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Proc Indian Natn Sci Acad 85 No. 1 March 2019 pp. 301-313 Printed in India. ACADEMY NEWS ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING FELLOWS ELECTED 2018 (Effective from 01 January 2019) The Annual General Meeting of the Academy was held on October 12, 2018 at Centre of Biomedical Anurag Agrawal (b 1972), MBBS, MD, DM, PhD, Research (CBMR), Lucknow. During the one day Director, CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative event, the following lectures were held: Biology, Delhi. Dealing with Second Biggest Killer and Most For showing that obesity or Air pollution related Disabling Disease, Stroke: a Scientific Approach by cellular stress precipitates asthma by affecting the Professor (Dr) Kameshwar Prasad, AIIMS, New cellular metabolism of Air way epithelial cells. He Delhi; Journey of a Drug: Discovery to Market by has shown how donation of mitochondria by stem Dr Madhu Dixit, FNA, formerly Director, CDRI, cells can correct the cellular functions. His Lucknow; Cyber Space: the Next Frontier by contribution to e-Health would enhance health care Professor Sandeep Shukla, IIT Kanpur, Kanpur and delivery. Exciting Science at Lucknow Based Biomedical Madhoolika Agrawal (b 1958), PhD, Professor, Research Institutes by Dr VP Kamboj, FNA, formerly Department of Botany, Banaras Hindu University, Director, CDRI, Lucknow; these lectures were Varanasi. delivered during a specially organized interactive meeting with school/college students of Lucknow. For her significant research contributions on global environmental change including effect of O and UV- In it’s October meeting, the Council announced 3 B on agricultural crops under field conditions. the election of two new Vice-Presidents – Professors V Chandrasekhar and JP Khurana and two new Balram Bhargava (b 1961), MBBS, MD, DM, members - Professor PP Chakrabarti and Dr Madhu Director General, Indian Council of Medical Dixit of the Council for 2019. It also reported the sad Research, New Delhi. demise of Professor Predhiman Krishan Kaw, Dr Arcot Ramachandran, Professor Mushi Santappa, An outstanding cardiologist and one of the foremost Professor MAL Thathachar, Professor SS Katiyar, leaders in biomedical innovation, public health and Professor Paul Hagenmuller, Professor Alla medical education/research. Professor Balaram Genrikhovna Massevitch and Professor Robert Bhargava has pioneered a number of medical Ghormley Parr distinguished Fellows and Foreign innovations, of which some are approved for human Fellows of the Academy. use. His research and innovation on Indian stents, cardiac compression devices, interosseous needles The Council approved the election of 30 Indian etc. have influenced health care. scientists as INSA Fellows, five overseas scientists as Foreign Fellows. It also decided to offer the INSA Soumen Chakrabarti (b 1969), PhD, Professor, Teachers Award to 12 outstanding teachers and INSA Computer Science, Indian Institute of Technology Young Historian of Science Award to one young Bombay, Mumbai. scholar as detailed below: For the conceptualization and development of powerful algorithms for web search, right from the early days of the Internet. One of his outstanding 302 Academy News contributions is focused crawling which is a part of phagocytosis. His work has revealed novel features current day search engines and rigorously combines of cysteine biosynthetic enzymes in E. histolytica and text-based search spectral analysis of the web graph. DNA replication protein in H. pylori. He has pushed the frontier of search far beyond just Anil Kumar Gupta (b 1952), PhD, Secretary, web page links to directly interpreting and answering Gujarat Grassroots Innovations Augmentation questions. Network (GIAN), Ahmedabad. Jayaram Narayanan Chengalur (b 1965), PhD, For opening new, creative, innovative and Senior Professor, National Centre for Radio entrepreneurial bottom-up paths of progress for Astrophysics-TIFR, Pune. millions of creative, inclusive, generous minds of not For his pioneering work at GMRT, in particular for only India but the world at large. He spawned the his very challenging 21 cm radio observations of gas inclusive frugal grassroots innovation movement in galaxies at different stages of evolution that had a thirty years ago through the Honey Bee Network. It major impact on our understanding of star formation. has created institutions some of which became part of national polity (such as SRISTI, GIAN and NIF) Amita Das (b 1965), PhD, Professor, Department of but these also redefined the concept of National Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Innovation systems. Delhi. Neeraj Jain (b 1960), PhD, Professor and Scientist For her foundational contributions in the field of laser VII, National Brain Research Centre, Manesar. plasma interactions emphasizing the role of self- generated magnetic fields. Dr Neeraj Jain’s work has increased our understanding of organization and information Maitrayee Dasgupta (b 1959), PhD, Professor, processing in sensorimotor areas of the mammalian Department of Biochemistry, Calcutta University, brain. His work on adult brain plasticity and post Ballygunge Science College, Kolkata. injury reorganization has direct relevance to diseases For her outstanding contribution in the field of root of human brain. nodule symbiosis (RNS), particularly delineating the Dinakar Kanjilal (b 1955), PhD, Former Director, role of symbiosis and cytokinin signaling in Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC), New developing RNS in crack-entry legumes like Arachis. Delhi. Deepak Gaur (b 1972), PhD, Professor, School of For path-breaking development of high temperature Biotechnology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New superconducting electron cyclotron resonance ion Delhi. source and for significant contributions to controlled For making significant contributions in understanding modification of material-properties through high molecular mechanism of red cell invasion by malaria energy ion irradiation. parasite, and his elucidation of novel candidates for Goutam Kumar Lahiri (b 1960), PhD, Professor, malaria vaccine development. Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai. Samudrala Gourinath (b 1972), PhD, Professor, Structural Biology Lab, School of Life Sciences, For his seminal contributions in the area of electron Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. transfer in multi-metal complexes to understand biological processes and several organometallic For establishing a strong structural biology group to catalytic reactions. study structure-function relation in the infectious micro-organisms Entamoeba histolytica and Souvik Maiti (b 1971), PhD, Senior Principal Helicobacter pylori. He has elucidated the function Scientist, CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative of Calcium-binding proteins involved in E. histolytica Biology, New Delhi. Academy News 303 For comprehensively studying thermodynamics basis For his outstanding contributions to our of RNA quadraplexes to understand their role in gene understanding of the role of immunity and sexual expression. He has used integrated chemical biology selection in evolution. This work has important approaches by modifying and designing small implications for speciation. molecules that can modulate miRNA levels. Krishnamurthi Ramasubramanian (b 1969), PhD, Mahitosh Mandal (b 1963), PhD, Professor, School Professor, Department of Humanities and Social of Medical Science and Technology, Indian Institute Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur. Mumbai. For his outstanding contributions to cancer biology, Professor K Ramasubramanian is a prominent studying the role of both natural and synthetic historian of classical Indic science with a strong inhibitors that impact survival and stress related grounding in the physical sciences as well as Sanskrit. signaling cascades and inhibit tumor growth. He has He has done important research on the history of also innovatively applied the use of nanocomposites Indian astronomy, and his scholarly translations of loaded with chemo therapeutics to overcome chemo- the works of the Kerala School of Mathematics resistance. constitute a major contribution to an authentic assessment of the remarkable advances made in India Sushmita Mitra (b 1962), PhD, Professor, Machine foreseeing the development of calculus in Europe a Intelligence Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. few centuries later. For her pioneering contributions in the area of neuro- Nittala Venkata Chalapathi Rao (b 1969), PhD, fuzzy computing, pattern recognition, and machine Professor, Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, intelligence. She is a pioneer in neuro-fuzzy rule Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, generation which led to the development of neuro- Varanasi. fuzzy expert systems. Her contributions in the use of For his cutting edge research on kimberlites, soft computing in bioinformatics has opened many lamproites, lamprophyres, their entrained xenoliths avenues for the mining of high-dimensional gene and mafic dykes has significantly enhanced our expression data. understanding of the geodynamic evolution of the Vinay Kumar Nandicoori (b 1969), PhD, Staff Indian lithosphere. He has established a world-class Scientist VII, Signal Transduction Lab 1, National school of deep mantle petrology. Institute of Immunology, New Delhi. Vajravelu Ravindran (b 1965), PhD, Professor H, For his seminal contributions towards understanding The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai. signaling and survival mechanisms of For his critical work

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