! As I proudly reported to my daughter, not only did they ask questions in class (some very good ones, sometimes) they also dutifully laughed at all my jokes. (They probably deserve good grades just for that!) My problem here was something quite different and had to do with the fact that every lecture had to be delivered twice as IITG does not have the infrastructure to accommodate 600+ students in a single classroom. This meant that the morning class always got to hear the better jokes as somehow I felt slightly foolish repeating the

morning’s jokes in the afternoon lecture and had to try different ones in the afternoon. I am no comedian and the pressure of keeping two different sets of jokes ready for two classes became quite stressful at times.

The only major complaint I had all through the semester was the quality of the air-conditioning in the lecture hall that I was using. It soldiered bravely on but never really made a noticeable impact. (Whenever I had to rush to the Admin Building before or after the class, the difference in the comfort level would be really startling!) I think the system did not quite realize that if you pack 300 odd students in a lecture hall with no ventilation, the place turns into a sauna in no time. When I complained about this in a lecture, one student made a very poignant observation – her response was to remind me that while I had to tolerate it for only an hour they had to suffer through it for three hours at a stretch, day after day. To make a bad situation worse, apparently the AC was switched off at 12:00 noon and turned on again a few minutes before the 2:00 pm class. This probably saved a few measly bucks somewhere but made life even more unpleasant for the afternoon lectures. Eventually, Mother Nature and the senior students stepped in to help. The weather became cooler as time went on. Class attendance also fell as time went on so the AC was better able to cope with the load!

The actual teaching of the course was surprisingly easy. To a great extent, I was lucky to inherit excellent lecture notes from my predecessors, which I used generously. I also benefited from what I had learnt from my own teachers, way back in the dim past of my own undergraduate days. Having a great Co-instructor and a very efficient Course Coordinator helped a lot as they made things a lot easier. We also benefited from a very good team of tutors, even though they had to be occasionally cajoled and harassed to mark the exams and quizzes quickly. If you are planning to teach a first-year course, here is a piece of wisdom from the wise – make sure you get a good team, that way half the battle is already won even before you actually start teaching!

Articles

��flungile|ˈfləŋgail|nouna member of the little pile of clothes in the corner that you’ve been meaning to get washed for the past month and a half and eventually have to throw away because of fungus

Contributed by Ravi Arvind Gupta


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Circa MCMXCVI. At the Institution of Engineers building in Panbazar, Guwahati, the undergraduate students of IIT Guwahati were wondering ceaselessly whether IITG would survive the test of time. They imagined that in a few years’ time the institution might be wound up and their lives would be in jeopardy. And they were surmising on their plans in the event that was to happen. The parents too worried aloud about the future of their wards, being not sure whether to have their faith reserved in an IIT-not-sure-to-be-in-making. The faculty members were too unassuming and did not have grey hairs to boast of an established IIT. There was no halo, no snobbishness, no impressive buildings, no campus, no apparent greatness of an institution to impress the ‘hapless’ JEE qualifiers of an outstanding future.

Well, the first batch of students graduated with valor and pomp before the end of the millennium and the tradition continues. Arrays of faculty members also left – some with ‘more reasons’ while others with ‘less reasons’. However, IITG remains. It remains to stand tall; to be recognized among its peers and to dedicate itself for the welfare of all. As an institution to be counted among the greatest it wants to stand for freedom, persevere for strength, strive for excellence and be a beacon for all of those who use their talents for the prosperity of others.

As IIT Guwahati comes off its infancy and marches ahead with a pretty campus, enthusiastic faculty and students and efficient staff members are

ready to dedicate themselves for making the IITG a best place for all. We cannot forget that IITG is too young to boast. However, this youth of itself must instill inspiration for a better and prosperous future. The region, the nation and the world look forward to contributions that would be worth emulating. Imagine a place where students are busy preparing themselves for current and future expressions of their creativity; where they will make sincere efforts in fulfilling the dream that the nation harbors through their future. Imagine a place where the work, lifestyle and academic leadership of our students would be torch-lights for those who have none. Imagine a place where those endowed with extraordinary merits and are gifted by nature of being able to see the future work for those who did not have the same blessings of nature. Consider a faculty who would love to pursue the frontiers of teaching and research and bring laurels to the campus through their latest discovery. Imagine administrators and staff members working with extraordinary efficiency just to make sure that the students of the institute would have that extra shoulder to stand on before they jump for infinity. Imagine a campus that, when every morning you stroll down the roads surrounded by flowering trees and swans in the lakes, brings to your brain the next big idea. In that world of greatness - O’ Visible and Invisible - we would want to be blessed to have our IIT radiate with the brilliance of creativity on our dear burha luitor paar.

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IITG:Quo VadisProf. Arun Chattopadhyay

Photo Courtesy: Chandan Mahanta


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Articles

I have been reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ during the past couple of days. It has been six long years since I last read any of her writing, having read ‘The Namesake’ in my first year as an undergraduate student in IITG. Being where I am now, her world of Indian immigrants in the US and their subsequent generations that grow up with a mixed and confused identity feels a little closer now than what it was a few years back. You cannot but notice the poignancy in her narrative style, capturing the so-hard-to articulate conflicting states of mind with such ease and beauty through the minute details of everyday occurrences. These are qualities that become particularly pronounced in the second part of this book, in her short novel named Hema and Kaushik.

However, it is not a critique of her literary style that I have set out for today, but something about her stories and its characters that struck me. It is a persistent note of melancholy, a sense of disconnect and directionless-ness in her characters. It is as though the people in her story drift along from one point of life to another, from one place to another, from one person to another with no anchorage! Is it being in a land so distant from their roots and growing up sandwiched between two conflicting cultures that give her characters such a perpetual sense of disconnect? Perhaps it is worthwhile to keep in mind that she writes about Indians who immigrated to the US no later than the sixties or seventies, when being far indeed meant being far; and one can only marvel at how much things have changed since then. For not only do I see Indians here who are perfectly at ease with their surroundings, but it is not even uncommon to hear of those who have discovered a deeper connection with their own Indian roots and gained a new perspective towards their own culture by being here and have found their true calling in life so many miles away. With the world

getting a little smaller, with India getting a little more westernized and US a little more Indianized, the cultural shift seems to be getting progressively seamless. This of course, is my own perspective and I would be happy to hear what others have to say based on their experiences.

It certainly has a lot to do with the bulging Indian communities in most major American cities that creates the home away from home feeling. In fact, what is most interesting about this experience is that it feels like living in a mini conglomeration of the whole of India rather than a particular part of it. An experience that is very different from living in an Indian city with its distinctly regional flavor. People, when they leave home to come here, tend to become a little more receptive towards the cultures of other parts of their country and a little more appreciative of an unfamiliar art form in an unknown language from another part of India merely through the Indian connection!

Of course this is not limited to Indians alone. There are incidents like the experience I had on my first visit to Atlanta, when an African-American cab driver played Tamil songs all along the way from the airport to the hotel, saying he loved the music! Little things that make this distant land feel a little more like our own.

The other factor of course is the ease of staying connected with folks back home that internet and its many wonderful manifestations have brought about. With so much of our lives being influenced by an all-encompassing virtual sphere, we really need not lose our connection with anything unless we consciously choose to do so! Perhaps then, we are gradually moving towards homogeneity of space, where our geographic location has less and less effect on our experiences– where we can be in one part of the world and still stay immersed in the way of life of another.

A Home Far Away From HomeDiya Gangopadhyay

��filey |ˈfai li|nounthe folder on your computer that you created back in first year and had no idea it was still there



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Articles

Places don’t seem to change quite as rapidly as we people do. Even the fastest evolving places preserve some inherent qualities about them for some time- making you feel secure that the world is in place.

My two day visit to the IIT Guwahati campus in December 2010, after almost three years was one such experience, assuring me that a part of my nostalgic past still remains unaltered. Even with the new buildings spawning all over, the existing ones extended, unpaved ‘shortcut’ routes concretised, a new lake, trees a little taller and grasses a little better trimmed, this place still evokes vivid memories.

T h e D e s i g n D e p a r t m e n t l o o k e d uncharacteristically empty given the time of the year. Very little else had changed about the department, barring some in-progress building extensions to accommodate the Masters students, and some exhibitions of student work in the first floor halls. I had a good opportunity to interact with the current third and fourth year students, thanks to Prof. Yammiyavar, who invited me to his class and introduced me to the current Design students. Thanks also to my ‘campus guides’, three students of the Design Department who showed me around. I was really surprised that many of the current students still remembered me. They came across as an assured, positive and confident lot, presumably riding the high waves of a phenomenal placement session that just concluded. I don’t have the exact statistics, but vaguely I heard things like 40 companies for 20 students, almost every student with multiple offers and great packages. Irrespective of other problems that remain, the students of the department have

indeed come a long way. Their queries remain the same of course, of the next steps, of jobs, HCI, Design, MS, PhD, MBA and so many other things which three years and a MS later I myself am still trying to figure out. But exploring is the fun part!

Long conversations with some of the professors (surprising again, didn’t think they would have so much to talk to me about) revealed tit and bits about what is new on the academic front. I spoke to Prof. Yammiyavar of Design, Mokashi Madam of Humanities, Prof. P K Das (he didn’t remember me, but talked for about an hour nevertheless) and Prof Goswami (who strangely remembered me from the Algorithms class) of Computer Science. IITG now has a major and minor system akin to the American universities, which means a student can now major in their own stream and minor in any other of their choice by taking some 5-6 classes from that department. No one needs to be confined to any single department anymore! Wish they had started this when we were still around!

It was heartening to know of some multi-disciplinary endeavors that have started at IITG. Particularly after going to CMU, I felt that IITG could be much less compartmentalized and could make better use of multiple departments under the same roof ! Great to see things moving in that direction!

Mokashi Madam talked about collaboration between a couple of new faculties of linguistics in the Humanities department and the Speech Recognition wing of the Electronics department on a project in the field of language processing. P K Das mentioned

IIT GuwahatiDiya Gangopadhyay


continued on page 19

Three Years Later


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Articles

Sometimes it’s scary to come in terms with reality. The same batch mates, who, at any given time could rattle off 20 different alternatives to segment a female population, are found discussing the plight of the Indian Aviation industry and related dysfunctional governmental reforms. Thankfully, the conversation soon steers off to airhostesses making the atmosphere relaxed. Yet, the change amazes you.

You have a humbling phase of growing out of a 4x4 cubicle into a better semblance of a house – from rubber slippers to leather shoes – from dad's ATM dependent guy to an Allen Solly Friday man. You find yourself responsible for stuff you wouldn't have imagined doing, till the age of thirty (and I am not referring to the morning tea). And you like it - at least for a while.

Certain things however, remain the same. People still live with their college pet names, find it hard to convince the parents that they know what they are doing with their lives and still emote a Spartan sense of pride in claiming that Maggi was the best thing that could have happened to the human race.

So while I put my Linear Regression Model to predict competitive bid pricing for Main line advertisements, I jot down some random thoughts, useless learning and general sense which may help you in one way or none:- I hope that by the time you graduate from college,

you relax your email ids of their superhero status. Make sure that your CV does not read, for example,

Vedang Singh: [email protected], thus summarizing your birth year, attitude and chat zone preference.

- Like a good old Samaritan, you should learn the art of evading heavy jargon laden confrontations and scooping them to a friend to the left who is busy scoring his Minesweeper high:

Boss: So Rohit, with the Yahoo - Bing merger, what do you think would be the new CPC levels for the erstwhile Yahoo dominated markets, given that the Ad Exchanges wouldn't totally align themselves to the Bing Policy at once?Yours Truly: Gulp, this is not fair God! Uhm, Sir, I must tell you that Aditya and I were discussing the same and he went ahead and downloaded some relevant data from the ad center to study the patterns. Point finger at the guy and his computer screen and sit down in a dignified manner. The poor meat: <struggles - stammers - stutters >-There are colleagues and there are bosses and then there are HRs who are godsend. Imagine how Christopher Columbus might have felt discovering America (sans the Red Indians) after a long hard toil among the sweltering fellow sailors. Now close your eyes. Internalize the thought. You would feel the same – every time you crane your neck out of your cubicle across the lesser mortals to the lands of the HRs.

I am no corporate oldie. Neither was I a college prodigy. So, expecting some sincere nuggets of wisdom here would be as hopeful as expecting to see Osama Bin Laden, in his full capabilities, marching down the Washington streets with white roses and dove flags. But still, for whatever it is worth, know that you would rarely be able to associate your dreams, opinions and ideas with another set of crowd – hoping that some of them would come along and stupefy themselves into believing that they are a part of something historic or big! But you could do that in bits and parts in college - Which makes the whole experience lasting and for the lack of better word, magical!

The Other Side of the Fence

Rohit Pande

��bude|byōōd|verb (to bude)to employ a stalling tactic to avoid imparting knowledge to another, particularly before a test or an exam.

nounthe sort of person who, when you ask him for his notes, says, “par maine to kuchh nahi likha, yaar”: Dude, don't be a bude.



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“George, take good care of our lawn when I am gone”, I urged my gardener just as my wife and I set out for the San Francisco airport to catch the flight to my final destination- Guwahati. “Amigo, have a good trip, but my name is Jorge as in Horye”, George shot back.

I was on my way to my Shangri-La, my home away from home for the next several months. Full of excitement and some apprehension, I arrived at the Gopinath Bordoloi airport in the bright July sun. During the cab ride to IITG, I was too excited to not ice Guwahat i , but was awestruck at the sight of the Brahmaputra. It is a majestic river, curiously the only large river in India, not named after a

Goddess. Assamese, to my pleasant surprise are a very hospitable lot and the language has no harsh consonants- sweet sounding to my Tamilian ear used to harsher sounds.

There are so many young and curious minds walking around the campus. I enjoy talking to them and listening to their ideas and their views of the world and knowing their dreams. I run into them in chaat houses, cafeterias, squash courts, tennis courts, the trail to the View Point and over the Saturday Masala Dosa at Umiam (the best MD north of the Vindhyas). My faculty colleagues are top notch young scholars willing to share their knowledge readily and my daily faculty interactions always

leave me impressed and better informed.

It was difficult for me to teach a thing or two about queuing to the students in my elective course. Standing in line and waiting for their turn does not connect emotionally to an IIT psyche. Barging in and shouting, ‘Bhayya do chay!’ at chaat house is the rule. FCFS (first come first served) is not there so I am forced to FISH (first in and still here).

My cup runneth over and it cannot possibly get better but it has to end some day. When it was my time to leave I shook hands with my friendly host and I said “Goodbye! Dr. Sharma!” He corrected me and said, “It is Horma as in the Spanish name Jorge.”

Articles

I am an Assamese born in Karnataka! Prof. K. Sreenivasan

IIT Guwahati:Three Years Later

continued from page 17

a Robotics lab that has been set up in the CS department (I believe it’s new) and the challenges being faced, of efforts in speech training and the problems in gathering exhaustive training data for Indian languages. The most exciting news of all was that the CS department is now floating electives on HCI and related topics, so finally our field gets the recognition it deserves beyond the Design Department!

But of course, the best part of this visit was the couple of hours spent at my sweet home of four years, my hostel Subansiri. This place feels like home the way no other place does! The happiness at seeing its little developments like a brand new juice center, a music room, and a well functioning phone booth is both inexplicable and unique! Each of these little things means so much when you consider that we

once had to make 5 am trips to the music room at the transit complex, prior to Manthan and make the most out of our two hour slot.

The hostel is now extended on both sides in a weird shade of pink contrasting with the original pristine white. It is much more populated than before but still feels pretty much the same. Thanks to my sweet juniors for making the experience feel like homecoming! And yes, I am extremely proud of Subansiri’s consistently improving performance in Manthan, something that each and every dweller of the hostel made sure to report to me!

It was also heartwarmingly funny was that our juniors had preserved a certain hilarious “artwork” the girls of our batch had created in our last semester to celebrate the stellar performance of one of us in the pattern recognition course. New habitants of the hostel, with no context surrounding the artifact still thought it’s worth leaving it intact. It stood up there on one of the doors, a legacy left by our batch, for generations of Subansiri dwellers to marvel at!


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EDITORIAL TEAMShakuntala Mahanta (Editor)

Manoj Majhi

Priyankoo Sarmah

ADVISORSSanjay K Bose

Ratnajit Bhattacharjee

OFFICE SUPPORTDilip Boro Dibyendu Debnath

CONTRIBUTORSSaurabh Basu

Sanjay K. BoseMrinal Chakraborty Vikram ChatterjiArun ChattopadhyayKushal DasSumana DuttaDiya GangopadhyayShailendra JainSrikant JayaramanLabanu K. KonwarChandan MahantaRohit PandeRavi Mokashi-PunekarAdarsh Bikash SaikiaSaurabh Soni K. SreenivasanPrem Kumar Vislawath

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Alumni Affairs & External RelationsIndian Institute of Technology GuwahatiGuwahati – 781039Assam INDIAPhone: +91–361–258–2182Fax: +91–361–269–0761Email: [email protected]

Alumni Newslet terA photography competition was organized by the IITG Alumni Newsletter editorial

committee. The best three entries are featured in this issue.

Best entry: Miksham Lal

Second best entry: ‘Siamese’ by Sanjukta Patra

Third best entry: V. Krishna Brahmam




ALUMNI - Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati and Prof. Ravi Mokashi-Punekar enough, for their...

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