ACADEMY OF SCIENCES BANGALORE ANNUAL REPORT 2007 - 2008 INDIAN ACADEMY ANNUAL REPORT 2007-2008 INDIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES BANGALORE Address Indian Academy of Sciences C.V. Raman Avenue Post Box No. 8005 Sadashivanagar P.O. Bangalore 560 080 Telephone 80-2361 2546, 80-2361 4592, (EPABX) 80-2361 2943, 80-2361 1034 Fax 91-80-2361 6094 Email [email protected] Website www.ias.ac.in Contents 1. Introduction 5 2. Council 6 3. Fellowship 6 4. Associates 10 5. Publications 10 6. Academy Discussion Meetings 18 7. Academy Public Lectures 22 8. Raman Chair 24 9. Mid-Year Meeting 2007 24 10. Annual Meeting 2007 – Thiruvananthapuram 26 11. Science Education Programme 28 12. Finances 44 13. Acknowledgements 44 14. Tables 45 15. Annexures 47 16. Statement of Accounts 55 INDIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES BANGALORE 4 ANNUAL REPORT 2007 - 2008 1 Introduction The Academy was founded in 1934 by Sir C.V. Raman with the main objective of promoting the progress and upholding the cause of science (both pure and applied). It was registered as a Society under the Societies Registration Act on 24 April 1934. The Academy commenced functioning with 65 Fellows and the formal inauguration took place on 31 July 1934 at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. On the afternoon of that day its first general meeting of Fellows was held where Sir C.V. Raman was elected its President and the draft constitution of the Academy was approved and adopted. The first issue of the Academy Proceedings was published in July 1934. The present report covering the period from April 2007 to March 2008 represents the seventy-fourth year of the Academy. 5 INDIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES BANGALORE Council Fellows 2 1. Anil Kumar 2. Apte, Shree Kumar There were two statutory meetings of the 3. Bhalla, Upinder Singh Council on 14 July and 1–2 December 2007. 4. Chandy, Mammen 5. Chattopadhyay, Joydev 6. Chaudhuri, Arabinda Fellowship 7. Das, Puspendu Kumar 3 8. Dey, Gautam Kumar 9. Goswami, Ravinder 3.1 2008 ELECTIONS 10. Gupta, Anil Kumar 11. Gupta, Yashwant A total of 348 nominations received for 12. Karanth, K Ullas fellowship in different disciplines were 13. Kesavan, Srinivasan considered by the eight Sectional Committees 14. Krishnakumar, E and subsequently by the Council. Following 15. Krishna Kumar, K postal balloting, thirty-four new Fellows were 16. Kundu, Tapas K elected, the fellowship being effective from 17. Manna, Indranil 1 January 2008. A list of their names follows 18. Nangia, Ashwini while Annexure 1 gives their particulars. Also 19. Panda, Dulal elected were two new Honorary Fellows. 20. Pandit, Aniruddha B 21. Parnaik, Veena K 22. Roy, Sujit 23. Sarkar, Utpal 24. Sharma, Surinder Mohan 25. Sharma, Yogendra 26. Siddiqi, Imran 27. Singh, Mewa 28. Somasundaram, Kumaravel 29. Srianand, Raghunathan 30. Suresh, Venapally 31. Thomas, K George 32. Tyagi, Jaya S 33. Vijayamohanan, K 34. Waghmare, Umesh Vasudeo Honorary Fellows 1. Chakravarti, Aravinda 2. Jansen, Martin 6 ANNUAL REPORT 2007 - 2008 3.2 IN MEMORIAM 7. Mitra, AP 8. Narasimhan, Rangaswamy The Academy regrets to report the death of the 9. Ramakrishnan, T following 15 Fellows and an Honorary Fellow 10. Sethi, PK during the period up to March 2008. Annexure 2 11. Sharma, Archana gives additional information about them. 12. Thomas, Joseph Fellows 13. Varadachari, VVR 1. Abhyankar, KD 14. Varadarajan, MG 2. Anand, BK 15. Yadava, SL 3. Chandy, Jacob 4. Chauhan, BS Honorary Fellow 5. Guha-Mukherjee, Sipra Benzer, Seymour 6. Maitra, PK 3.3 STRENGTH OF THE FELLOWSHIP Fellows Honorary Fellows 1 April 2007 891 50 Elected (Dec. 2007) 34 2 Deceased (2007 – 2008) 15 1 1 April 2008 910 51 7 INDIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES BANGALORE 3.4a FELLOWSHIP ANALYSIS The charts below show (a) the average age of Fellows at election for the last 10 years, (b) the subject-wise break-up of the average age at election and (c) the subject-wise break-up of Fellows below 50 years in the current Fellowship. 50 49 49 48 47 47 47 47 (a) Average age of 45 Fellows at election 1999 – 2007 Average age 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Year 52 50 49 48 48 47 47 47 (b) Subject-wise 45 average age at election 1999 – 2007 Average age EPS Physics Math Sci. Medicine Plant Sci. Chemistry Animal Sci. Engineering Gen. Biology Subjects 15 14 13 13 12 (c) Fellows below 50 years – 82 6 4 (Total – 907) 3 Numbers 2 EPS Physics Medicine Math Sci. Plant Sci. Chemistry Animal Sci. Engineering Subjects Gen. Biology 8 ANNUAL REPORT 2007 - 2008 3.4b NOMINATION ANALYSIS The charts below show (a) the total number of nominations considered during 1999 – 2008 and (b) the average age of nominees valid for 2008. 399 373 372 358 354 347 347 348 349 (a) Total nominations 339 considered during 1999 – 2008 No. of Nominations 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Year 54.37 54.03 52.53 51.74 50.75 51.18 50.30 49.26 (b) Average age of nominees subject-wise 46.00 valid for 2008 (Total – 349) Average Age Average EPS Physics Math Sci. Medicine Plant Sci. Chemistry Animal Sci. Engineering Gen. Biology Subjects 9 INDIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES BANGALORE 4 Associates 5 Publications Fifty-nine nominations were received and the 5.1 JOURNALS following 12 were selected as Associates in 2007 The following 11 journals continue to appear on (see also Annexure 3). their scheduled dates of publication. 1. Anandavardhanan, UK 1. Bulletin of Materials Science 2. Ghosh, Anil K 3. Jain, Mukesh 2. Current Science 4. Kavitha, Telikepalli 3. Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy 5. Mukherjee, Partha Sarathi 4. Journal of Biosciences 6. Mukhopadhyay, Banibrata 7. Mukhopadhyay, Pritam 5. Journal of Chemical Sciences (formerly 8. Senthil Kumar, P Proceedings Chemical Sciences) 9. Subramanian, Ganesh 6. Journal of Earth System Science (formerly 10. Suresh Babu, SN Proceedings Earth and Planetary Sciences) 11. Thanikaivelan, P 7. Journal of Genetics 12. Tripathi, Vikram 8. Pramana – Journal of Physics 9. Proceedings – Mathematical Sciences 10. Resonance – Journal of Science Education 11. Sadhana – Engineering Sciences The number of pages published with journal- wise information, number of papers submitted for publication and circulation figures of journals for the calendar year 2007 are given in Tables 1–3 respectively. 5.2 SPECIAL ISSUES OF JOURNALS Many special issues of topical importance were published as part of the regular numbers of some of the journals. A description of these follows: 10 ANNUAL REPORT 2007 - 2008 Flow Control and Diagnostics appropriate. The meeting was organized in the Guest Editors: R Narasimha, T S Prahlad and pleasant environs of Orange County, Coorg, in Sajeer Ahmed February 2006. There were 27 participants Sadhana, Vol. 32, Nos 1 & 2, February and April including several from USA and UK. The four- 2007, pp. 1–154 day programme included 22 presentations in sessions that dealt with flow control, flow Flow control and diagnostics have always been of diagnostics and flow instability. Of these, the great importance in fluid-dynamical technology, texts of 13 papers were published in this issue. but in recent decades they have become The subject of the papers divides broadly into particularly active and exciting areas of three areas: diagnostics, stability and control. research. In September 1998, IUTAM sponsored The papers on stability are sandwiched between an international symposium on flow control at those in the other two areas, because an Göttingen. Since then the great surge of understanding of instabilities in the flow sought interest has continued, for several good reasons. to be controlled has implications for both The first is the potential for control of turbulent diagnostics and control. flows revealed by the discovery of coherent structures in what generally had earlier been considered as motion with complete disorder. A Fluorescence spectroscopy second reason is the related development of the Guest Editor: N Periasamy theory of nonlinear dynamical systems. Such Journal of Chemical Sciences, Vol. 119, No. 2, systems are sensitive to small changes in initial March 2007, pp. 53–215 conditions, and therefore necessarily also to small control signals if applied at the right time Fluorescence is now so widely used in chemistry, and place. Third, great advances have recently biology and materials research that it was been made in the technology of sensors, decided to bring out a special issue on actuators, computers and related systems, ‘fluorescence spectroscopy and its applications’. making it feasible to consider small active There are just three properties that we measure control systems with a performance surpassing in fluorescence: intensity, spectrum, and those that had earlier been available. Progress in polarization. Information obtained from these MEMS and in nanotechnologies is unveiling about the fluorescent molecules in a sample is ever newer possibilities. There is thus much straightforward, namely, concentration, identity interesting research being done in passive, of the emitting molecule and its spatial active and hybrid methods of control; new orientation. Fluorescence is highly sensitive to experiments, computations and advances in the the immediate environment of the molecule, theory of control of continuous systems have all which makes it extremely useful in numerous contributed to the excitement. And of course applications in chemistry and biology, especially the potential benefits of turbulence the latter. The time-dependence of these three management, to reduce or enhance drag, lift, fluorescence properties, when excited by an heat transfer, mixing, etc. as the application ultra-short light pulse, adds a new dimension to requires, are huge. the understanding of the chemical kinetics and An Academy discussion meeting to consider molecular dynamics of the excited molecule. these recent advances therefore seemed most This special issue contains eighteen articles 11 INDIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES BANGALORE dealing with many different aspects of biotechnological and clinical applications.