Connec t WIT H TH E IN DIA N INSTITUT E OF SCIE NCE Vo lume 5 | Issue 1 | February 201 8

Talent Development Centr e Roorkee or Bangalore ? Test tube tree s An IISc teacher How IISc foun d Look ing back at tr aini ng i nitia tive its ho me bi otech innova tion s

IS SN 2454-6232 Imp roving the quality o f Indi a’s teacher s The Talent De velopment Cent re at the C halla kere 2 campus t rains teache rs at a ll levels

REAPing for the star s A science educ ation in iti ati ve at the planetarium that 5 str ives to turn more local students in to scie nti sts

Learning for all The Cent re for Continu ing Educ ation has so methi ng 8 for ev er yone

A calcula tor to see into ou r climatic futu re An inte racti ve c limate c hange ca lcula tor revea ls 10 the path to sa fety – and peri l

Clim at e change and polic y Intervi ew with dis tingui shed cli mat e 14 scient ist J Srinivasa n

Nan ot echnology for the nation A peek ins ide a p rogramme t hat trains resea rchers, In 16 bui lding nat iona l capabi lity in nan oelect ronic s

Cent re for Sustainable Technologie s A g round report on how work at the CST i s 18 bene fiti ng commun ities

Meet Lak shmi Sita, bio tech pioneer Among the retired IISc pro fessor ’s achie vemen ts 23 is t he mass p ropag ation o f sanda lwood t ree s thi s

An IIS c-incub at ed compa ny with ambition Intervi ew with A zoo ka Li fe Sciences founder s 26 Fathima Benaz ir and Al ex H Paul

Structu res in turbulenc e In tervi ew with Austral ian fluid dynamicis t 30 Garry Br own

To P or not to P Is the P value, the ub iqui tous measur e 32 of sign ificance, as reliab le as we be lieve ?

Morri s Tra ver s’ trouble s in Indi a An ex cerpt fr om the me moirs o f IISc ’s first Director ’s so n 36 sh ow s h ow Travers handled con flict with JN Tata’ s son s

sue How II Sc found a home in Bangalo re A century ago, the sout hern ci ty was ha rdly the mos t 40 obvi ous choice to house i t; Roor kee seemed the winner

s Ha ve you hopped onto a sha red c ycle yet ? A new wa ve of smart c ycles is being po wered by a 45 collaboration bet ween IISc resea rchers and Zoo mcar i The E ffect of World War II on IIS c Whi le much of the In sti tute 's resou rces were di verte d 46 to the war, applied resea rch recei ved a big boos t Edi torial

IISc was established in 1909, preceded by seve ral Talent Development Centre (TDC) at IISc’s Challaker e convers ations about the need for such an Institute, campus, where around 1500 teachers from all over th e wh at its purpose should be, and h ow to achi eve th at country are trained every year; the Centre fo r purpose. It’ s a convers ation th at has been r evisite d Continuing Education that o ffers st udent s, col leg e multiple times in the last century and more, and i n te ach ers and pr ofe ssi ona ls ev eryth ing from ev eni ng some way s has b roadened conside rab ly, expandin g la ngu age cl asses to co urs es on deep learn ing; th e to qu estions about h ow learning can be achi eve d sc ien ce edu cation init iat ive for yo ung st ude nts at beyond the con fines o f a degree, and who a learner is. Ba nga lor e’s Ja wah arlal Ne hru Pl aneta rium that II Sc fa cul ty con tri bute to, and the Indi an Nan oel ectro nics From our archives, we bring you some of th e Us ers ’ Pr ogram (I NUP) for st ude nts and fa cul ty to buil d convers ations that happened be fore the Institute was na tio nal ca pabil ity in na noe lec troni cs. set up in a delightful exploration of how Bangalor e came to be its home. We also look at the impact th at II Sc is also in vol ved in rese arch and inno vat ions th at World War II (which lasted f rom 1939 to 1945) had on ha ve a br oader so cietal impa ct. We offer you a gli mpse the Institute, and h ow it pushed research at IISc d own be hind the Clim ate Ch ange Ca lcu lat or and ot her effor ts new avenues. And don’t miss the excerpt from th e at the Di vecha Ce ntre for Cl ima te Cha nge; the autobiography of Robert Travers about his fathe r nu mer ous in ven tio ns by the Ce ntre for Sust ain abl e Morris Travers, IISc’s first Director, who quarreled wit h Te chn olo gie s, and the ver y la test PE DL cy cle -shar ing JN Tata’s sons over the direction the Institute shoul d sy stem on ca mpus being us ed as a pi lot pr ogr amme for take, and left India bitter about the experience. su sta ina ble tr ans port opt ion s.

This issue of Connect focuses on the Institut e’s variou s Th is iss ue, you’ ll al so get to meet re tir ed biote ch attempts to spread learning to a wider audience, pi one er La kshmi Si ta, bi otech en tre pre neu r Fa thi ma supporting outreach p rog rammes for students, Be naz ir, and the fluid dynam ici st Ga rry Br own. teachers, and individuals of all ages. There’s th e

Published by the Archives and Public ations Cell (APC) at the Indian Institute o f Science (IISc), Connect is a quarterl y magazine th at seeks to bring together the IISc community and engage with the outside world – th rough s torie s about life in the Institute, its research, and rich heritage.

TEAM CONNEC T CONTAC T

Deepi ka S Email : connec t@apc .iisc .ernet .in Karth ik Rama swam y Phone: 91-080- 2293 2066 Kaushal Verma Manu R aja n Add ress: Archi ves and Pub lic atio ns Ce ll , Indian In sti tute of Science, Megha Pra kas h Bangalore 560 01 2 Nit hyanand Ra o Rohi ni Kr ishna murth y ht tp:/ /connec t.i isc.ac.i n

Design: Magnetyz | Printer : Sri Sudhind ra O ffset P rocess

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 1 Imp rov in g the qua lity of India's teache rs

Rohini Krishnamurt hy

Th e Talen t Devel opm ent Cen tre at th e Chall aker e cam pus train s aroun d 150 0 tea che rs at th e hig h sc hoo l, pre -un ive rsit y, und erg radu ate an d pos tgra dua te le vel eve ry yea r

According to the Annual Status of Education Repor t In 201 1, the TDC was inaugurat ed, and tra ined (ASER) 2017, a sur vey that assesses the quality of its first ba tch of ov er 100 hi gh sch ool teac hers in learning among students in rural areas, onl y science and mathema tics from Chitradurga 43 percent of children aged between 14 and 18 ca n district perform simple arithmetic operations like dividin g a three-digit number by a one-digit number .

These startling results are despite the government’ s Ho w it al l bega n initiati ve to make education a fundamental right fo r all children aged bet ween six and 14. Student In 20 09, when II Sc was cel ebrating its cent ena ry year , enrollment, which has been above 96 percent sinc e P Bal aram, the Di rector at the ti me, announ ced the 2009 – as recorded by ASER – has done li�le t o es tab lishment of a seco nd campus at Challak ere in address the issue. The reason behind this poor sho w Ch itr adurga dis trict, Kar nataka. After a visit to on e can perhaps be a�ributed to a dearth of well-traine d of the teache rs’ traini ng sessions be ing he ld at IISc, teachers emplo yed in schools. he saw the ne ed for a per manent fac ility, and began co nte mplating de veloping a centre for teac her traini ng To improve the standard of teaching in India, fro m at Ch allaker e. That sp urr ed the for mation of the Tale nt 2011, the government began screening aspirin g De vel opment Cen tre (TDC) on the sec ond camp us, teachers through the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) . ac cor ding to MS Hegde, CS IR Emer itus Scient ist and Unfortunately, this has been undermined by the fac t Co nve nor of the TDC. that aspirants ha ve performed poorly. For example, in 2016, the TET conducted in Karnataka saw onl y In 20 11, the TDC was in aug urated, and trai ned its first 20 percent of the aspirants clearing the test. As a ba tch of over 100 high sc hool te ach ers in sc ien ce and quick f ix, several states have exempted aspirant s ma the matics from Chitra dur ga dist ric t. from taking the TET, making the situatio n deplorable: a small section of students schooled b y these teachers with inadequate kno wledge, may g o on to train the next inf low of students, creating a The tr ansfo rmed sheep bre eding fa rm vicious circle. Other measures to strengthen th e quality of teaching in the country are necessary.

IISc, for its part, has been acti vely invol ved in se veral outreach activities created to impro ve the quality of teaching at schools and colleges for 30-odd years, and has now developed a permanent trainin g programme for teachers. connect.iisc. ac.i n | 2 Ph ot o: TD C Ph ot o: TD C Re osbemannerpossible th with teachers arming kno at aimed is training The invol Hegde, to stay. according 10-day science, their Understanding during day each tha hours more 10 spending teacher experiments, school 90 High over earlier. perform with dealt topics include the TDC centreon the experiments at by trainees followed the classes of morning life the in day A far so journey The trainees. 125 accommodate can residential that 32 quarters providing by Institute the gosupported Karnataka The laboratory. the for intensi10-day reno staf and faculty w IISc Several function. wa to Centre ready the internet, and water, electricity, kitchen. and hall dining classrooms,a to laboratories afte designing soon from swing that: full in began property dilapidated fro lease go on the property the farm. acquired breeding Institute sheep The par decrepit be and to abandoned used an once of Centre the houses that building TDC the of up Se�ing f i a b S t by T nt or ra e e ct h r okn eidtesee o – scenes the behind working ere s en v h e id i a iv t w n e i he v nd s b e v ee r it s eg eurdt ec tdnsi h bes the in students teach to required ledge to ciiis einn urclmfrth for curriculum designing activities, ation n s v a sbcigter pwt experiments. with up theory backing es e i i t e v rmn fKraaa Re Karnataka. of ernment e l n i l s t a e s a s, I he e l I be s b Sc t fi b i d ra n o ui t ofs s fo e g r l f i ce at s v d n ac r t i i riig n eigu equipment up se�ing and training, e i e g he ng or n n . t n u g a e his y i l for , –s n n k t a y d g n pr n the o a w c a o d w n u o s’ cake a asn’t ft ve d tr s l r gr er e W r et a rs s i d in c a t t h upyof supply the ith ti t g ee u a m he e n … e e l f um s f g me ing of w t v up ra migthamping e t f w t v re c he i or v n he reigtherseeing e an l.Thalk. ernment i qu wo n t t r he g ea be e i r p n ki c 1 me o r h e 0 n e e v s e - f g at al d nt r m t e d e a i ion n s e y e s r t s d te and as The fo the Tr a im pr ch ar by the De are ge wh st a re The and th the and ex Ap mi [p f A ad in mo tr be te im av in i n a s a R a a s l o e s r t o a i t l n e pa a d Ph ot o: TD C lo mi m s p d in nd s ea ch ch ld en ow og es ra th rm a es i und r in ra gr s et al tr la la pi ch s. act s e t rt be Ce af te po w en e e r r i s e o r e e e l a Ch i d s g i c b r a the a n t es t en t. e. ng c i a s c ir a t a rs rs ut ed a o f i k o e r 35 n n o e a m ed t s er h n e s n a l r m. of r m d It fi l t r e g e e om e t w l pr of s to ch . t e m a e l g f t m a a mi l i h a fi r in o ve c tr ’ by x To p r e r m the r y s d fr to the s r e the t n o n eir ore d ai a om ws e ts ing i s pa or e fa a e a e A or s d rk i e o yt rks e is dl the hi rc du de i g fe i di t n tr wi it cl ] m he of n c n y r s n tr t ra ef ed h i kn tr e il y al pr e s g h to i a m hey ing a , ng a c Ha fa si n s a a rs. ing o a nt t i in l h at es er R th s ss f a d m la s t h p s s t te ale o i ci o o m o u c t i i in o i n i s a ed . s i i es n b h r i c r v c at n, i d w n a ” c t p i on ng wh a T we i l s c i o a ts, or h t a a e f g i e e c i t h i n g u te h e o 20 n o h t l M i m h o l. l p n p h a r nm for the w is e n ies l g. a a a c t st o cu g, as i e m e em d d l a a ra r ur pr th d o t t Se t c l w po 1 o l o a sc o o ion y ed rt st g n - i c le he m In ge 6- re t s s l ng He ry p i e g e an ur t e l h for ra d o Ce v n i o sed r di p a ec r r t nts re ci l -u ark b r 2 o [ i r o e ea ta a ti an red i to J ra am j n of i d n (l r ui 0 s. n of u s u r g ve p nt t i to a n c al e n g ne u u is u 1 e al n t e g c de g ne c a s p n n r t 8 l S in ft) i on x 7, e t h m t e r a s a . t m t r r m i v g n t h ed 4 p t , s o one an i nt. e pe e c PhD o r e. , te A h n ” e f c e l ts t . e e be t, s ba a on me s sa 20 the i t r e e a r re a e d r cr c t El , f she h s om ra s n r te te si e w i lly a ter av He r t a c t “T s y , im e r r 1 t a w l ad he a ,” e oo n a an ays c �e ch, t t s] y a t a s, 6, ho m of k at c cl y, us m st bo a his d e e ch ch h or h m ad sc e tr sa id s use r ra or “ a n t i u f th ey an be n e d us ga es i the u ng r o r f a are s O to n e e a d r i H s y d v a t g o o d a e p s n i r e a r r v . s v ze s en i n n e ut e n r ro t e o n n at s. s ha w e re t r d ni “ for a e i me t o a fu nts on r ch i er , i og H g e ’t t n i r of T xa ac t n e r s y l ns e o i Ra a ai n q i, of t h d o,” g ves v ha th ms rg l hey g, e d, aw h m l se in . ui g r c a ot e connect.iisc. by e. c m i cl n 18 gde sa t o fr e am s “ o g su o r 1, a v s th th ees t A e we p n o b ad i p m H wh ha o n n si Ce a o y th e . en t d 1 n 8 He me ed sh r s s l rd m e e c c s t o m 2 e, p s e a e e i h u a wi er i e v b o n t n n g c 2 s g b d r n l i a t o hi , e a e e n y I f g o ch h f n a m tr g d e n sw ni (r o I , s w a o t n t re d g e i t S fo , s e a e h 10 n : e r s r i a d e i e c i gh w e t , ’ d n r e n r d r h t i 0 k e r a, g s e t s ) a c.i | n 3 Recognitio n training centre with large classrooms, an auditorium, and a cafeteria is underway. Hostels that are comin g Hegde points out that in the se venth year of th e up can accommodate 200 teachers at a gi ven time. programme he met the Additional Chief Secretar y for Primary and Secondary Education in Karnataka, In ad dition to TDC, the fa cility in Challak ere is al so Ajay Seth. Looking at the performance reports, cr eat ing a Sk ill Develo pme nt Cent re in asso cia tion Hegde describes Seth as being “stunned”. Th e wi th Hindust an Ae ron autics Lim ited: pe ople will be Centre evaluated the inspectors of subjects appointe d tr ain ed in va rio us engi nee ring di sci plines so as to by the government to train high school teacher s be nefit the manufa ctu ring se cto r. The fac ility is every year: they scored less than the regular teacher s ex pec ted to be gin func tio ning by Ma rch 2019. did. Acting on this, Seth issued orders to all th e Deputy Directors of Public Instruction in Karnatak a that they each send 120 teachers to the TDC fo r It is imperat ive to hire tra iners on a permane nt training. And from then on, government o fficial s basis, wit ho ut which the future of the TDC ha ve been keen on this programme. cannot be imagine d, says Hegde This programme received a further boost in Februar y 2015, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visite d IISc. He was shown a presentation on the progres s But de velopme nt could ha ve its ac com panying il l of IISc: two slides on TDC caught his a�ention an d effects. Far fr om hu man inhabi tat ion, the flora an d he expressed interest in the programme. This is ho w fa una at IISc ’s second cam pus was su rveyed by a team the go vernment decided to include TDC under th e fr om the Cent re for Ec olo gical Sc ien ces. Th is survey Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission o n re vea led that the camp us is home to the bl ack buck, Teachers and Teaching, a scheme aimed at boostin g In dian fox, bl ack -naped ha re and sev eral bi rds. BN teacher training in the country. IISc is the f irst centr e Ra ghu nandan, Ch airman, TDC says, “Tw enty-five under this mission. pe rce nt of the la nd wi ll be unto uch ed based on [the] ma ste r-plan [th at was] pr oposed. ” Apart from the Department of Science an d Technology and the Karnataka government, TDC ha s Ta lki ng about the chal len ges the TDC is fa cin g, Hegd e also received funding from the Ministry of Huma n ru es, “Curre ntly traine rs are em plo yed on a con tract Resource De velopment, beginning March 2015. ba sis .” It is im perative to hire tr ainers on a perman ent ba sis, without wh ich the fu ture of the TDC ca nnot be im agi ned, he sa ys. He su gge sts th at the In sti tute hi re, as teac her traine rs, as sis tant pr ofe ssors, ass ociate pr ofe ssors and pr ofess ors from the ph ysics, che mistry, ma the matics and biolog y st rea ms. Unde rli ning the ne ed to ha ve faculty who can ac tiv ely ca rry out re sea rch, He gde adds, “T eac hing re qui res inno vat ion and the way to innovat ion is th rou gh rese arc h. Trai ner s C wi tho ut rese arch experi enc e TD

o: mi ght not be go od at the job.” ot

Ph The TDC has had a succ ess ful run so far, and the pe rfo rmance The pr oposed bu ilding on the new ca mpus re por ts of tr ain ees in dic ate a po sit ive im pac t. Curren tly, ther e are no provis ions to me asu re the lo ng- term im pact of th e What is in store for TDC? pr ogr amme. As for fut ure pl ans, He gde adds, “We are tr ain ing The current facility is a temporary one. By Marc h ab out 1500-1 600 teache rs each 2019, it will shift to the new 1,500-acre campus whic h ye ar. The aim is to in cre ase this is not far from the current campus. Construction of a nu mber to 28 00,” he sa ys.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 4 REAPin g for th e stars Ranjini Raghunat h

A sc ienc e educ atio n init iati ve at th e planet ari um, whic h IIS c fac ult y membe rs con trib ute to , str ive s to tur n mor e loc al stu den ts in to sc ien tist s h t na u h g Ra ini j n a R to: o Ph

Na rma da Khare te aching Bio -REAP st udents

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 5 On a sunny Satu rday af ternoo n, as hund reds of Nur tur ing loca l talent cha ttering kids t hr ong the Jawahar lal Nehr u Planetarium to gaze at t he stars, a sma ll group of In t he ear ly ‘90s, n oted p hy sicist Bala I yer, then at colle ge students ma kes their way down to t he RR I, used to spend h is e veni ngs and wee kends at planetariu m’ s basement lectu re ha ll whe re the pl anetarium ex pl aining phys ics co ncepts to a Narmada Khare is teaching a class on “the hand ful of enthusias tic unde rgradu ate students. mo lecu les that make life”. Khare, an He was later joined by partic le phys icist S underg raduate bio logy i nst ruc tor at IISc, has bee n Lokanathan, cur ren tl y reti red from t he Uni versi ty spendi ng the previous few Satu rdays in troducin g of Rajasthan. them to the basi cs of gene tic s. “They men tio ned that they wanted to learn mo re about “Both Prof Iyer and P rof Lokanathan wer e de velo pment nex t, so toda y, I am begin ning wit h comm itted to the cause of science educat ion ,” say s bio molecu les ,” she says. Madhusu dan HR, senior scien tific o fficer at BASE. Worki ng with the late founde r-di rector of the Kha re’s c lasses a re part of the pl anetariu m’ s plane tarium, CV V ishveshwara, they iden tified co re popu lar Resea rch Educ ation Advancement concepts th at are important for a ca reer i n Prog ramme (REAP), a two -year wee ken d resea rch and began teachi ng regu lar wee ken d programme aimed at encouraging local classes, gradually giv ing s hape to a formal unde rgradu ate students to d ev elop a pass ion for programme in 2000. pursui ng resea rch. O rgan ized by the Banga lore Associat ion for Science Education (BAS E), it is REAP classes typica lly beg in at the start of the gea red not just towa rds making them unde rstan d academic yea r, and attendees are most ly scien tific concepts be tte r, but a lso to t rain t hem to underg raduate students f rom in and a roun d th ink like a resea rche r. Bangalore. Wi th gr owing popular ity, the prog ramme has a lso been ge tti ng studen ts from RE AP is a tw o-y ear wee ken d pr ogr amm e ai med places s uch as Shi moga, Tumku r, Ko lar an d at enc ourag ing loc al un der graduat e st udent s to Bagal kot in recent years, s ays Madhusud an. de vel op a pa ssi on fo r pu rsuing re sea rch Sev er al IISc fa culty members fr om t he Department of Phy sics and Cent re for High Ene rgy Phy sic s “I try to tell them about t he scient ists, h ow the se (CHEP) have been teaching there since it s ideas evolved, the sto ries beh ind the dis coveries ,” inceptio n. says Kha re. “A few ti mes, I ask them, i f th is was the quest ion, h ow would th ey go about so lving it? Or, “I used to te ach quite regu lar ly fr om 1995 ti ll about if this was the obser vatio n, wh at would t he 2010 ,” says Rohini Godbole, P rofesso r, CHE P, whos e quest ion be? ” classes usu ally focused on de velopmen ts i n theoretical p hysi cs. “ The s tudents one tal ked t o Students who s ign up for the p rog ramme spend a were very ent husiast ic and truly inte rested i n coup le of hours each wee kend learning f rom an d science .” inte racti ng wi th p ract ising scien tis ts, who exp lai n fundamental sc ient ific concepts in a mor e The p rog ram me is tai lored for first year and secon d in forma l and interactive s ett ing t han t heir co lleg e year BSc students, but a ttendees come from a class rooms. Courses in b iology and phys ics ar e variety of bac kgrounds, s ays V Venk ataraman, organ ized separ ate ly (REAP in Ph ysical Sciences, Chai r, Department of Physi cs, IISc. “Right now, i n and “Bio- REAP ”). Students in t he p hy sic s my class, t here a re students fr om second year BSc, prog ramme a lso have the oppor tuni ty to pursue a first year MSc, and from en gineer ing ,” he says. “ The resea rch p roject af ter two years. common thread is that th ey are comi ng voluntari ly. That makes t hem mo re inte rested in what we a re Over the last t wo decades, the programme ha s ta lking about and ma kes t hem want to learn more .” roped in d ozens o f leading scient ists fr om ac ross Bangalo re to volunteer the ir ti me over the As t he p hy sics program me g re w in po pulari ty, wee kend teaching the studen ts. In addit ion t o around 2006, BASE decided to o rganize a si milar faculty mem bers at RRI, IIA and ICTS, ma ny in iti ati ve for bio log y. At t hat time, S Maha dev an, phys ics facu lt y membe rs from IISc ha ve bee n Pro fessor at the Depart ment of Molecular inv olv ed with the p rogramme for sev eral years. Rep roductio n, D ev elopment and Genetic s, IISc, Faculty members fr om the D ivis ion of Bio logical was al ready volunteering for wee kend stud y Sciences a lso p lay ed a ke y role in sett ing up the sessio ns, and o ffered to he lp set it up. A comm it tee Bio- REAP in itiati ve, and continue to coo rdi nate the was then formed i ncluding se veral fac ult y programme. membe rs fr om IISc, and an ini tial th ree -year

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 6 program me t itled “Bio- REAP” was formulated, wou ld get ,” rec alls Vi jay kumar Kris hnamurt hy, which later changed to a t wo-y ear program me. faculty mem ber at ICTS, who atte nded REA P classes when he was pursuing BSc at ME S “The idea was to nurture local ta lent. Student s Co ll ege, B anga lore. B ala I yer, for e xamp le, wou ld from Banga lore were not getting in to scie nce and pick up a tex tbook from the US undergraduat e into ma jor scient ific ins titu tions inc luding IISc ,” says curriculum and so lv e t hose p rob lems, he s ays. Dipankar Nandi, P ro fessor at the Department of “Because it was taught by active scienti sts, i t Bioche mis try, IISc, who was the Bio-REA P made a huge di fferen ce hearing about so meth ing coo rdin ator until recent ly. “The effort was part of from someo ne who actua ll y uses it in their dai ly gi ving back to the ci ty.” work .”

Apart f rom inte ractions w ith leading sc ient ists an d Fa cul ty memb ers fro m th e Div isi on of Biol ogi cal connec tions wi th scien tific ins titu tion s, student s Sc ien ces pla yed a key ro le in se �in g up th e Bi o- also get to learn mo re about the various ca reer RE AP initia tiv e, an d co nti nue to co ordinat e th e options a vailable to t hem af ter gradu atio n, s ays pr ogr amme MRN Murth y, P ro fessor at the Molecular Biop hy sics Unit, IISc, the cur rent Bio -REA P coo rdinato r. The p rogra mme is typ ical ly broken up into s ev eral four- to five-week course m odu les sp read o ver “I was inte rested in resea rch si nce 10th sta nda rd, two years. It usual ly starts with ecol ogical but I did n’t k now whe re to go, what to do. I do n’t sciences, m oves on to basic sc iences such as cell come f rom a fami ly with a scie nti fic bac kground ,” bio logy and bioc hemi str y, and ends wit h says Kris hnamurth y. “The con necti ons t hat o pene d trans lat ional are as such as im muno logy an d up to various scie nti fic in sti tutes rea lly made a neurobiolog y. di fferen ce.” He went on to pursue h is PhD at IIS c under Sriram Rama sw amy, complete postdoctoral Most o f the cur rent B io- REAP ins tructors a re IIS c stin ts at Yale University and the Ma x-Planc k faculty mem bers. Ho wev er, faculty fr om other Inst itute, and then take up a faculty posi tion at ins titutes too, such as Ani ndya Sinha of the ICTS, Bangalo re. He has also been teaching at Natio nal Ins titute of Advanced Studies, Sanj ay REAP for the last three years. Sane of the N ational Cent re for Biolo gical Sciences, and KN Ganeshaiah and se veral o the rs Ranjani Vis hwan atha, an other REAP gradu ate, fr om t he University of Agricul tural Sciences h ave credits the p rogramm e’s app roach to hon ing t he been teachi ng at the program me for sev eral years. students ’ th ink ing p rocess for her suc cess ful Ma ny students who attended Bio- REAP over the admission into IISc ’s Integrated PhD programme. years h av e spent their summers in IISc labs. Some of them hav e comp leted the ir PhDs fr om t he “It de finite ly t rained us to see how we shou ld Ins titute. G raduate students f rom IISc ha ve a lso atte mpt the intervi ew s, wh at we shou ld look for, taught a few classes at Bio-REA P. how should we start thi nki ng about resea rch or sol ve p rob lems in ge neral,” she says. “Even thoug h the tr aini ng was in phy sics, it he lped me a tten d “No t a tutor ial cen tre ” chem istry intervi ew s and exams. I do n’ t th ink I would h ave di rec tly quali fied wit hout t his k ind of At i ts core, the p rog ramme see ks to i ncu lcate a ‘thi nki ng p rocess ’ trai nin g.” Vish wan atha did her deeper understand ing and app rec iation of science, Integr ated PhD under DD S arma, P ro fessor at the and n ot me rely coach students to clear Ph D Solid State and Struc tural C hemi stry U nit, IISc, an d ent rance e xams, acco rding to Ma dhusudan. Ther e is cur rent ly a faculty member at JN CA SR. She ha s are no screening tests for appl icants, and studen ts also returned to teach at REA P. sign up for the p rogramme purely out of inte rest . About 120-130 students si gn up for the c lasse s Like Kris hnamurt hy and Vish wan atha, about 100 in itia lly, but by the fifth or si xth c lass, the number “R EA Pers” ha ve gone on to pursue success ful tric kles d own to about 35-40, he po ints out. “We resea rch ca reers in India and ab road since it s ma ke it very clear to them that this is not a tutorial inceptio n, s ays Madhusu dan. centre .” “When I joined IISc, I was the on ly integ rated P hD The in formal sett ing a lso gives students the student fr om Ban galo re in the ten years that t he oppor tunity to study scie nce without the pressu re prog ramme had been ru nni ng,” says Vis hwanatha. of exams or deadlines, delve deeper in to concept s “N ow I can see that every yea r, the re a re at least a with in the ir curricu lum, and also learn more about few peop le coming in to Bangalore ins titutes for topics not in the ir sy ll abus. “It was much mor e PhD and Integ rated PhD p rog ram mes from REA P.” rigo rous than the co ll ege l ev el expos iti on t hat we

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 7 Learning

Nit hyanand Rao E C C os: ot Ph

set up in 1975. “ We ha ve dif ferent programmes fo r Th e Centr e fo r Con tin uin g these dif ferent target groups, and each programme Edu cat ion ha s somet hin g has a faculty member of the Institute as th e coordinator,” says GL Si vakumar Babu (Professor , fo r every one Department of Civil Engineering), Chair of CCE.

One of the oldest such programmes is the Qualit y The Centre for Continuing Education (CCE) gre w Impro vement Programme (QIP), begun in 1970 out of an a wareness that, for institutions like IISc, nationally, and in 1972-73 in IISc (later brought unde r imparting knowledge to people beyond thei r the purview of CCE). It aims to “upgrade th e boundaries is an important part of their service to th e expertise and capabilities” of teachers at engineerin g community. Continuing education, as a brochur e colleges that are accredited by the All India Council from CCE’s early years states, is the idea that th e for Technical Education (AICTE), by enabling them t o education of professionals, because of the rapi d pursue M Tech and PhD programmes at QIP centres. strides in science and technology, should b e IISc is one of the nine major QIP centres, havin g “continued in short spans of time over their entir e awarded 227 PhD and 236 MTech degrees under thi s career rather than be conf ined to a single extensi ve programme since 1980. stretch”, and that this can be achie ved with “a complete integration of education with work durin g But there’s not much demand for MTech admission s their producti ve lifespan”. through QIP now, says G Nara yanan (Professor , Department of Electrical Engineering), th e Aiming to meet the continuing education needs of coordinator for QIP, because most teachers at R&D labs, industries and college teachers, CCE wa s engineering colleges these days already have a n

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 8 MTech. From the small number who apply, only on e Ou tsi de of Pr ofici ence and QIP, faculty me mbers ca n has been selected in each of the last three years. Fo r al so offer sh ort-term co urses, of varying du ration. the PhD programme too, the number of selection s Up to 20 su ch cour ses are he ld each year, a�e nded by have come down in recent years because of a deart h ar ound 500 pa rti cipants. Co urses are also co ndu cted of quality applicants, as well as the fact that man y up on request fr om orga nis ations such as BH EL, who applicants choose to go to other, smaller, QIP centre s se nd their em plo yees for tr ainin g. which are perceived to have a less rigorous academi c environment. Only four PhD applicants wer e Th rou gh such in itiativ es, studen ts, college te achers admi�ed in each of the last two academic year s and pr ofessio nals who may not ot her wise be ab le to under QIP, with 15 currently on roll . a� end courses at IISc “c an come and experi ence for th ems elves the ac ademic qu ality of II Sc,” say s The PhD students who enter through QIP stay o n Na ray anan. Th is also effective ly serves as an campus for three years, and are then expected to g o ad ver tisement for IISc, po tential ly enlargi ng, by wo rd- back to their colleges and continue their researc h of -mo uth, the po ol of st ude nts who ap ply for the work. But this proves di fficult for most people due t o tr adi tional aca demic pr ogr ammes at the Inst itu te. the teaching workload at their colleges, say s Nara yanan. CCE pa rticipa tes in two na tional- lev el educ ati onal pr ogr ammes, the Nation al Program me on Tech nol ogy Th ere are al so week-lo ng courses for college te acher s En han ced Lear ning (NPT EL) and Gl obal Initia tive of or gan ised un der QIP, sp ons ored by AICT E. Ar oun d Ac ade mic Netw orks (GIA N) – these are coordi nat ed 20 su ch cour ses have be en organis ed in each of the by L Umanand (P rofesso r, Departm ent of Elec tro nic la st two ye ars, an incr ease from the handful th at us ed Sy ste ms Engi nee ring) and AG Ra makrish nan to be conduc ted earlie r. These co urs es bene fit (P rof essor, Dep artment of Electr ical Engine eri ng), hu ndr eds of te ach ers fr om enginee ring coll ege s. re spe ctively. CCE issu es certificates on behalf of “T eac hers are fo rce-mul tip liers, bec ause go od NP TEL for the co urses co ndu cted at IISc th rou gh this te ach ers can then make a differ ence to hu ndr eds of pr ogr amme. It al so cond ucts GIAN co urses at II Sc, st ude nts they te ach,” sa ys Naray ana n, who has wh ere eminent in ternati onal expe rts are in vit ed to ta ught QIP sh ort -term co urs es. “If yo u’re able to te ach week-l ong courses – one or mo re IISc fa culty co nne ct with th em, their re sponse is good. Some of as co urse co ord inators – on spec ial ised subj ect s. th em have wr i�en very mo ving and tou ching co mme nts in th eir feed bac k.” In ad dition to conduct ing courses as part of th ese va rio us prog ram mes, CCE is also in vol ved in Pr ofici ence is a uni que prog ram me that offers cou rses su ppl ementing the trad iti onal cu rri culum. It has a op en to anyo ne with the pr erequis ite s. These ar e Cu rri culum De vel opment Cell which wa s, unti l se mes ter-long co urses on va ried sub jects – fro m re cen tly, fu nded by the AI CTE. It was meant to Fr ench langua ge courses to ones on de ep le arn ing – en cou rage fa cul ty memb ers to prod uce learni ng he ld for two or three ho urs a we ek during eve ning ma ter ials su ch as book s. The Cell, now fund ed by ho urs so th at work ing prof ess ionals can a�end af ter CC E, still pr ovi des su ch support to faculty me mbers, th eir office ho urs. Th ese courses are at th e and has prod uced educat ion al kits. A lar ger effort to po stg raduate le vel – mos tly taug ht by IISc fa culty but re ach out to sc hool and co llege st ude nts is th e so me from ou tsi de IISc too – and are often cou rses Ex ten sion Le ctu re Prog ram me, which se es fa cul ty th at are offer ed to II Sc stude nts. Ar ound 50 su ch fr om the Inst itu te volu nte er to gi ve talks on topics of co urs es were offered la st year, be nefit ing wo rki ng pr ofe ssionals who need to acquire new know led ge. th eir choice at schools and coll eges across Ka rnataka who se nd in re que sts to the CCE offic e. Th is initiat ive, be gun in 1990, was disc ont inued in 20 10 but wa s “I t’s not ju st the pape rs from II Sc that sh ould go ou t,” re sta rted in 20 16. This ye ar, ab out 200 re que sts for sa ys Narayan an of these co urses. “The body of kn owl edge th at is pres ent with the fa culty of the le ctu res have be en rece ived from sc hools and co llege s, In sti tute sh ould be av ail able to so ciety and sh ould sa ys M Neth aji (Chief Re sea rch Sc ien tist, De par tment be nefit the practi tio ners who co uld use su ch of In organic and Physic al Chemist ry), the coo rdinato r kn owl edge.” of th is prog ram me. About 50 such le ctures were held la st year, al tho ugh the nu mber of fa culty pa rti cipat ing is st ill smal l. The Pr of ici ence pr ogr amme – who se coor din ator is P Bal achandra (P rincipal Re search Sc ientist , De par tment of Ma nagement St udies) – was st art ed in In fa ct, for all these pro grammes to suceed and grow, 19 80, when it was prac tic al for peo ple to co mmu te to gr eat er part ici pation from faculty of the Ins titute is a� end evening cl asses af ter work. Th is is no lo nger ne ces sary. “I ’d like to en courage fa culty me mbe rs to the ca se for many who are intere sted to ta ke these co me forward and partic ipa te in the variou s co urs es, so the courses are also offered on line now. pr ogr ammes of CC E,” sa ys Sivakum ar Babu.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 9 Climat e change, an evenin g in Paris, an d a calculato r An int era ctiv e clim ate cha nge cal cul ato r fro m IIS c revea ls from IISc t o th e pat h we ca n tak e to ens ure tha t glob al te mper atu res ar e see into our kep t in che ck. It als o show s us futur e th e pat h to disast er

Karthik Rama sw amy On a sun ny spring afternoon last year at the Ros e Ga rden in the White House, the US President Donald Trump made a sweeping p roclamation. “We’re getting out,” he declared, referring to hi s intention of walking away from the Pari s Agreement, which the US has n ot on ly signed, but also ra ti fied. As part o f the agreement, the US, th e biggest carbon polluter in history, has promised t o voluntarily cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26 t o 28 percent in the next few years. If it reneges on it s pledge, wh at would be the consequences for th e global fight against climate change? There is n o st raight for ward an swer to the question, but we now have a clim ate change calcul at or to help u s understand the repercussions of such a move. I t has been developed based on research by Raji v Kumar Ch aturvedi, Senior Researcher at th e Divecha Centre for Climate Change, and hi s collabo rat or Jeremy Woods f rom Imperial Colleg e London in the UK.

Since 1880, the ave rage surface global tempe ra ture has increased by at least 0.85°C, an d two-thi rds o f this warming has occurred since 1 97 5. The e ffects of the change in temperature ar e already evident : sea l evels are rising, sea ice an d glaciers are me lting, he at waves are be comin g more frequent, and core ecological processes ar e being disrupted. And this is just Act One of the unfolding climate change drama because of a phenomenon that scie ntists call climate inertia – the del ay in the eart h’s response to its warming.

The earth’s temperature has been and continues t o be in fluenced by natural factors like volcani c connect.iisc. ac.i n | 10 s n / e s mo n m ce i o L C e ns v i o t m ea r m C s / Co n e o pe v r ti a ho mm T o re k C C r ia A/ s d Ma S n e o m sy: NA m e ki i rt m sy: u W e Co / rt co u a i se n

The co rre spo nding incr ease in gl obal carbon ge co e ed a

em issio ns fr om hu man ac tiv iti es c m i ge Im Li k a Im Wi The amount of C O2 in the atmosphere ha s The dr ama tic incr ease in the av era ge global increased f rom 280 parts per million (ppm) in 1750 te mpera ture in re cent human hist ory to 406 ppm in the first hal f of 20 17. And h ow muc h more CO 2 and other greenhouse gases we pump in to the atmosphere in the coming years will determine how violently the earth responds t o eruptions and solar irradiance. But the main villai n warming. in the recent spurt in warming which began with the industrial revolution is carbon dioxide (CO 2). CO 2 – As we prepare for an uncertain future, the bu rden called a greenhouse gas because it t raps he at in th e of making decisions to cut CO 2 emissions rests o n eart h’s atmosphere n ot unlike h ow glass t raps he at the re commend ations o f poli cy makers and th e within a greenhouse – is released by the burning of political will of world leaders, leaders whose trac k fossil fuels like coal, n atu ral gas and pet roleum, re cord when it comes to fighting clim ate chang e formed over millions of years f rom the remains of has been sketchy at best. But on the evening of 1 2 plants and animals. December 2015, the world got an ear ly Christma s gift when 19 5 countries came tog ether in Paris an d demonst ra ted a willingness to act on th e Th is positive fee dback mak es CO 2 impending global crisis.

a de adl y gas , an d th e pri nci pal dri ver / e s

of glo bal war min g n ce i L

Surprisingly, CO 2 is not the most abundant ns o

greenhouse gas in our atmosphere. That honou r m

goes to water vapour. However it is the increase i n m

CO2 since the 1800s that has triggered the current Co ve surge in global tempe ra tures. When th e i s at n e concentration of CO 2 goes up, it unleashes a chai n o Cr reaction of sorts. Besides its own contribution t o m m The re lat ionsh ip betwe en carbon di oxi de and te mpe rature in sy: the greenhouse e ffect, CO raises the humidit y e 2 Co the An tar ctic over the pa st 80 0,0 00 ye ars obta ined by rt u a levels in the atmosphere due to evaporation fro m i st udy ing ice co res wh ich pr ese rve info rma tion abo ut ou r co warming, which in turn ampli fies the warmin g pr ehi stor ic cl ima te. St udi es have sho wn th at chang es in ed m i ge k effect. The warmer tempe ra tures melt ice on se a te mpe ratur es close ly follow ch ang es in ca rbon dio xide lev els a

and land. N ow this is a double whamm y. Ice, bein g Im Wi white, re flects most of the solar radiation that fall s on it. The loss of ice increases the amount of The rare unanimity however comes at a price. As incoming solar radiation absorbed which now get s part of the agreement, each country determines it s trapped by the excess greenhouse gases. An d own emission target or NDC (Nationall y when ice melts, it also increases the amount of Determined Contribution) which it will start to wor k wate r in ou r oceans. The excess wate r no w towards meeting only in 2020. And unlike the Kyot o absorbs additional heat. This positive feedbac k Prot ocol adopted in 19 97, NDC targets are n ot makes CO 2 a deadly gas, and the principal drive r binding and there is no central mechanism t o of global warming. enforce them.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 11 In spite of its drawbacks, the Paris Agreement has a The COP21 calcul at or was d eveloped when lot riding on it. But wh at happens i f countries tre at Chaturvedi visited Imperial College London in 2015. NDCs as mere lip service, given the non-bindin g nature of the agreement? Or what if they meet thei r Ch aturvedi has a long associ ation with IISc (he g ot ambitious targets? Or what happens if a countr y his PhD f rom the Centre for Ecological Science s backs out of the agreement, as the US is and was l ater the N ational Envi ronmental Science s thre atening to d o? Fell ow at the Centre for Sustainable Technologies) . In the absence o f an other earth in which to d o He describes the global calcul at or as th e experiments, climate scientists address thes e “precursor ” to the one d eveloped by Financial issues by performing simul ations with the help of Times . “We f rom IISc had d eveloped three mathem atical models. The simul ations predict th e scenarios for tempe ra ture increase for the global like ly scenarios for global tempe ra ture change s calculator. I used its algorithms for this calculator. ” assuming di fferent emission levels in the comin g years. The calcul at or, which won the Ro yal Statistical Society’s Statistical Excellence in Journalism awar d John Burn-Mu rdoch and Pilita Clark o f th e Financial in 2016, is aimed at anyone interested in climat e Times have taken this a step furthe r. Using the action, especial ly policy makers and world leaders. work of Ch aturvedi and Woods, th ey have designe d For instance, it can tell them what the global the COP21 calcul at or, an inte ractive tool hosted o n tempe ra ture increase is like ly to be in 2100 i f all th e the newspaper’s website, to help us visualise ho w countries live up to the pledges th ey have made. global temperatures could increase from what i t was be fore the d awn o f the industrial revolution. “It also tells us wh at the scenarios will be i f th e The virtual device is called the COP21 calculato r major countries do wh at th ey are capable o f doin g after the o fficial name of the Paris Climate Chang e beyond the promises they have made and als o Conference : the 21st Annual Meeting of th e what might happen if they don’t do anything, ” Conference o f P arties – the countries th at make u p Chaturvedi says. The best and the worst cas e the United N ations F ram ework on Clim ate Change. scenarios for emissions o f each country, he explains, take int o account the size of it s economy, its expecte d economic growth an d population growth. “Fo r instance, EU emission s peaked in the yea r 1t 979, but India will not be peaking in it s emissions any time soo n as it is a developin g economy and has t o grow. However, it i s important that the ne w infrastructure is buil t with renewables an d low carbon alternatives. ” l a y Ra jiv Ku mar Ch atu rvedi Go fr om the Di vec ha Centr e. a j

u The cl ima te chang e n

a ca lcula tor is ba sed on the T re search of Ch atu rvedi and o: Je remy Woods from ot Im perial Co lle ge London Ph

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 12 The calcul at or all ows users to build their own Climate scientists and world leaders are i n models by selecting emission l evels in one of agreement that we cannot allow a temperatur e three time periods (2020-2030, 2030-2050 an d spike of than more than 1.5°C, or at worst, 2°C. 2050-2100). Built into these models ar e Holding global temperatures to this threshold i s greenhouse gas emissions from 1870 to 2012 fo r also the goal of the Paris Agreement. Even thi s various countries. Ac cording to its p rojections, i f all tempe ra ture increase could have seriou s consequences for the planet, but m ay be the bes t countries choose to do nothing to cut thei r possible outcome given how much greenhous e emissions, the temper ature increase will be about gas has already been pumped in to the 4.7°C ( at a p robability of 50%) and could be as hig h atmosphere. So will the pledges made at Pari s as a whopping 6°C. The consequences of a help us keep the temperature increase to less tha n tempe ra ture increase o f 4 °C to 6°C are like ly to b e 2°C? Unlikely, according to the COP21’ s disast rous for most life forms including humans. comput ations. “Going by the current pledges, we The world will see he atwaves so dead ly in some may land up at a round 2 .7°C at the end o f th e parts o f the world, especial ly the t ropics, th at i t centur y. There is a fringe chance th at this might would be impossible for humans to survive even even go up to close to 4°C, ” Ch aturvedi elabo ra tes. for more than a f ew hours. “ If ambient air TW [we t- bulb tempe rature] exceeds 35°C (typical huma n body skin temperature under warm conditions) , It is ai med at an yone in ter ested in metabolic he at can no longer be dissipated. cl imate acti on, esp eci ally po lic y Human exposure to TW of around 35°C for even a few hours will result in death even for the fittest of ma kers an d wor ld le ade rs humans under shaded, well-ventilated conditions, ” write Eun-Soon Im and her co-authors in a recent However, the genial climate scientist is not entirel y paper in Science Advan ces . “This will be a n pessimistic. “These targets are for the period 2020- existential thre at. It is not an option! ” echoe s 2030. Some countries like India have plans to meet Chaturvedi . their target be fore 2030. And after that period, if all countries go thi s extra mile, we can still keep the temperatur e increase to less than 2°C. So we have some le g room.” But he ends wit h a warning. “ It [th e calcul at or] sh ows th at the actions we tak e today are mor e important than th e actions we tak e tomorrow. ”

And oh, if the U S chooses to be indi fferent to its Paris pledge an d di

e long term climate goals, rv while all the majo r u

at economies keep thei r h

C promises, Chaturvedi’ s r

a model sh ows th at th e temper ature rise will be um

K greater by about 0. 3°C. v i j a R y: s

te The net im pact of the Par is Agr eement and oth er cli mate polici es r u on global tem peratures acc ording to the projections of the COP21 o c calc ula tor (BAU = Busi ness as us ual; GHG = Gre enh ouse gases); ge No te: Te mpe rature proj ect ions at 50% probab ili ty a Im

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 13 ‘Not bei ng in Del hi limi ts ho w much influen ce we c an ha ve’

Karthik Rama sw amy e g n a Ch e t ma i l C r o f tre n Ce ha c ve i D s: o t o Ph

The Di vecha Centre for Climate Change was set up in IISc in 2009 with funding from US- based philanthropists, Arjun and Diana Di vecha, and the Grantham Foundation for th e Protection of the Environment, founded by British investor Jeremy Grantham. Since it s establishment, the Centre has focussed primarily on research and on raising awareness o n climate change issues.

Up until last year, the Divecha Centre was headed by J Srinivasan. Srinivasan’ s association with the Centre continues – he is now a Distinguished Scientist. In a brie f interview to Connec t, he spoke about yet another goal of the Centre: to help shape policies on climate change, and the hurdles it faces in this endeavour .

What was the mandate of th e you ’re happy doing science, we’ll support that. But you have to do two more things. You have to do a Di vecha Centre when it was set up ? major outreach ef fort so that your science gets known to the public, and secondly, you must engage wit h the government so that you have some inf luence o n When the Divecha Centre started, we, being from a government policy.” So since that time, we’ve bee n science institute, were very keen on doing research. invol ved in engaging with the go vernment, but not Arjun Divecha and Jeremy Grantham said, “Fine, i f as much as we would’ ve liked to.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 14 In what ways ha ve you Not be ing in De lhi definite ly limits how much in flue nce we can have. See, when ever the go ver nment engaged with the government ? has to make a dec ision, th ey cons ult people who are av ail able im med iately. Th ey call a meeting, ha ve a di scu ssion and ma ke a dec ision. So most pe ople who At the Divecha Centre we now have many facult y ha ve serious po licy in ter ests ha ve to be in De lhi. Al l with expertise in dif ferent areas. They are part of the ma jor po lic y-relat ed institu tio ns and NGOs will commi�ees in ISRO, Ministry of Earth Sciences, ha ve at least one office in Delhi be cause th ey know Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) an d th at at very sh ort no tic e, peop le are call ed for Department of Science and Technology. So we’ ve co nsu ltation s. been involved in discussions on several issues wher e we provide our expertise. And this has some impact . I wou ld also ar gue that a big we akn ess of our Instit ute Take for example the current emphasis on sola r is th at we do n’t have a soc ial sc ien ces or hu manitie s energy. I’ ve been arguing for solar for the last 40 de par tment. Res earch in th ese fields was part of th e years. Not many took me seriously. They would sa y vi sion of our fo under JN Ta ta. I can tell you that ab out things like, “It is not practical, it is costly, it i s 30 ye ars ag o, JRD Tata [w ho was also the Pr esi dent of unreliable, there’s not enough land.” But slo wly th e the Co urt of II Sc] remi nded the Ins titute that that wa s viewpoint has changed. in the charter and tried ve ry ha rd to conv ince us to st art such a dep artment. And there ha ve al so been In fact, well before the Divecha Centre started, i n a� emp ts to ma ke the Ma nag ement St udi es 2002, we [the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceani c De par tment fo cus more on po licy iss ues. Th ough Prof Sciences] made a big impact during the Asian brown Am ulya Reddy [fo rmer Ch air person of the cloud controversy [researchers from the Centr e Ma nag ement St udi es Depa rtm ent] and Pr of Ba lar am provided clarif ications on se veral claims in th e [f orm er Dire ctor of II Sc] tried very hard, it didn’t aftermath of a report published by the Unite d ha ppe n. But I th ink the In stitute ne eds to ha ve a Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) on a pr oper humani ties and soc ial scie nces depa rtm ent layer of air pollution seen over parts of Asia durin g wh ich should be intera cti ng with all the sc ien ce and the winter months]. India had to f ight a case in th e en gin eering dep artment s. UNEP meeting. And at that time, we wrote detaile d position papers on why their argument was not right . I must also po int out that resear che rs work ing in th ese fields in pl aces like TISS [T ata Inst itu te of So cial Sc ien ces, Mu mba i] or in ot her su ch institu tes do n’t Peo ple in De lhi al ways co nsu lt us jus t as in ter act much wi th scie nti sts ei the r. So to me both th ey co nsult oth er stak eho lders an d I’ m si des do not und erstand ea ch othe r. This I thi nk is a su re that ou r inp ut goe s int o the ir th inkin g ma jor limita tio n. If we wa nt to ma ke a prop er policy in the ar ea of cl ima te ch ang e, we ne ed to unde rst and th e sc ien ce, know how to co mmu nicate the scienc e, and kn ow how to fo rmulate po licies. So whenever the government needs any input, the y consult us. Even recently, I got an email from MoE F seeking inputs for an IPCC [Inter-Go vernmental Panel on Climate Change] meeting on the Asia n If we wan t to ma ke a pro per pol icy in th e brown cloud issue which we thought had bee n ar ea of clim ate cha nge , we nee d to resolved. It is now called short-lived climat e pollutants. We’re saying that we should not ge t un der stand th e sci ence, kno w ho w to distracted by this issue and instead must keep our co mmu nicate th e sc ience , an d kno w ho w eyes on reducing CO 2 emissions. So people in Delhi to for mulate po licies al ways consult us just as they consult othe r stakeholders and I’m sure that our input goes int o their thinking. But you must remember that we ar e not a full-f ledged policy centre. On our part, even thou gh we don’t ha ve such a de par tment, we at Dive cha have tr ied to find so meo ne to lo ok at po licy issu es. But pe ople who ha ve serious po licy and po licy rese arch intere sts tend to go to II Ms What are the hurdles that th e or ev en IITs wh ere there are big dep artments in soci al sc ien ces and hum anities. Th ey th ink that th ey may not Centre faces in being mor e fit here in IISc be cau se it is a pure sc ien ce in sti tution. active in shaping climat e But now we are wo rking ev en hard er to get a po licy pe rso n, some thi ng that the Direct or [of II Sc] is also policy ? ve ry keen on. I’m sure it ’ll happ en soon.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 15 Nanotechnolog y for the Natio n Nit hyanand Rao SE N e C P/

The Indian Nanoelectronics Users ’ U N I :

Program (INUP) at IISc and II T y s e

Bombay is training researcher s rt u o across the country to build national c s o t

capability in nanoelectronics o Ph

Since it began in 2008, the Indian Nanoelect ronic s INUP is part of a larger effort to meet the goals of User s’ Prog ram (INUP) has received exceptional the N ational Poli cy in Elect ronics : to build u p positive feedback from its participants. Amon g national capabilities for a larger elect ronics R&D an d them are college teachers who say that thei r industry base that can serve the domestic an d participation in the training programme helpe d export markets ra ther than h aving to re ly on them become b etter teachers because th ey ha d imports. “We [India] missed the bus for the the opportunity, for the first time, to handle sili con microelectronics revolution. The government didn’ t wafers – the critical component used to fabricat e want it to happen for nanoelect ronics too, ” says the inna rds of elect ronic d evices. Navakanta Bh at, Chairperson o f CeNSE and th e present Principal Investigator of INUP. “The aim is t o “This was a complete ly unanticip ated bene fit, ” sa ys create human resources in this area, a critical mass SA Shivashankar, a visiting professor at the Centr e of people who can contribute. This will create a for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE), IISc. “I t ‘mu ltiplier effec t’, where the people we t rain will go wasn’t a part of our proposal at all.” (Shivashanka r out and in fluence others. ” was the Principal Investig at or for INUP until he retired in 2012. ) INUP is supported by the Ministry of Elect ronics an d Inform ation Technology, which funded the Centre s of Excellence in Nanoelectronics at IISc and II T Co lle ge teac her s sa y tha t th eir Bomb ay. These t wo institutions were then taske d with implementing INUP, making available thei r pa rti cipatio n in th e tr ain ing pro gra mme facilities to researchers f rom a round the countr y. he lpe d th em be come be �er tea che rs be cau se the y ha d th e op por tunity, fo r th e The th ree-l evel progra mme is op en to PhD stu dents firs t ti me, to handle sil icon wa fer s and fa culty me mbers at in stituti ons across In dia. Fo r the Le vel 1 Fam iliariz ati on Work sho p, about 10 0 pa rti cipants at tend le ctu res for th ree da ys, and get an in troduct ory tour of the faci lit ies at Ce NSE. Th ese The idea behind INUP is simple : The st ate-o f-the-ar t are pa rtici pan ts who, as part of the appl ica tion facilities and the expertise at CeNSE would b e pr oce ss, ha ve submitt ed a poster ou tlining a made available to the wider research community i n pr opo sal for re search usi ng the fac ilities at CeNSE. India to work on their ideas. These are p rojects th ey Ov er the ye ars, it was fo und th at partici pat ion from would otherwise h ave been unable to work o n ce rta in parts of Indi a, such as the northe ast ern because they didn’t have access to the facilities no r st ate s, was low, which pr ompted pro active see king the training to use them. of pa rticipa nts from th ese regi ons by cond uct ing

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 16 Le vel 1 prog rams ther e. Such ou tst ation wo rks hops, wh ich have be en condu cted in Ut tar akhand and Ra jas than to o, now fo rm one of ab out half -a- dozen Level 1 worksho ps offered ea ch year.

Pa rti cipants who have at tended a Le vel 1 cou rse, or who are ot her wise eligib le, at tend a Lev el 2 Ha nds - on Tr aining wor kshop at the faci lit ies at Ce NSE. Th is is a two-week pr ogram me for about 30 part ici pants, co nsi sting of fo ur mo dul es: on ME MS/ NEMS (m icr o/nano- ele ctromec han ical sy ste ms) fa bri cation, na noelect ron ics fa bri cation, ph oto voltaic s, and gas se nsors. The se modu les are run in para llel with five to seven pa rticipa nts each, tr ain ing th em on the too ls that can be us ed to re ali se their re search pr oposal. Ce NSE is es peciall y A participant of a Hands-on Training Progra m presenting her proposal su ited for such traini ng, given the facili ties it has fo r ev ery thing fr om fabri cat ion to pa cka ging, not us ual ly found to gethe r, in the form of the Na tional Na nof abricat ion Facili ty, the Mi cro and Na no All th is wo rk means th at more th an a dozen pa pers Ch ara cteriza tion Faci lit y, the Sys tem Engi nee ring are pu blish ed every ye ar as part of INUP, no ne of Fa cil ty, and the MEMS & IC Pack agi ng Faci lit y. wh ich have II Sc facul ty as co-a uth ors, a del iberate “T hese faci lit ies at II Sc are co mpa rable to the best po lic y. “It is their wo rk. They ha ve taken the init iat ive in the worl d, ” say s Bhat. and put in the work, ” say s Bha t.

At the end o f the L evel 2 workshop, th e The tr aining pr ogramme has now been offer ed for participants have to make a presentation with a re sea rchers from Indi a’s neighb our ing coun tri es too detailed research p roposal, where th ey receiv e – such as Sri La nka, Ba nglad esh, Myan mar, feedback f rom facu lty members and technical sta ff Ma ldi ves, Vi etn am, and Ka zakhstan – throu gh the at CeNSE. “Based on these inputs and the trainin g In dian Tech nic al and Eco nomic Co ope ration (IT EC) the y have received , the y ma y have to modif y thei r pr ogr amme of the Mini stry of Ex ter nal Affairs. research p roposals, and members of facu lty an d Fu rth er, In dia ’s expe rie nce with IN UP was pre sented the technical sta ff here help them do th at, ” says at the Univer sit y/Gov ern ment/In dus try Sanje ev Kumar Shri vast ava, Coo rdin at or an d Mi cro /Nanote chn ology (U GIM) Symp osi um – a Technolog y Manage r of INUP. The y then have t o pr omi nent co nfe rence in the field of resubmit thei r proposals , which are evaluated b y a mi cro /nanote chn ology – whe re, Bh at says, committee. Some are asked to modify thei r re pre sentati ves from ot her coun tri es expr ess ed research p roposal further, and selecte d in ter est in re plicati ng this pr ogr amme. Un like othe r participants come back to work on their propose d su ch network ed training pr ogram mes elsewh ere in project – the thi rd l evel of the p rog ramme. “ At a ny the wo rld, par ticipan ts of INUP – who may find it point of time, there are one or two people her e di fficult to ob tain re sea rch gr ants – do not have to doing long -term p rojects, ” says Shri vast ava. pa y fo r acce ss to the fac ilities. In fact , th eir tr avel and ac co mmod ati on cos ts to o are ta ken ca re of. In its Phase I, from 2008 to 2014, INUP exceeded it s “T his frees them up to fo cus on th eir work he re,” targets. It is current ly in its Phase II, which will las t sa ys Bhat. Th ey also get to tap the expert ise of till 2019 – but the targets h ave been met in just t wo fa cul ty memb ers at II Sc. years. So far, INUP has t rained more than 4200 researchers f rom 450 institutions ac ross India, Th rou gh its web site, IN UP has ma de efforts to co vering a wide swa th o f institutions, includin g ne two rk its par ticipan ts with one an other and with some o f the II Ts and NI Ts. Ma ny participants come pr osp ective par ticipan ts. A stud ent or fa cul ty from a from smaller, lesse r-kn own, pri vate engineerin g pa rti cular in sti tutio n, fo r inst anc e, can look up wh o colleges, some of whom have gone on to file fo r el se has pa rti cipated fr om their re gion and get to patents for their work. This has resulted in mor e kn ow what ki nds of pr oje cts have be en than 250 PhD theses based part ly or whol ly on im ple mented. work done through INUP at CeNSE; it has als o resulted in about 210 published papers and 1 7 Ba sed mostly on word-o f-m outh co mmu nicatio n, patents filed /awarded. The p rojects th ey have IN UP has se en an incr eas ing numb er of appl ica nts worked on range from synthesis of nanomaterial s ov er the ye ars. “Its po pul arity, wi th the inc reasing and nanostructures to fabric ation o f nanod evice s pa rti cipatio n, shows th at it’s been a reso und ing and cha racteris ation o f their per formance. su cce ss,” say s Shi vas han kar.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 1 7 CST’s innovation s and their impac t on the groun d Megha Prakas h

A ce ll fo r th e Ap plica tio n of Sc ien ce an d Te chnology to Rur al Ar eas (AS TRA), no w Cen tre fo r Su sta inable Te chn ologi es (C ST), wa s cr eated in 19 74 to ini tiate an d pr omote wor k of rura l re lev ance as a weapon aga inst Tr ue to it s ini tial ma nda te, th e tec hnologi es po ver ty. IIS c’s the n Di rec tor , de vel oped at th e Cen tre ove r th e yea rs hav e Sa tis h Dh awan , wh o was no t on ly bene fi�ed co mmu nities by bui lding de epl y co nce rne d ab out sci ence ec o-f riendly toi lets, low -cost hou ses , an d so ciety, in vited Amu lya pr ovi ding cl ean dri nki ng wa ter, fu el- efficient Re ddy [a prof ess or of co oki ng stov es or meet ing nee ds of far mers, el ect rochemi str y wh o wen t on bu t ha ve als o hel ped pol icy -make rs fr ame to fou nd CST ] to make po lic ies at th e gl obal le vel. pr ese ntation s to th e Se nat e Co mmi�e e on Re searc h an d To find ou t ho w the se te chnologie s de velop ed Ac ade mic Pol icy an d de sig n a at CS T ar e he lpi ng soci ety , Me gha Pra kash mu lti -discip lin ary cen tre whi ch tr ave lled to vil lages in Ka rnataka an d Tami l wo uld dra w exp ert ise fro m th e Na du, whe re so me of the se award- win ning va rio us disc ipl ine-ori ent ed te chn ologies hav e be en tr ansferr ed an d de par tments at th e Inst itu te. im ple mented in par tners hip wit h NGO s an d th e co mmunity .

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 18 Building technologie s To scientif ically de velop this sanitation design fo r Kodi yampala yam, Monto Mani (Associate Professor , Selva Rani sees the 2004 tsunami as a life-changin g CST), f irst had to understand the problem. It was not event. Before the tsunami, she lived in a thatche d just about building a toilet because the local hut. But today, she has a comfortable life with he r topography, environment and other challenges o n family in her house built using technolog y this island were dif ferent. The primary challenge wa s developed at CST. Rajendra and Lalitha, a coupl e to design toilet units in crammed spaces where th e who are among the many rehabilitated on the islan d conventional septic tank could not be built due t o of Kodi yampala yam, are happy too. They ha ve space constraints. Second, the drinking water table, recently painted their pad to welcome their son’ s unlike in coastal regions, was very high (3-4 ft) in thi s bride. “Moving into this house solved our problem – region, and hence the design had to be such that th e the rains. Our thatched hut used to leak and the kee t water is not contaminated. After much thought and a (palm-leafed roo f) had to be changed once in a year, a suitable toilet unit design was proposed. while,” Rajendra tells me. What makes this design unique, according to Mani, is its functionalit y even in a f lood-like situation. Th e toilet units are built on a raise d platform, where the C-shaped septi c tank is divided into two compartments – unlike in th e conventional design. Also, thes e structures can be built in congeste d spaces using locally availabl e construction material without skille d labour. “The design was scientif icall y developed to dissipate water close t o the ground surface instead of into th e ground where it risks ground wate r contamination,” adds Mani .

This improved toilet design, whic h h s

a was patented, later recei ved ‘bes t k

ra practices’ recognition and a l e�er of P

a commendation from the Sue z h

g Environment- Water For All e

M Foundation (a French multinational

to: company) as one of the top four o designs or technologies that suppor t Ph safe water .

Lo w-c ost hous ing and san itation in ts unami -hi t The housing structures, including the toilet units, Ko diy ampalay am, built usi ng fly-ash st abili sed blocks were built using rammed earth technolog y de veloped by BV Venkatarama Reddy (Chairperson, CST and Professor of Civil Engineering). But This is one such success story, where a technolog y designing was a problem because local constructio n that took o ver a decade to de velop is helping th e materials weren’t readily available, and also becaus e community impro ve their li ves. In Kodi yampala yam, of salinity and coastal erosion. To solve thes e an island 20 kilometres off Chidambaram in Tamil problems, f ly ash, a by-product from a nearby coal Nadu, this housing and sanitation project wa s mine, was used as the material to build the blocks – undertaken by CST in 2006. In all, 140 toilet unit s minimising the use of steel and hence reducin g along with 140 housing units were built for th e structural corrosion. The villagers were also traine d tsunami-struck f ishing community. This project wa s to use the manual press machine to make f ly-as h implemented in partnership with an Ahmedabad- blocks and cure their own homes. As a result, eac h based NGO, Centre for Environment Education. housing unit was built in 6-7 months. For all thes e reasons, Reddy says, the housing project i n Kodi yampala yam is an excellent example of community participation.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 19 But, because problems and requirements vary fro m region to region and community to community, implementation becomes challenging. For example, the sanitation requirements of the villagers of Pallera yanahalli, a village close to Ungra in Kunigal taluk of Tumkur district in Karnataka, were dif ferent from those of the residents of Kodi yampala yam.

Though the water table in Pallera yanahalli was low, y d

the community wanted wet toilets. Based on thi s ed R

understanding, eco-san (a toilet technology) a m

prototype was de veloped at CS T’s Ungra Extensio n a r a

Centre. t ka n

Since then, both the rural housing and sanitatio n Ve

designs developed at CST have been replicated an d BV :

are being used by se veral eminent architects in th e s to

country. More recently, 350 villas in Good Earth’ s o

commercial venture, the Good Earth Malaha r Ph housing project in Bengaluru, were built using th e stabilised mud block technology de veloped at CS T. In pa rticipa tion with a loc al NG O, Hunnars hal a Besides the technology, the machine, ASTRAM-10, Fo und ation, 10, 000 circ ular hous es (or bh ung as, in th e used for making the mud blocks is now commerciall y lo cal langua ge) were bu ilt using ra mmed ea rth produced and sold. te chn ology in ea rthqu ake de vasta ted Bhuj in Gu jarat According to Reddy, more than 100,000 independent Bio-energy and gasi ficatio n buildings ha ve been built so far using this alternati ve building technology – resulting in 2.5 to 3 millio n Another area where CST has had expertise for long i s tonnes of carbon savings. bio-energy and gasif ication. In 2015, HN Chanakya’ s (Chief Research Scientist, CST) design of a no vel biogas reactor ga ve furthe r impetus to the Centre’s work on bio- energy, bio-methanation and waste wate r management. Highlighting th e uniqueness of the bio-gas reactor , Chanak ya says that the reacto r de veloped by his team can use plant o r agriculture waste, and not just cow dun g like a traditional gobar gas plant. It ca n also use the digested residue as a substrate to grow mushrooms (about 2.32 kilograms of mushroom per kg of the substrate) .

On the other hand, S Dasappa’ s (Professor, CST and Combustion, Gasif ication and Propulsion Laboratory) work on thermo-chemical con version of biomass has led to de velopment of various technology packages, and thes e products have been successfull y commercialised through technolog y transfer. For instance, General Electri c (GE), which in 2015 licensed the biomas s gasif ier technology that generate s electricity from agro-waste and woo d The Go od Earth Ma lahar Ho using pr oje ct used st abilise d from IISc, will help Phoenix Energy se t mud bl ock te chn ology to bu ild 350 vi llas in Be ngaluru up po wer plants in California, USA.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 20 Creating a livelihoo d CST has been training young boys from villages i n rural technologies like fuel-e fficient cooking stove s During demonetisation the farming community wa s (ASTRA OLE), sanitation, rammed earth stabilise d threatened. Crops were ready for harvest but largel y mud block technology, ASTRA drier among others. remained untouched as farmers found it di fficult t o In less than a year since the training programme pay cash to farm labourers due to currency shortage. began in 2016, more than 10 young boys wer e In this time of crisis, CST’s fuel-e fficient ASTR A trained at IISc’s Challakere campus – they are no w vegetable and fruit drier came to the rescue of man y working in 25 villages in Sirsi, where they have buil t farmers. In Panda vapura taluk of Mand ya district , 20 cooking sto ves and six bath water heating sto ves. Karnataka, this innovation is helping not onl y farmers and farm labourers, but e ven rural “The sto ve cost us Rs 2,500, including labour , womenfolk earn a livelihood through it by formin g making charges and locally procured raw material, ” self-help groups. This technology has been taken up says Keshav Marya Nayak of Shigehalli village i n by Technology Informatics Design Endeavour Sirsi tehsil of U�ara Kannada district. Nayak sa w (TIDE), an NGO, to extend its reach among th e this sto ve in the home of Kiran, one of the trainees at farming community in Karnataka. CST. For Chandrakala, another user of the cookin g stove since June 2017, life is a bit easier now – cooking time has reduced, and she now has mor e time for other chores and for her family. “I have t o collect less f irewood, there is no smoke, no soot, an d hot water can be used for washing vessels, bath an d cooking,” says Chandrakala, listing the advantage s of having an ASTRA OLE. h s a k a Pr gha e M : s to o Ph

AS TRA vegeta ble and fr uit drier

According to HI Somashekar (former Technical Officer, CST) this technology has met with hug e success in and around Sirsi in U�ara Kannad a district. “The technology completely dehydrate s vegetables, fruits, spices, and even f ish and prawn s while retaining their nutrition levels and f lavour s before packaging them in powdered form,” say s Diwekar Bhat, who has been using this technology t o dry areca nut in his farm in Sirsi. “It can be readil y used in preparing dishes like sambar, pickles, pulao, or curries, with their natural f lavours intact. ”

Serving the cooking needs: ASTRA OL E

From f inding place in community kitchens to school s To p: AS TRA OLE co oki ng stove at Huliapp a’s Donne and houses, ASTRA OLE is both energy- and fuel - Bi rya ni in Ye lah anka; Bo �om: ASTRA OLE cust omi sed efficient. In partnership with IORA Ecological for ro ti-maki ng for an as hram in Ke ngeri on th e Solutions Pvt. Ltd., an NGO based in New Delhi , ou tsk irts of Be ngaluru

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 21 Moving into the futur e

Punit Singh (Assistant Professor, CST) is currentl y engaged in implementing a project in Chha�isgar h for an un-electrif ied tribal village situated in a fores t (Bastar district), but blessed with a gradually-slope d perennial stream. He has designed, manufacture d and tested an inno vati ve low head hydro-turbin e integrated to a generator and pump as one ‘singl e h

s unit’. The idea is that this can be used to alternativel y a

k supply electricity and pump water to higher location s ra

P for irrigation and drinking water needs of the people. a

h This project, currently being implemented, will creat e g e ecological and human interdependence ensurin g M sustenance, Singh says. In future, he intends to focu s to:

o on inno vati ve and challenging turbomachinery fo r

Ph rene wable energy co vering both hydro and thermal applications. AS TRA OLE co oki ng stov es at The Val ley Scho ol in Be ngaluru In line with UN’s Sustainable De velopment Goal 6 of ensuring access to water and sanitation for all , Laxminarayana Rao (Assistant Professor, CST), ha s developed a new method of recycling greywater – ASTRA OLE cooking sto ves are now used at that is, non-industrial wastewater from domesti c commercial and non-commercial establishments. An sources such as dish- washing, laundry and bathing. ashram in Kengeri on the outskirts of Bengaluru, fo r Upto 75 percent of all water used in homes can b e example, ser ves 150 hot meals daily on an a verage, classif ied as greywater. Remaining 25 percent of all cooked on ASTRA OLE sto ves. The Valley School , domestic wastewater, originating from toilets an d Bengaluru, which has 7 cooking sto ves, ser ves 500 flushes, is termed as black water . meals per day and is completely off LPG cylinders. A jaggery park in Mandya too uses a modif ied Rao says that, in many countries, greywater is bein g version of the sto ve. Vishnupri ya Hotel located o n reused for various applications like f lushing toilets, Commercial Street, Bengaluru, has been able t o irrigation of lawns, washing of vehicles and windows, reduce the number of commercial LPG cylinder s fire protection, boiler feed water and concret e they use from 100 cylinders a month to 20-22, whil e production, amongst others. But there are man y Huli yappa’s Donne Bir yani in Yelahanka, Bengaluru, problems associated with reuse of untreate d find the ASTRA cooking stove an eco-friendly optio n greywater. It may increase the risk of spreadin g and dish out around 500 plates of chicken bir yani diseases due to microbial growth in water. It may als o daily. ASTRA OLE also allows Nandakumar, owne r result in ele vated concentrations of detergents in th e of a hotel in De vanahalli, to slow-cook traditional soil when reused for irrigation. Though there is a recipes for f lavour and nutrition. strong initiative to recycle water, much of the ef fort s are hindered by the socio-psychological biases.

Technology adoptio n The method developed by Rao uses ozone generate d from dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) cold plasma Even if a technology de veloped works as intended, based reactor. For in-house applications, a compac t ge�ing people to adopt it can be a challenge. DBD-based ozone generator was designed a s “Fortunately, the villagers in the areas where we commercial units are bulky. “Based on the positi ve worked developed faith in the solutions we of fered, ” laboratory results, a decentralized greywater recover y says Reddy. The technologies developed at CST are a system for a school in rural India is being designed, ” work of labour and time, many of them took decade s says Rao. This school, he says, has about 200 students, to de velop, and the process continues e ven today. 5 sta ff members and 5 support staf f, and consume s While these technologies have made a dif ference t o around 2500 L per day of fresh water drawn from a the lives of many living in rural clusters, their reach i s bore well nearby, out of which about 1500 L ends up still limited to a miniscule number of people in th e being used for washing hands or dishes. Th e country. The reason why CST has not been able scal e remaining 1000 L is used in the toilets. In the f irs t up, according to NH Ravindranath (Professor, CST) , phase, about 1000 L of grey water – water from th e is lack of will or interest on the part of th e handwash and the kitchen sink – will be treated an d government agencies to adopt and disseminate thes e reused as toilet f lush water. The project is currently i n technological solutions to a larger population. its implementation stage.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 22 Mee t Lakshmi Sit a Rohini Krishnamurt hy

The forme r IISc professor is a biotec h pioneer who mass-produce d sandalwood trees fro m test tubes a it S i m sh k La sy: e rt u co to o Si ta ex plain ing her wo rk Ph to Prin ce Ch arles

In the summer of 1976, a young scientist name d in florescence, and the trees died in t wo or three Lakshmi Sita joined IISc as a post doc toral fell ow. years. In the l ate 1920s, in o rder to i nvestig ate th e She had just compl eted her PhD after working o n cause of spike disease, scientists at IISc bega n gro wth substances and tissue cu lture o f swe et working with the G overnment o f Mad ras and th e corn from Victoria University in the UK, and on he r Coorg Commission. The disease–calle d return to India, she was asked to work on a proble m sandalwood spike disease–continued to puzzl e that had plagued forest o fficials in Karnataka fo r scientists global ly until 1969, when it was con firme d close to a centur y. that the causative agent was mycoplasma, a parasitic bacteria. In 1891, a Forest Department official name d McCarthy noted in his progress report for that yea r The disease was d ev astating. Near ly a million tree s that the leaves and internodes of certai n were rem oved f rom M ysore and Coorg between sanda lw ood trees in Coorg (n ow Kodagu) ha d 1903 and 1916. As sanda lw ood is used in the become smaller and sti ffer. With time, the entir e perfume and wood industries, the g overnment of shoot started to resemble a "spike" Karn ata ka incurred huge losses in the years th at followed. This prompted scientists at IISc to loo k in to the p roblem. And when Sita joined the Institut e’s Departme nt of Mic robiology and Cell Biology (MCB), it was suggested to her connect.iisc.th at she us eac.i n | 23 her expertise in plant tissue cu lture to d evelo p disease-resistant sanda lw ood trees. followed. This prompted scientists at IISc to look int o Cultivating an organism in a test tube is not a the problem. And when Sita joined the Institute’ s straightforward process; scientists are still trying t o Department of Mic robiology and Cell Biology (MCB) , understand how simple cells develop into comple x it was suggested to her that she use her expertise i n organisms. But Sita took a chance, an d plant tissue cu lture to d evelop disease-resistant painstaking ly developed this technolog y. sanda lwood trees. Sit a’s technique b rought d own harvesting time. Sh e Initial ly, plant breeders banked upon a type of sh owed th at the heart wood (the cent ral part o f th e as exual rep roduction called veget ative p ropagation, wood known to give sandalwood its characteristi c th rough which a single plant produces clones of frag ranc e) f rom a s even -yea r-old tissue cu lture d itself. Though this occurs naturally – as in potatoes – sandalwood tree was almost equal to that of a 40- it can be induced arti ficial ly as well . yea r-old n atu ral ly gro wn tree.

To induce vegetative propagation in trees, forester s Next, she focussed on other commerciall y would select trees that were inherently resistant t o important trees like ros ewood, euca lyptus and teak. attacks by a p athogen – in this case, my coplasma. Even to this d ay, one can see sanda lwood an d However , the y could produce onl y a limited numbe r ros ewood trees that were g ro wn f rom tissue of plants by this method thereby limiting large scal e cultures, planted near the old MCB building, plant ations. although the ros ewood in the quad rangle has n o label indicating its origin. It is unfortunate that fe w So they turned to tissue culture. Plants ar e are aware of these trees, which were once widel y to tip otent, which means a single pla nt cell ca n celebr ated. develop into an individual plant. Exploiting thi s property, plant biotechnologi sts t ransfer a portio n Afte r he r stint as a post doctoral fello w and as a of a plant to a test tube containing a synthetic an d Senior Scienti fic O fficer, Sita went on to become sterile medium which is a source of nutrients. Professor at MCB. Her plant tissue cu lture lab soo n became a star attraction. From Prince Charles t o Rajiv Gandhi and Ratan Tata, several visitors wer e directed to the la b. “This is one area [o f research] Test tube tree s where people can see the transition from lab t o Unlike with herbaceous plants, culturing trees in a field. Visitors were sent to the MCB department t o test tube poses signi ficant challenges. Before Sita’ s show them what science can do,” says 78-year ol d attempts, scientists hadn’t managed particularl y Sita, as she looks at old ph ot og raphs, during a n well: although L Winton from the Institute of Pape r intervi ew at her home in Malles hw aram. Chemistry in Wisconsin tasted some success performing experiments on a deciduous tree – aspen – but he managed to produce only fou r surviving trees.

Determined to find a solution, Sita used nodes an d internodes from disease-free trees as startin g material to produce millions of unspecialised cell s called callus. In a process called somati c embryogenesis, she directed these unspecialise d cells to form embryos and then the embryos t o sanda lwood plantl ets. In a f ew months, Sita ha d hundreds of plants in her lab. a t i S a i t m Si sh k hmi Va rio us stag es of a s L : k de vel opment in tissue y a s L cu ltu red sa nda lwood e rt y: u s te co r u to o o c Ph ge a

Im Si ta wit hin Ratan Tata du ring his vi sit to her la b.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 24 Transgenic plants don't just find applications in the agriculture sector: in 2001, t wo scientists, Charles J Arntzen an d Dominic Man-Kit Lam, p roduced a pote ntial vaccine candidate against Hepatitis B usin g transgenic tobac co plants.

Inspired by this technology, Sita joine d hands with molecular vi rologist MS Shaila, who is n ow Emeritus P rofessor at the MC B department, to use transgenic plants t o cre ate edible vaccines against fa tal vi ral diseases – such as rinderpest in cattle – a s an alternative to a more sophisticated an d expensive cell culture technique.

As part of their research, Shaila and Sit a int roduced a rinderpest p rotein, hemagglutinin (H) in to peanut plants. Th ey fed this t ransgenic plant to c attle, hopin g that the c attle would p roduce antibodie s against the ingested protein. Findin g speci fic antibodies in the blood of the tested cattle meant that some of thes e antibodies st ayed back as memory cells, protecting the immunised animal i f rinderpest were to attack again.

The team was ecstatic that this could pav e way for animal trials. Unfortun ate ly, as India was a part of a global eradic ation campaig n Her work also piqued the interest of the Fores t to eradicate rinderpest at the time, the Worl d Department. Swamin ath, a si lvicu lturist (someon e Organis ation o f Animal Hea lth and Food an d who looks after forest trees) f rom the Department Agriculture Organization of the United Nations “lai d planted the tissue-cultured sandalwood in a out rules that virulent disease-causing virus strain s nursery in Mudigere, Karnata ka. should not be handled by researchers in a ny institution, other than [the] identi fied institution, whic h Sita points o ut th at it is n ot feasible to assess th e was Indian Veterinary Research Institute, ” says Shaila. quality in a short time since trees take a long time The disease was eventually globally eradicated i n to reach m aturit y. Establishing the tissue cu lture d 2011. L ater, Sita also d eve loped viru s-resistant co tton plants. plants i nto soil is a delic ate p rocess. The tissue cultured tree also needs to breed true – passin g Sita retired in 2001 after having worked on an arr ay of traits to its o ffspring – to prove bene ficial in the issues th at are cent ral to c rop imp ro vement. Extensiv e long run. “I h ave given some pieces to the Fores t field trials have to be conducted to assess the safet y Department. ” of plants and this requires substantial funding. “People do not usuall y accept ne w technolog y easil y unless there are a lot of financial gains. ”

Venturing furthe r In addition, there is a growing opposition t o transgenics: a fear that inserting genes could hav e Sit a’s scienti fic explo ra tion did n’t s top at trees. deleterious e ffects on the body and the e nvi ronment . Through the 1980s and 90s, as the field of geneti c So far, Bt cot ton is the on ly app ro ved t ransgenic c rop engineering began gaining traction, Sita and he r in India. students wanted to cre ate t ransgenic c rops by introducing genes into plants that equip them wit h Ac cording to Sita, app ro val of transgenics should b e improved characteristics such as diseas e similar to th at o f drugs. Elabo ra ting on this, she s ays, resistance or increased yield. Th ey worked o n “Drugs could be withdrawn from the market i f tom at oes , capsicum , brinjal , groundnut , red g ram, someone shows its negative impacts. The same ca n and co tton, among others. be done with transgenic plants. It takes about 2 0 years for a drug to come out – tests in the lab, on Plant biotechnologists hail transgenics as a animals and humans have to be performed.” She solution to food scarcity and plant diseases, whic h insists that one must draw conclusions only afte r cause massive losses to farme rs. studying its long-term e ffects.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 25 y h t r u am Thi s IISc-in cuba ted n sh i Kr ini h

co mpany has it s sight s o R

Co -foun ders Fathi ma Be nazir (lef t) : o and Ale x D Paul (c entre) , t o R&D As soc iate Ha rsh ini Nadig (r igh t) se t on a glob al market Ph

Rohini Krishnamurt hy

Fathima Benazir and Alex D Paul were classmates in school. Many years later , Fathima, a postdoctoral fellow at IISc, began looking for opportunities abroad an d happened to share her research with Alex, who worked in the corporate sector. Alex, after going through her work, encouraged Fathima to come up with a product that could have a huge business impact and “not bury her work in big books”. And thi s is how Fathima and Alex collaborated and co-founded Azooka Life Sciences.

Azooka Life Sciences was formed in July 2015 and was incubated at the Society for Inno vation and De velopment (SID), IISc. In March 2016, they released the first e ver food-grade nucleic acid d ye, named “tinto rang”. Molecular biologists use such d yes to detect DNA and RNA in their experiments.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 26 Azooka is now locking horns with giants like Merck and Sigma Aldrich who are th e biggest suppliers of ethidium bromide (EtB r), the most commonly and widely used nuclei c acid d ye. But EtBr is a known potent mutagen. O ffering molecular biology labs a safe r environment by doing a way with harmful d yes and the accompanying process of disposal , Azooka plans to take over the speciality fluorescent dye/probe industry one step at a time. In conversation with Connec t, Fathima and Alex share their stories of positivity despit e roadblocks and their thoughts on Azooka’s future.

What was life like befor e it to what it is now. Then I had challenges purifyin g and characterising the molecule. I went ont o Azooka ? characterise its DNA-binding ability, staining an d fluorescent properties. Luckily, the experiments too k Fathima: I’ve always been passionate about scienc e direction in a good way. I’m fortunate that ever y right from school, more so towards biology. I experiment worked. obtained my Master’s and PhD, both i n environmental biotechnology, with specialisation i n plant biotechnology. I did my postdoc in x-ra y crystallography at Prof MRN Murthy’s lab at MB U How would you e valuate th e [Molecular Biophysics Unit] as a Dr DS Kothar i market potential of your product ? Postdoctoral Fellow. I’m happiest while working i n the lab. I did not plan to make this transition t o entrepreneurship earlier, as my interest lay only i n Alex: India doesn’t produce nucleic acid stains. We research and publications. import them at 30% duty. The impression that mos t people around the world have is that Indians produc e Alex: I used to work for Zoho, Chennai, and m y cheap products – we have a reputation for copyin g work was mainly focussed on the produc t something and bringing it out cheaper. Our produc t management space. Zoho was started in 1996 an d [tinto rang] is premium and not cheap. We’ ve priced i t they had a mission to bring some amazing product s at $3 more than SYBR Safe [another nucleic acid d ye] . out of India. Through my job, I understood produc t At the same time, we are not keeping the product too management and I further got into scaling product s expensi ve as we don’t want to defeat the sales of th e globally. I have scaled products in dif ferent region s product . and markets such as Latin America, Europe and th e Asia-Pacif ic region. In India, we are doing a replacement of fer – we as k them [customers] to pay a similar price to the existin g dye for six months and, if they like it, we plan t o What is the story behind tint o charge them at normal price. This will give the m enough time to realise how much they are saving i n rang ? terms of the procedures that come with the use of EtBr, such as decontamination and biohazard disposal . Fathima: When we were thinking about buildin g This is the ad vantage we are trying to pass on. products from my research, we thought about a fe w things that could be converted to or developed a s We were targeting biopharmaceutical companie s products. So we looked at a prebiotic drug fo r initially. To our surprise, a lot of seed companies wer e diabetes management . interested. They have signed up for f ield trials.

Alternati vely, I had some experience with natural Fathima: Most scientists are of the opinion that EtBr i s dyes during my PhD. We extracted a lot of natural used in very small quantities and may not have a bi g dyes that could be used by the local community fo r market. Only after receiving customer feedback di d mat weaving. We identif ied one such natural d ye that we realise the volume of usage. With the data we could bind to DNA and I started working on tint o collected, we realised that it is a 50-billion-dolla r rang’s development at IISc. (“Tinto” means red i n market. In research, we sometimes don’t realise th e Portuguese and “rang” in Hindi is colour. ) impact a small chemical can ha ve in terms of business. The consumption [of EtB r] is similar to sugar and sal t It took me about a year to optimise it to a certai n – though consumed daily in small quantities, it s extent and another year to craft, formulate and buil d absence cannot be ignored.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 27 Th e co nsumpti on of eth idi um brom ide is Alex: We had support from SID. We knew ge�in g si mil ar to su gar an d sa lt – tho ugh financial support to set up a lab is not very di fficul t but ge�ing the expertise that IISc has been of fering i s co nsu med dai ly in smal l qu antitie s, its di fficult. They gave us a special innovation grant ab sen ce cann ot be igno red from which the company was created. We are ver y thankful to them. Earlier, I used to think SID is pre�y slow but the good thing is that there’s absolutely n o bureaucracy and hierarchy here. What takes a longe r time in other incubators takes a shorter time at IISc. We will not be called a start-up after 7 years [of incubation] but I still intend to run a commercial space on campus till they decide to kick us out .

Fathima: SID is not a proacti ve incubator like th e others, but they help us whenever there is a need an d solve our problems immediately !

Alex: That was a year back; now they are swingin g into action. SID is like this no-nonsense workplac e where nobody is standing in your way.

Fathima: We met a lot of other innovators and the y all had tonnes of complaints about policies followe d Ti nto rang pa cked in a bio degrada ble box at their incubators including entry and exit policies. (P hot o: Rohi ni Krishna mur thy) When we are f ighting some greater challenge, the las t thing we want is a gatekeeper. Apart fro m professional help, IISc has nurtured us. I haven’t see n this in the several incubators we visited. Nothin g What about tinto rang’ s comes close to what IISc has to of fer .

safety ? Also, Prof Savithri HS from the Biochemistr y department helped us understand problems that start-ups could have and helped us navigat e Alex: We ha ve a CE [Conformité Européenne ] situations. Not just that – she’s been a huge moral certi fication which is a compliance certi fication fo r support. Just “help” is an understatement. Sh e food grade. CE is a worldwide appro ved marking, encouraged us by saying that this is a good way t o accepted in most of the countries. In the US, the y show the world that we are also capable of comin g insist more on FDA certif ication. Our claim to safet y up with inno vations and not just copying something. is that it is [derived] from a food additive that we ar e [already] consuming. What are the hurdles you had Fathima: In addition to that, we have performe d certain laboratory studies that pro ve tinto rang to b e to face as an entrepreneur ? non-toxic. The simplest test was observin g contamination (growth of microorganisms) in our Alex: There is a huge stigma in society presently. M y sample stocks. In our imaging studies, we have trie d parents couldn’t understand why I quit a well-pai d culturing cells with the d ye – it usually doesn’t ha ve job. Everybody thinks I’m selling “podi” (“podi” i s implications [the product didn’t have toxic ef fects o n powder in Tamil). There is some uncertainty in th e the cultured cells]. We will now be moving to FDA start-up world. Our parents had reser vations in th e tests. Since we are competing with the giants, we ar e beginning. ge�ing all possible certif ications. We are leaving n o stone unturned in this ma�er . Fathima: My challenges were far more magnif ied because I am a single mother of two kids and m y parents thought I was ge�ing into something I ha d no idea about. They said it’s be�er that I play it saf e Could you tell us about SI D by ge�ing a job, e ven if I don’t make it big in life. and how it helped shape your Overcoming the stigma and making the m understand was the greatest challenge. It took a toll business? on us initially – but the manner in which we wer e connect.iisc. ac.i n | 28 progressing and heading forward helped u s How do you see yourself five overcome these personal ba�les. I think what I’ ve realised from this is that keeping myself busy helpe d years from now? me o verlook a lot of un wanted things.

Alex: The second [hurdle] was the system itself . Fathima: We are running f ield trials [for tinto rang] Companies in countries like the US, Israel, Singapor e currently. The reason is that our product could wor k and other locations are receiving huge suppor t di fferently in dif ferent environments. So we ar e whereas we ha ve a long way to go. Most grants that collecting feedback from our customers so that we ca n fund start-ups today are still funding “projects” an d craft the product well. IISc has mostly new generatio n not “products” because I think they themselves don’ t devices, which is not the case e verywhere. A few start- realise the market potential of products. ups and pri vate colleges use di verse devices – lik e older versions of transilluminators and some Mo st grants tha t fu nd st art -ups to day ar e indigenously developed devices. So we are no w st ill fun din g “p rojects ” an d no t “pr oducts” focussing on collecting information to check for devic e be cau se I th ink the y the mse lves do n’t compatibility and reproducibility. re ali se th e ma rke t pot ent ial of pr odu cts Alex: We are looking at global expansion six month s down the line. We should be in the market by end of Fathima: They are still funding highly technical ego- 2018 commercially. We are f irst targeting the US an d boosting projects which don’t have any immediat e Europe, after which we plan to expand to Singapor e impact or are of no immediate business value. That and South Korea. was a very demoti vating factor when we started of f fighting this bureaucratic system. So we started t o think about which ba�le was worth f ighting: was i t Expansion in Europe requires start-ups to pay 30-40 the system or the problem we ha ve at hand? We percent tax. But the Netherlands Foreign In vestment chose to f ight the ba�le that gave us more purpos e Agency in Amsterdam has something calle d and meaning. Innovation Box that is l e�ing us set up business b y paying them 5 percent tax for f ive years. Gi ven th e European tax norms which are up wards of 30 percent , Tinto rang is expected to come it is a very useful programme for any start-up. It seem s like it’s a good place for inno vati ve start-ups as we out soon in the market. Do you don’t ha ve to deal with taxes & other complications. ha ve other products in th e pipeline? Fathima, what ha ve you Alex: Yes, our next product is called Ano cell stains. learned from your experience a s Cell stains are rare and not manufactured in India. Such stains currently available in the market have a a researcher and now as an photostability [resistance to degradation in presenc e entrepreneur ? of light] of 40 seconds. To maintain it, an anti-fad e agent is required, which is again expensi ve. Ano cell stains ha ve a photostability of 30 minutes. Ho wever , this product hasn’t yet been released commerciall y From my journey, I have realised that solutions t o because we did not want to steal tinto rang’ s problems are simple. However great or complicate d thunder. But we’ ve had interactions with some of the technology is, until it is simplif ied, the solution ha s the customers to know its prospects. They showe d no business value as nobody is going to adopt it. We interest and asked if they could include it in thei r could change our focus and look around for simpl e catalogue before the product is released. We are als o solutions to problems because as scientists an d looking at bioimaging where f luorophores can hel p researchers we have a tendency to solve complicate d biologists view biological systems. Our focus is als o problems. I think it is that challenge that boosts th e to come up with f luorophores in the Infrared (IR) ego of every scientist. This is my valuable realisatio n region. Thermo Fisher and other companies ar e coming up with IR-based devices which are cheape r through this journey that most of the scientists fail t o in comparison to optical lasers. Currently, mos t see. Simplifying solutions can make science mor e fluorophores in the market don’t fall in the IR range. application oriented.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 29 Gar ry Brown is prof esso r emeritus at the Dep artm en t of Mecha ni cal and Aeros pa ce Eng inee ring, Pri ncet on Universit y. He is a dis ting ui sh ed fluid

n dynam icist, wel l-know n for w o his work with Anatol Br Ros hko where the y found ine t

is une xp ec ted orde r wi th in Structures in turbulence: r

Ch turbule nt flow. He was at sy:

e IISc in late 2017, teaching a rt An interview wit h u cou rs e on shear turbule nce co with his friend Roddam to o Nar as imha. Excer pts fro m Ph Garry Brown an int ervi ew with Con ne ct. Nithyanand Ra o Fr om le ft to righ t: An atol Rosh ko, Ga rry Br own, Ha ns Li epmann and Rodd am Na rasim ha

In your 1974 paper with Anatol Ros hko [th e there was leak of oxygen from the capsule an d for me r Theodore von Kármán Pr ofessor of hydrogen fuel from the base – and the hydrogen, Aeronauti cs, Em er itus , at Cal tech, who pas sed because of its low density, propagated up the side of away in January 20 17], you obs erv ed or der the Saturn V rocket – what’s the probability that the y wit hi n turb ulen ce – “cohe rent str uc tu re s” at the would be in a stoichiometric mixture that would b e potentially f lammable when they reached the same int erface bet we en two gas es, one high speed and location? He didn’t know the ans wer but thought the other low speed, flowi ng pas t each other. that it depended upon the ratio of their densities an d What was the con te xt for thi s work? their respective velocities. So the motivation was t o do an experiment with dif ferent gases and wit h The pu rpose of the wo rk was not to examine dif ferent densities. st ruc ture or any of the qu estio ns that the re sults fina lly seemed to addres s. The or igi nal moti vat ion for the work was to stud y the be haviour of Which gases did you use? se par ated flow in compre ssi ble flow, wh ere yo u ha ve speeds in excess of that of so und. Th e We used as principal gases nitrogen and helium. te mpe rature is lower and the de nsi ty I started out with two streams of nitrogen becaus e co rre spondin gly higher fo r one str eam [of flui d] helium was so expensi ve. I designed a facility that th an it is fo r fluid on the ot her si de near the ba se of would operate for three seconds at pressures up t o the bo dy, wh ere the te mpe rature is higher and the ten atmospheres so that we could mak e de nsi ty lowe r. The ab str action from that measurements and take photographs of the flow fiel d te chn ologica lly import ant problem was a we ll- between these two streams at high densitie s po sed scient ific one. And th at’s whe re Anat ol (Reynolds numbe r). We were astonished when we Ro shko was par ticular ly capable. He was ab le to saw the photographs for the f irst time. ma ke a conn ect ion betw een someth ing that wa s te chn ologica lly going to be impo rta nt and tra nslate These were high-speed photographs based on a it in to some thi ng that was scie nti fica lly we ll- posed. point-spark source. We used a large conca ve mirror , and the spark source was at the focus of the mirror , so we produced a parallel beam of light. And the n Did it also ha ve something to do with th e variations in refracti ve index arising from small Apollo mission ? dif ferences in gas concentrations or temperatur e would refract the light and that produced what’ s Well, yes. Roshko was prominent also as a consultant called a shadowgraph. It enabled the turbulent f lui d to industry. One of the questions related to th e to be readily distinguished from non-turbulent f lui d Apollo mission that needed to be addressed was i f because it had small f luctuations in refractive index.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 30 We saw these pictures, and I was tremendousl y perhaps don’t. So I would put Satish Dha wan as on e troubled by them because I saw structure and orde r of those uniquely capable people who could lea d that I didn’t expect to see. I spent two months tryin g others. And it’s clear that his record at IISc and ISR O to get rid of it. And I couldn’t get rid of it. It seeme d is a true testament to that ability. to be an intrinsic part of it .

At the time, the classical picture was that once it [th e You’ ve been a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, you’ ve flow] became turbulent, you lost all structure an d been at Caltech, Princeton, and you’ve served i n that it would be entirely statistical, there would b e no evidence of any order. Well, that pro ved not to b e universities and other research organisations i n true. Australia. What would you say you’ve learne d from having studied or worked at these di fferent places? o a R One of the things I’ve come to appreciate is ho w nd a

n important it is to def ine well the mission at the top. a What are we actually there to do? At Princeto n hy t i

N University, the mission was def initely not to educat e : o

t the next generation of faculty members. It was t o o

Ph de velop the leaders for the next generation of people in all walks of life. It was to try and recognis e that the students are multi-talented in many cases, You ’re currently teaching a course here at very capable. But their potential contribution to th e IISc with Roddam Narasimha. When di d country could be very broad and needed to b e you first meet him and Satish Dha wan ? maximised. They needed to be gi ven th e opportunity to develop conf idence, competenc e and creativity – the three Cs that I used to quote. I think I met Prof Dha wan before I met Prof Narasimha. I was a research fellow then, and I had n o The strategic purpose of Princeton University wa s idea of the eminent status of Prof Dhawan who wa s changed, on the 175th anni versary of Princeton, at the time the Director of IISc. But he came on a study leave to Caltech and taught a course. I wa s from the Woodrow Wilson quotation which ha d very fond of Satish – he was very open to any kind of been developed in the 1920s. Woodrow Wilson’ s discussion. We used to chat o ver lunch. It was on on e statement was “Princeton in the Nation’s Service”. such occasion that he received this remarkable l e�e r That statement was widened by Toni Morrison, th e from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inviting him t o Nobel Prize winner [in Literature], who was th e head the Indian Space Research Organization [ISRO] . chair of the commi�ee, to “Princeton in the Nation’ s Service and In the Service of All Nations”. Once yo u He was the one who mentioned Narasimha. I wa s say that, teaching becomes central. The faculty ar e back in Australia – Adelaide – after I left Caltech. I thought of as “teacher-scholars”. Correspondingly, came to Bangalore to say hello to Prof Dha wan and at the metrics by which their salaries are determine d the same time to talk with Prof Narasimha. We had a are three: teaching, determined by feedback fro m lot in common and I admired his work very much. the students; research; and scholarly citizenship, And we have been close colleagues ever since, fro m which has to do with participation in national the mid-1970s. commi�ees, consulting for important industries an d participation on professional scientif ic bodies.

What were your impressions of Dha wan ? At Caltech too, teaching was central. [Richard] Feynman e ven argued that there should not b e I think Satish Dhawan would have agreed that hi s institutes of advanced study for special scientist s talents were broader and dif ferent from those of th e because he al ways felt that teaching made sure that greatest scientists. He had wonderful leadershi p people reviewed the broader areas of thei r qualities – a combination of transparent integrity an d kno wledge continuously. [Hans] Liepmann, wh o a willingness to be very successful through th e became the director of GALCIT [Graduat e success of others. That’s frequently not a Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of characteristic of the greatest scientists – they ofte n Technology], was very much of this view too. In that don’t see themsel ves as being successful through th e tradition, the mo�o for Caltech is the passing of th e lives of others. The best teachers do, but the other s torch from one generation to another .

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 31 The Search for Signi ficance

Statistics is a versatile field that emerged from 17t h century political science and state governance. I n The null hypothesis is ne ver time it evolved in to a vast and sophistic ate d discipline and yet has remained a p owerful, wide ly- proved or established, but i s used instrument to ana lyse, summarise an d possibly dispro ved. communic ate k ey scienti fic findings f rom nume rou s other academic spheres. - Ronald A Fishe r Statistical tools have become indispensible t o research, and with good reason. When intangible o r abstract associations can be structured int o numerical or mathem atical descriptions, it all ows rep roducibility, the cent ral tenet of research.

The simple beauty of the quantit ative app roac h shines th rough in cases when intuition or common Is th e P va lue as rel iab le sense may mislead us. Sandeep Pulla, a Ph D as we bel ieve ? Thi s student studying forest dynamics at IISc, uses th e classic example of the birthday problem to illustrat e art icl e exami nes th e this : wh at are the odds of two people in a g roup of mea nin g an d li mita tio ns 23 sharing a birthday? Answer: a 50-50 chance. Based on ever yday logic, this seems absu rdly high, of thi s ubiqu ito us but combin at orics does n’t lie. mea sur e of sig nifican ce Statistics is especially critical when we investigat e compl ex phenomena because rare ly can we brin g all sources of variation under control. As we gathe r various observations, it becomes important to clarif y to wh at degree our numerical descriptions re flect the real world.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 32 Fisher did n ot intend for the P value to be a de finitive measure of dat a reliability. Instead, he devised it t o judge if a scenario was wort h investig ating, worth a se cond look. The lower the P value, the less likel y that the observed result was foun d by chance in the absence of a true effect .

Convention dictates that a threshol d value of P is chosen, bel ow whic h the null hypothesis m ay be rejecte d and the results considere d “signi ficant”. This threshold value of P is wide ly accepted to be 0.05.

Fisher’s comments on the P value i n his seminal work Statistical Method s for Resea rch Workers , published i n 1925, r eveal the elusive nature of this threshold: “The value for which P =.05, o r 1 in 20, is 1.96 o r nearl y 2 ; it i s convenient to take this point as a limi t in judging whether a d eviation is to b e conside red signi ficant or not . . . Small effects would still escape n otice if th e u j data were insu fficiently numerous t o ra r bring them out, but no l ow ering of th e a S standard of signi ficance would mee t a n this di fficulty.” sa a

Up The P value is not an objectiv e on: i t st atement o f st atistical signi ficance, a tr and certainly not of biological (o r s u l real world) signi ficance, argue s Il Kavita Isvaran, an assistant professo r An over view of the sc ien tific method as us ed in a hypot hetic al re search pr oce ss at the Centre for Ecological Sciences. P value: the gold standard ? She points out that the dichotomy dictated by P The P value appears to p rovide an swers to th e value signi ficance is a false one. “A P value of questions “Is the p attern observed in the study real even 0.04 5 can make us happy and en cou rag e or is it part of natural chance variation?” and “Ho w us to build large narratives while P=0.055 ca n reliable is this result? ” make us unhappy with the ‘weak trend’ and giv e up on it, when b oth those values must be tre ate d The concept o f the P value – or calcul ate d with similar uncertainty. ” probabilit y – was introduced b y Ronald A Fisher , a pioneer in statistics and biology, as an informal inde x Perhaps the most common misconception is t o of discrepan cy between the d ata and the null consider the P value as the p robability th at th e hyp othesis. Fisher was considered a genius an d null hyp othesis is true. The common perspectiv e often an outsider, who formed lifelong feuds an d to signi ficance is deeply entrenched today. Pull a braved incredible ha rdships. He i nvented ma ny clari fies, “Statistics is useful, but aiming fo r important st atistical techniques and formalise d signi ficance is what leads to problems becaus e seve ral others, which remain in use even tod ay. H e then we enter the world of human cognitiv e also travelled widely, forming close associations wit h biases, and th at is a gr ey area o f seeing wh at we great minds of the day, including PC Mahalanobi s want to see in our data or as p atterns a round us, and RC Bose o f the Indian Statistical Institute. and misunderstanding statistical techniques. ”

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 33 The slippery nature of the P value has been largel y The p roblem is actual ly caused by taking decision s overlooked by the research communit y free ly without ac counting for them : conductin g contrib uting to the rep roducibility crisis in science. analyses midway through experiments to evaluat e A surv ey by Nature shows that more tha n their potential success, re cording mu ltiple respons e 70percent of researchers were unable t o variables n ot part o f the original experimental desig n rep roduce an other scientis t’ s experiments an d and in corpo ra ting them at a l ater stage, decidin g were often unable to rep roduce their own whether to include or drop outliers after ana ly sis, experiments. Much time and resources h ave thu s modifying tre atment g roups pos t-ana lysis, includin g been exhausted in pursuing false leads. or excluding covari ates pos t-ana ly sis, an d terminating data exploration if an analysis yields a signi ficant P value. Isv aran points out th at suc h What is the bo�omline, then ? missteps are ea sy to take. “ If I observe n ew an d seeming ly important fe atures while I’m collectin g “In real world situations, the st atistical null planned d ata , I would , of course , re cord thes e hypothesis (for example, that two means ar e observations.” Armed with data, planned an d exactly the same or that a relationship is exactl y unplanned, a researcher would explore wh at was at equal to zero) is rarely true. Our task is therefore t o hand. “H owever, it is well kn own th at when on e estimate the thing we are interested in with hig h explores patterns in the d ata, one runs the risk of precision, ” says Isv aran. She argues th at if, instead, finding spurious relationships. So it is important t o we focus on P values and whether an e ffect i s sepa ra te careful and targeted ana lyses f rom when present or not, we m ay ignore an important one explores a large number of possible patterns, ” biological effect just because we get a P value th at she s ay s. falls on the wrong side of our cut-o ff. The lo w precision, she s ays, could resu lt f rom a small Ac cording to Pulla, an interesting resu lt in a field of sample size. And converse ly, with large enoug h scienti fic inquiry is one that is n ovel, un expected, sample sizes, we run the risk of getting small P cont rary to the current st ate o f the field and of values and establishing the statistical signi ficanc e course , and therefore , likel y to be accepted fo r of trivial e ffects. publication in high-impact journals. These ver y The resu lt o f mishandling st atistics is just th at – th e cha racteristics necessit ate further scruti ny of suc h out come o f uninte ntional laxity or igno rance. results. However, it is often the case that fantasti c Persistent misguided applic ation o f the P value ha s findings are accepted and developed upon, soone r led to what is now infamous as P-hacking, als o than replication studies can verify them. Pulla point s called data dredging, signi ficance questing, out that the editors and reviewers of scienti fic selective inference, double-dipping an d journals m ay themse lves n ot be ful ly aware o f th e researcher degrees of freedom. nuances of statistical tests.

Several months or years pass before faulty result s are identi fied, often due to a gene ral cu lture of So how common is bias from P- uncritical approaches to handling data. An exampl e of brazen ambition to yield resu lts th at h ave jus t hacking ? the right value of signi ficance is that of Diederi k Stapel, a Dutch social psychologist. While his is a rare case of intentional misconduct, it highlight s A study found th at while P-hacking is widespread, the acceptance of signi ficant results at face value. it does not drastically alter conclusions drawn fro m Stapel knew that the e ffect he was looking for ha d meta-analyses, analyses that combine data fro m to be small in o rder to be beli ev able ; psycholog y several studies. experiments rare ly yield signi ficant resu lts. H e proceeded to work back wards and gene ra te th e The use o f the term P-hacking, and its syno nyms, data th at would yield to the required distributions. affects how the issue is perceived in the scienti fic world. These terms suggest that researcher s persistent ly explore their data until the desired resu lt Ar med wit h dat a, planne d an d un pla nne d, a is observable and signi ficant. However there is a glitch in the critique against P-hacking: terms lik e re sea rcher wou ld explor e wh at wa s at han d ‘data fishing ’ suggest th at those who use P value s unwise ly are, in some sense, mindful che ats. An d The reality of our times is that most scientist s when researchers believe they lack the intent t o follow ethical practices and contribute t o manipul ate d ata, th ey may forgo necessary cautio n ad vancements in small increments. when preparing for and per forming d ata ana ly sis.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 34 In today’s competitive world, there is more pressur e tod ay than ever be fore on young researchers to find novel and b road questions to pu rsue. In the journ ey to find one’s place in the proli fic world of research, one can give in to the tenden cy to look for patterns, meet the impac t-f ac tor yardsticks for professional excellence, imbibe wide ly echoed sentiments, pl ay the media game.

To pr event P-hacking, Isv aran beli eves th at one mus t remind onesel f abo ut the original moti va tion an d study design. “Let me clear ly sepa ra te out th e e d

i exciting unplanned explo rat ory findings f rom th e la e planned con firm at ory tests th at I designed the stud y Ad for.” There is no reason why fascinating post fact o of findings should not be reported (so long as they ar e ity s r

e clear ly labelled as such), along with the finding s iv

n from the original design. U e, v i

h An other measure against losing on e’s way in th e

rc ga rden o f f orking p aths is declaring the researc h A l a plan in ad vance. Pre-regist ra tion o f studies in hu bs it g such as Open Science Framework publicly specif y Di the study in such a way that all its aspects ar e her s ac counted for well be fore the p roject is under way. Fi This elimin ates hidden changes being made to th e RA original app roach. sy: e rt u

co An oth er meas ure aga ins t lo sing on e’s wa y to o in th e gar den of forkin g pa ths is de claring Ph th e re searc h pl an in ad van ce

“You want to be aware that there are alternat e explanations fo r an y correlation , and give the m RA Fi sher wi th PC Maha lan obis and his wife Ni rmal equal weightage in your thinking. ” says Pulla. “Th e Ku mari Mahala nob is in 19 46 simulation app roach is p owerfuI, especial ly when using large datasets and advanced techniques. It i s worth app lying your models to d atasets for whic h To better describe the issue, the term ga rden of you already know the answers. It makes you mor e forking path s was int roduced because it convey s aware o f the c ave ats in the method you h ave used, the idea th at the p aths, or choices, are all out there. and more tentative in your approach t o The chosen method of analysis may be reasonabl e interpretation. ” given the data and assumptions, but had the dat a been di fferent , there ma y be othe r equall y It is also the responsibility of men tors to mak e reasonable ana ly ses, which m ay alter th e conclusions. But unfortunately, very littl e students aware of cognitive biases, pitfalls of a in form ation about these behind-the -scene s particular decision, and to emphasise the decisions is evident in the reported results. importance of content over publication in a well - known journal, says Isvaran. The onus is on thos e Particle p hy sics research has attempted to address more experienced to share their kn owledge. But the issues associated with the P value by using a each of us must work toward a better understandin g much more stringent standard than those used i n of all our scienti fic tools. When the integrity of you r other sciences. The g roundbreaking disc overy of work is in question, ignorance is culpability. the Higgs boson adhered to this standa rd as well . However this threshold is also just a consequenc e Upasana studies genetic diversity in Asian elephant s of statistical anomalies being paraded as ne w at the Cent re for Ecologi cal Science s dis co veries using a former ly acceptable standa rd.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 35 The marriage that couldn’t solv e Morris Travers ’ troubles in Bangalor e c S I I , C AP : y s e rt u o c s o t o Ph

Mo rris Trave rs met Do rot hy Gray while on le ave in En gland in 19 10, and pr opo sed to her im media tely

The follo wi ng pie ce is an edited exce rpt from the unpub lish ed autob iog rap hy of Rob ert MW Travers, the son of Mor ri s Travers, IISc’ s first Dir ec to r.

Locked in a tus sle wi th JN Tata’ s sons ove r hi s pl ans for II Sc bef ore he trave lled to Eng land on lea ve in 1910, Morr is Trav ers sen se d that ha ving a wife woul d enab le him to make more social con tacts in Indi a, and had dec id ed to return a mar ri ed man. While in Eng land, Trav ers was intr odu ce d to Dor othy Gra y, a girl from a we althy family. He pr opo se d imm ed iat el y, an d the very next day, she acc ep te d. In just a few weeks, they were wed.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 36 The couple had planned a country honeymoon of The dash across the European continent occupie d two or three weeks, but on the third day my fathe r two days and nights in the train. Each must ha ve recei ved an urgent message from India saying that tried to appear cheerful but each must ha ve known powerful political forces were at work to remove hi m the deep anxiety the other experienced. Then the y from his job. The honeymoon came to an abrupt end. spent ten days on a boat, isolated from all news that The bride’s beautiful trousseau was hastily cramme d might have told them more about the crisis that ha d into suitcases. The hotel rapidly harnessed a horse t o precipitated the race to India. The boat was hot . the guest shay* and bundled the couple and thei r Those able to make advance reservations had take n luggage into a train which would take them back t o all the cabins on the shady side of the ship, so that all London. They arranged accommodation on the f irs t that were left at the last minute were the star-boar d mail boat to Bombay. In those days, a ffluent cabins into which the tropical sun blazed all da y passengers to India ne ver boarded the boat at th e long. I can only judge from how I saw my parent s London Docks but took the train across France an d react to stress in later years, how they must ha ve Italy, boarding the ship at Brindisi and c u�ing two reacted to each other on this vo yage. I can imagin e days off the trip. The boat they planned to board ha d them being very quiet, talking li�le, with my mothe r already left London at the time of booking, but the y always playing a supportive role but in a ver y were able to catch it by taking the o verland route. subdued way. c APC, IIS y: s e t o cour ot Ph

Doroth y Gra y Travers with thei r first child, in Indi a

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 37 One can hardly believe that it was just luck whic h crises with anger rather than with political led my father to pick a wife who had all of th e shrewdness. qualities he lacked. Undoubtedly, he saw in her th e characteristics that made a wife acceptable. She wa s When the honeymoon was cut short by a cable fro m an entertaining conversationalist. She could tal k India, Father must ha ve realized much had gon e about music and literature. She spoke f luent Frenc h wrong in Bangalore during his absence. What ha d and German, which gave her an entrée into scientif ic happened was that some members of the Council ha d society. She had a marvelous sense of humor an d taken the opportunity provided by his absence to tak e could tell a story in the most refreshing way. It wa s steps to remo ve him from his position. almost as if she were on the stage. She could do thi s partly because she had a great capacity to empathiz e The strategy of the Council, designed to remo ve th e with others and partly because she had natural talent Director, was a product of the times in India. Briber y for acting. Indeed, in another age she might ha ve and corruption permeated the system. Perhaps even a become a great actress. majority of prosperous citizens were guilty of participating in the bribery system. A charge of This couple who embarked on ad venture togethe r financial corruption must have seemed to the Council could not have been more dif ferently endowed. Hi s a sure way of ge�ing rid of the Director. What the y magnif icent, cold, logical intellect contrasted wit h did not realize was that the Victorian gentlema n her intuitive, warm, and artistic capabilities. He wa s might be a man of many vices, but the Council ha d well-read in the sciences but had li�le use for great picked one vice to which he was not prone. Th e literature, but she felt that a day without derivin g Council did not understand the English culture, jus t inspiration from a poem or from some passage of as the Director did not understand the Indian culture. literature was a day that was wanting. He could tal k To charge the Director with f inancial corruption wa s well but was a poor listener, but she could both tal k as ridiculous as charging the Pope with makin g and listen. ad vances, in public, to young women. The Council and the Director belonged to two dif ferent worlds an d Often, strange circumstances draw couples together , neither understood the world of the other . and nothing strengthened the bond between m y parents more than the fact that Father was in dee p Father was furious that anyone should doubt hi s political trouble. Mother al ways had feelings fo r integrity. If his relationship to the Council had bee n anyone in trouble. In Father’s autobiography, wri�e n cold up to this point, it now turned white-hot. Th e 40 years later, one of the few human touches is foun d Court held an inquiry which proved the charge s in his statement: “I went and told D all about m y unfounded, but the Court could se�le only the issue s problems.” He had probably never had a conf idante, brought before it and could not resolve the dee p and the relationship not only enriched his life, but incompatibility of the Council and the Institute’ s made his problems endurable. Director .

The couple also made an ef fort to present an air of Although I ha ve told this story in few words, th e conf idence to the social world in which they mixed. events dragged out over a period of several years. I n They mo ved into the new residence provided by th e their home life, Morris and Dorothy Travers wer e Institute and began to gi ve magnif icent receptions. It drawn closely together sharing their misery. In hi s was not uncommon for them to invite 100 or more t o public life, my father was able to proceed with wor k an evening reception on the grounds where a on the de velopment of the buildings of the Institute. military band would entertain the guests, and th e Most of the essential structures emerged out of th e nati ve cooks who were virtuosos in their ar t jungle. Students slowly f illed the laboratories an d provided the f inest food. Mother blossomed into th e classrooms, and se veral of these early students went role of hostess. Unfortunately, her appearance on th e on to ha ve distinguished careers. Whate ver Fathe r Indian scene was just too late to re verse the tide of could not do, he was materially successful i n conf lict within the Institute’s administration. accomplishing his goal of building the kind of institute he wanted. My sister and I arri ved in the midst of this period of turmoil and torment. Hardly surprising it is that i n After the a�empt to take Father to Court had failed t o Father’s autobiography he mentions the arrival of hi s result in his removal, a period of cold war lastin g daughter in just a single paragraph. He simply di d se veral years resulted. Members of the Council wh o not mention my arri val . had opposed the policies of the Director must ha ve been somewhat chagrined that the Institute wa s Although the crisis in India was a product of India n becoming a success. The Institute was able to a�rac t politics, it was one which a person with my father’ s many students of high intellectual caliber and als o disposition did not easily handle. He reacted to suc h some who were not so able. The less able student s

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 38 became an issue of dispute between the Council an d the Director. The Council believed the students wer e not receiving a fair shake. The Director called for th e dismissal of some of the students unable to meet th e academic standards. Eventually the Director se�le d the ma�er in a politically shrewd manner. He eliminated the students from the program but ga ve them positions as laboratory assistants in which the y could beha ve competently. The issue became just on e more example of tension and bickering within th e Institute.

Morris Travers sought solace in the only way i n which he knew. He began to undertake work in th e laboratory, though I have often wondered how a man running a large institution could f ind time to d o so. However, he did have competent junior member s of his staff capable of carrying on the daily functions.

Escape into the laboratory ga ve him the feeling of c being in a place where he was sure of his ability t o handle all contingencies. Perhaps he may e ven ha ve APC, IIS had dreams of recapturing some of his prestige as a y: s e laboratory scientist, a prestige which in time ha d t slowly eroded in the memories of his colleagues i n

the scienti fic world. The new scienti fic work he di d o cour manage to undertake was sound, but it had none of ot the brilliance of his earlier ef forts. Its main value t o Ph him was to enable him to withdraw from the strain s Letter from Morris Travers in 1958 to IISc’s Director S of administrati ve life and the torture of the conf lic t Bhagavantam. The handwritten postscript appears t o between himself and the Council, which also neede d read: “Excuse poor typing. My eyesight is not too good.” a period of respite from deep and emotion-f ille d conf lict . A second postscript is that the bi�erness of th e In the year 1913, the Council began to search fo r experience left a permanent scar on his life. He ways of coming to terms with the problem. The y believed that he had sacri ficed a scienti fic career b y approached the Director concerning the condition s going to India and by turning to administration. He under which he would lea ve the Directorship. Th e believed he had been succesful but that his success a s terms could ha ve been arri ved at easily and without an administrator had not been recognized. India left debate, but they involved much bickering. He ha d him with a bi�er taste that lasted the remaining f ift y received his initial appointment in 1907 for a perio d of ten years, but the last two years were to be a pai d years of his life. Even worse, he became highl y vacation, and he was to receive a pension for life. B y sensitive to what others might say about his succes s simply extending his terminal vacation, the Council or failure in India. There were times when he ha d was able to ensure his departure. After considerabl e deep suspicions that some people had a one-side d argument, this is what the Council and the Directo r view of what had happened to him in India and that eventually agreed upon as a solution to thei r it was not the side he would choose for them. He dif ferences. In the summer of 1914, Morris Traver s collected newspaper c u�ings and other material s and family returned to England. about the Institute to search for recognition of hi s contribution. He wrote a long autobiography, nearl y Two postscripts must be added to this account of half of which covered the problems he encountere d Morris Travers’ Indian venture. The f irst postscript i s in India, but his time there had occupied less tha n that in 1957, the registrar of the Institute sent Fathe r one-tenth of his life. Despite surface conf idence in hi s a set of pictures of the Institute. One of these was a success at the Institute, he had a haunting fear that picture of a new and magnif icent building. he might not have been entirely right in India, and i t Underneath the picture were the words “Economic s was that fear that he ne ver learned to li ve with o r and Social Science Building”. The picture must ha ve accept . been a terrible blow to Father, for it seemed to him a monument to the opposing side’s victory and hi s own defeat . *chaise – a light horse-drawn carriag e

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 39 How IIS c found a hom e in Bang alo re Karthik Rama sw amy

Bac k whe n th e pla n to se t up th e Ins tit ute was bei ng cha lke d out , th e south ern cit y was har dly th e mos t obvi ous cho ice to hou se it

“Bangalore is already the Science Capital, star t-u p In the l ate 1800s, when IISc was still a gleam in th e Capital and Technology Capital of the country, ” eyes o f its founder Jamsetji Nusser wanji Tata, Bio con founder Ki ran Majumdar Sh aw tweete d Bangalore was an unlike ly candid ate to house th e recent ly in support o f a demand to mak e Institute. Situated on the Deccan Plateau in a semi - Bangalore Indi a’s se cond capital. While there m ay arid , hill y terrain , dotted with dr y deciduous forest s be man y aspirants fo r a ne w supplementar y and thorny scrubs, Bangalore had not full y capital city , fe w would quibble with Sha w ove r he r recovered from the ravages of the Anglo-Mysor e description o f Banga lore, home to s eve ral wars. Though the Can tonment in the city was educational and research institutions, publi c mush rooming (the city was a popular destin atio n sec tor R&D industries, IT and bi otech companies, for the British soldiers because its clim ate all owe d and technolog y-rel ated star t-ups. Over th e them to pl ay cricket and polo for most o f the year) , decades, the emergence of the city as a hub of the more c row ded “pete ” – the settlement o f th e science and technology in India has resulted fro m local people – still experienced famines wit h a con fluence of fac tors. Chie f among them is th e disturbing regularity, and was also the epicentre of presence of IISc, established here more than a the outbreak o f a plague epidemic th at shook th e hundred years ago. city in 1898.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 40 Co nvoc ation address, Re ay lamented the st ate of Indian universities – which in those days wer e s mere ly examin ation bodies – and urged the “wises t men in England and India” to establish “real universities” instead. a eative Commons Licence/Wikimedia Common r C y/ ar r edit: British Lib r o c ot Ph

Bangalo re pe te in the 1890 s

So h ow did Bangalore, then a small city, grapplin g

with public hea lth issues and n ot much o f an Photo credit: Edwin Arthus Ward/Creative Commons Licence/Wikimedi academic tradition to speak of, become home t o A painting of JN Tat a IISc, be ating more established fa vourites? Th e answer to this question is closely intertwined wit h the s tory of how IISc came to be. But the process of building a university fro m sc ra tch in a country with limited resources and n o research infrastructure was going to be long an d Th e an swer to th e qu estio n of ho w II Sc arduous. Tata embarked on his project earnestl y wa s es tablish ed in Ban gal ore is cl ose ly on ly in 1896 when he called upon Burjorji Padshah, in ter twined wi th how it cam e to be an educationist whom Tata had mentored as a young man, to oversee the implementation of hi s vision. As a first step, he sent Padshah on an 18- The story begins with Tata, an enormousl y month trip to study European universities. Upon hi s successful industrialist with strong philanthropi c return in 1898, Tata s et up a 23-member Provisional instincts. He was keen to use his vast financial Committee (of which Tata too was a membe r) resources for a cause th at he beli eved would brin g headed by Padshah to come up with a detaile d about social transformation, rather than partake i n scheme for his g rand p roject . what he considered to be “patchwor k philanth rop y.” To ful fil his ambition, Tata – a man of The committee began its work by seeking the ideas as much as a man of business – considere d vi ew s of educ ationists and thinkers ac ross th e the possibility of contributing to India’s highe r country about Tata’s plan – which had been mad e education. His plans crystallised when he decide d public by then – including on where th ey thought to set up a university of higher learning in 1889, such a university should be located. A majority of inspired by the words of Lord Reay, the Chancello r the 76 people consu lted f avoured Bomb ay of Bomb ay Universi ty (a position he held by virtue (Mumbai) because of its “industrial life, wealth, an d of being the Governor of Bombay). In hi s civic importance.” Bombay was also Tata’ s

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 41 home town. Before setting up the P rovisional a Committee, he had considered the possibili ty of converting his alma mater Elphinstone College, o r perhaps the existing Bombay University, into a teaching university. He gave up the idea quickl y when he realised that such a m ove would defeat the purpose of what he set out to do. Othe r suggestions made to the committee for th e potential location of the university – tentativel y called The Imperial University of India – included: Calcutta ( Kol ka ta) , Poona (Pun e), Coonoor , Nainital , Allahabad , Bangalore , Roorkee and a fe w othe r smaller cities.

A ma jor ity of th e 76 pe opl e co nsu lte d fa vou red Bom bay bec aus e of it s “i ndu strial Photo credit: Creative Commons Licence/Wikimedi li fe, wea lth , an d ci vic imp ortan ce. ” Bo mba y Statue of Seshadri Iyer in Cubbon Park, Bangalor e wa s al so Tata ’s hometo wn

Following several weeks of consultations wit h The D ew an’s p roposition, n ow part o f the r evise d experts on the question of the p ropose d scheme submitted by the Provisional Committee t o university’s location and other issues, including it s the Government of India, was discussed at lengt h nature and finances, the P ro visional Committee during the Simla Conference in October 1899, a prepared a preliminary scheme. The scheme was meeting that was organised by the Government t o presented to Lord Cur zon by a deput ation led by take Tata’s initi ative for ward. During the conference, Tata on 31 December 1898, the d ay after he arrive d attended by Tata, Padshah and Cur zon amon g in Bomb ay to take over as the Vice ro y of India, . othe rs, the G overnment app ro ved the P ro visional Curzon had several questions for his guests and di d Committee’s scheme in principle and suggeste d not seem particular ly enthusiastic about the plan. th at the n ew university should be called th e India n But Tata was not entirely disheartened by Curzon’ s Uni versity of Resea rch . And as for its loc ation, it was response. a t wo-horse race between Bomb ay and Bangalore.

In ear ly 1899, Tata under took a tour of So uth India. Bomb ay was the sentimental fav ourite in spite of His last s top was Bangalore, where he met th e the D ew an’s o ffer. “ As is natu ral most members of Dew an of the M ysore State, Seshadri Iye r. Th e the Provisional Committee of the University are i n Dew an served as the advisor to the Regent Queen favour of Bomb ay, ” the proceedings of th e Vani Vilas Sannidhana, who ruled the Kingdom o n conference noted. The attendees also seemed t o behal f of her son, Krishna rajend ra Wadi yar , be swayed by public opinion and the vocife rou s coron ated in 189 5 when he was on ly 10 years old. lob bying by Bomb ay’s press. “The public opinion of (Years l ater, in 1911, during the laying of th e Bomb ay as expressed in the best English an d foundation stone of the Institute, the Maharaj a Vernacular papers like the Times of Indi a, Bomba y recounted the foresight and generosity of hi s Gazett e, Indu P rakash , Guj rati , Indian Spec tator , is mother in setting up the Institute.) The D ew an was unanimous ly in favour of Bomb ay, ” it added. an old friend o f Tata – he had helped Tata d evelo p a silk farm in the o utskirts o f Bangalore. Iyer wante d But Bomba y was fa r from ideal fo r a large universit y the State o f Mysore to take the lead in usin g – it was a crowded island where finding land fo r science and technology to improve the lives of it s such a massive venture was impossible. And it s people. Back in 1895, he had even written to John high humidity made it unsuitable for books an d Cook, the Principal of Cent ral College in Bangalore, scienti fic apparatus. saying that Mysore would be happy to support a university in Bangalore if such an idea took root, a Bangalor e’s clim ate, on the other hand, was, promise he reite ra ted to Tata four years l ate r. But “se cond on ly in att ractiveness to th at o f the Nilgir i this time his proposal was more concrete: Mysor e Hills,” the p roceedings said. And the expression of State would p ro vide about 300 acres o f land, an d support – of both land and money – by the Mysor e also contribute towards the cost o f building th e Durbar was taken serious ly. By the end o f th e university, p rovided it was in Bangalore. It was a n conference, Bangalore was looked upon mor e offer th at Tata would find ha rd to resist . fav ou rab ly.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 42 By th e en d of th e conf ere nce, Ba nga lore wa s But for Ramsay what weighed the scales decisivel y lo oke d up on mo re favour abl y in favour of the city were the m aterial promises of land and mon ey made by the D ew an. To him th e financial viability of the p roject was pa ramount . The G overnment, in the mea nwhile, recommende d to the P ro visional Committee th at a wel l-kn own European scientist be invited to give final shape t o the p roject. And for this mission, the committee chose Sir William Rams ay, the British chemist wh o would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry i n 1904.

Ramsay arrived in India in the winter of 1900 on a long trip sponsored by Tata. He studied the r evise d scheme careful ly and also visited s eve ral citie s where he met many of the stakeholders. Afte r spending almost three months in India, he wrote hi s report on his way back home, eventual ly publishe d as th e Report on an Institution to be named India n Institu te of Resea rch . Ramsay did not like the wor d university to be associated with an institution whic h he thought should provide scienti fic and technical support for the industrialis ation o f India. The repor t however sounded optimistic about the p roject an d all ayed ma ny of the fea rs expressed by Cur zon. An important part of Ramsay’s brief was to o ffer hi s recommendation for the location of the ne w Institute. And he was clear ly a fan o f Bangalore : th e city was accessible f rom b oth Bomb ay and Mad ras, a and was close to s eve ral mine ral deposits like i ron ore and gold. It was n ot far away from a p romisin g source of electric power – Shivanasamudra Fall s (Rams ay was convinced th at Bangalore would b e one of the largest owners of power in the worl d based on the D ew an’s description o f the planne d hydro-electric p roject ther e).

An imp ortant pa rt of Ram say ’s brie f wa s to of fer hi s rec ommen dat ion fo r th e loca tio n of th e ne w In sti tut e. An d he wa s cl ear ly a fan of Ban galore

There were other reasons why Rams ay like d Bangalore. One, for its clim ate, which he beli eve d would appeal to b oth Indians and Europeans alike. “The climate of Bangalore is temperate for nearl y

all the year ; it is not too hot for Europeans, nor too Photo credit: Leslie Ward/Creative Commons Licence/Wikimedi cold for natives ; it is within ea sy reach of Ootacamund [O oty], the most b racing clim ate of A caricature o f Si r William Ramsa y in Vanity Fai r India, ” he said. And t wo, for its lack o f dist ractions, when compared to bigger urban centres lik e Bomb ay, Mad ras, and Calcutta. Once Ramsay’s report was published, there wer e grumblings in Bengal because Rams ay ha d “I h ave visited all the other proposed sites for th e favoured a “ town th at was rem ote and d evoid of Institute, with the exception of Nassik [Nashik]; but intellectual societ y.” But by now, Tata had als o no one o f them appea rs to me to combine th e officially conveyed his preference for Bangalore t o ad vantages ab ove alluded to, ” he argued. the G overnment .

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 43 At this point when it seemed like the issue of the ana ly sis , concluded , “But , should this be come location of the Institute was settled, there was a possible [obtaining land and money], we ar e twist in the tale. The Government, which ha d decidedly of the opinion that Roorkee is preferabl e concerns about some o f Rams ay’s suggestions, to Bangalore.” Roorkee also received support fro m including the scale of the p roject, appointe d the Upper India and Bengal Chambers of an other committee comprising Colonel John Commerce. Clibborn, Principal of Thomason College of Civi l Engineering (late r renamed II T Roorkee) , and Davi d Fortun ate ly for Bangalore, the Roorkee suggestio n Orme Masson, a p rofessor from Melbourn e was stillborn because the proposed Institute di d Unive rsit y. After studying the scheme an d not receive the kind o f patronage it required to b e Rams ay’s suggestions, th ey submitted their own housed there. report in December 1901. Masson and Clibbor n made s eve ral re commend ations f rom wh at th e focus o f research should be to h ow the p roject Th e to wn whic h em erged as a dar k hor se could be financially downsized. They als o la te in th e ra ce was Ro ork ee, clo se to th e suggested changing the name of the Institute fro m th e Indian Institu te of Resea rch (which, according t o fo oth ills of th e Him ala yas , wh ere Cli bborn them, was “prete ntious”) to th e Indian Institu te of wo rke d Science . The report was most ly well received (a n account on IISc published in Nature in 1924 by it s first Direc tor Morris Travers described the report a s Even as Masson and Clibborn were writing thei r “eminent ly practical”) . report, the M ysore Durbar formalised its suppor t for the Indian Institute of Science: it promised t o pro vide 371 acres and 11 guntas o f land, Rs 5 lakh s towards capital expenditure and also an annual contribution (which was eventual ly Rs 50,00 0). a e Photo: Nikhil Mor

Photo credit: Creative Commons Licence/Wikimedi Main Building of IISc in Bangalor e

David Orme Masson Not long after, Bangalore was finalised as the home o f IISc. But p rogress on completing th e formalities to set up the Institute was slow due t o Wh at surprised ma ny however was th at the repor t seve ral bureauc ra tic del ay s as wel l as the sudde n chose to r evisit the issue o f the loc ation o f th e de ath o f Tata in 1904. Final ly, foll owing a vestin g Institute. The town which emerged as a dark hors e order from the G overnment o f India on 2 7 May late in the race was Roorkee, close to the foothill s 1909 , IISc came into existence , in Bangalore , wher e of the Himal ayas, where Clibborn worked. In th e today it occupies prime real estate in the heart of a report, they summarised the pros and cons of bot h city th at has be come syno nymous with scienc e Bangalore and Roorkee, and based on thei r and technology in India.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 44 Have you hopped ont o one of IISc’ s a arsh H

shared cycles yet ? V

Users trying out the n ew cyc les o: Deepika S ot

during the launch on January 8 Ph

Over 100 shiny green cycles around campus are par t may remember Namma Cycle, a cycle sharin g of a smart cycle-sharing initiative called PEDL – a program by the Ride-a-Cycle Foundation launched o n renewed ef fort to make ge�ing around campus eas y campus in 2012, which f izzled out. Verma sees it a s without motorised vehicles. being “f irst generation” – the cycles could be remove d from a docking station by registering for a card an d A collaboration bet ween the pri vate vehicle rental swiping them at the station. He describes th e company Zoomcar and Ashish Verma’s lab in th e adorably named Trin Trin, a cycle-sharing syste m Department of Civil Engineering, the new system i s launched in Mysore that requires registration and a meant to provide users on campus with a smoot h smartcard to use the cycles, as “second generation”. experience and a sustainable, eco-friendly mode of transport . Verma sees PEDL as being particularly appealing t o young users: “It’s tech savvy, it’s cool and trendy, “There are 125 cycles at 27 designated locations o n and it comes with a fashion quotient.” The cycle s campus,” says Verma, who is Associate Professor , certainly ha ve pro ven to be popular in their short ru n Transportation Systems Engineering at th e so far. In the f irst month after it launched on Januar y Department. “It is one step towards a long-ter m 8, more than 9,500 trips had been made, with eac h vision of decongesting the campus. ” cycle having made around three trips a day.

The cycles can be unlocked using one’s smartphone, Sriraksha Srinivasan, a f inal semester MSc student at and rides cost Re 1 for e very half hour of usage, St Joseph’s College, travels to IISc regularly for a which can be paid through Paytm (soon, payments b y project she is working on at the Solid State an d card and Unif ied Payments Interface – UPI – will b e Structural Chemistry Unit. She f irst noticed the cycle s enabled too). More information on PEDL and how t o use it can be found at www.pedl.in. around two weeks ago, and soon became a n enthusiastic user. “It’s con venient because of th e “Zoomcar shares the data with our lab, and we many locations at which they ’re a vailable. It’s pre�y provide substantial input in terms of planning an d easy to f igure out,” she says. And they’re clearly i n analysis,” says Verma. He describes PEDL – dockless, high demand: “Earlier, you could see around f iv e ccashless and easy to use – as the “third generation ” cycles at Tata Book House when you arrived, ” in cycle sharing systems. Long-term denizens of IIS c Srinivasan says. “Now, it’s nearly zero. ”

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 45 A view of HAL’s sho p floor. IISc’s Department o f Aeronautical Engineerin g The Effect of was set up in 1942, an d helped HAL repair an d maintain war planes use d World War II in World War II on IIS c Deepika S

It took a catastrophic event like the war to reset the Institut e on the course originally planned for i t

“This is a time of war. The gre at majority of th e with the bombing of the southern coast in 1943 an d people o f this country deep ly symp athise with risk s the attempted i nv asions o f Kohima and Imphal by and su fferings of the people of Great Britain. Man y Japan the foll owing year), and p ro vided resource s are willing and anxious to take part in the measur e and manp ower – by August 1945, over 2.5 millio n needed to help Britain and humanity in thi s Indian men had fought for the Allies. With a wa r emergency,” said engineer and statesma n spanning six years (ending in September 1945) an d Sir M Visvesvaraya in his 1941 address to member s independence on the horizon, the British-rule d of IIS c’s Court . countr y was faced with ne w challenges , including a need to rapidly develop local industry and scienti fic It may be hard to gauge whether Visvesvaraya’ s research. These challenges would pull IISc in a st atement tru ly re flected the sentime nts o f th e signi ficant new direction. most Indians, but World War II, which b roke out o n 1 September 1939, had a conside rable impact o n In 1938, Vi sve sv araya was unanimous ly electe d India. Being a British colony, India was drawn int o President o f IIS c’ s Court – which takes decisions o n the war (which would come to Indian shore s important matters such as the setting up of ne w

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 46 departments and the Institute’s direction – and remained President until 19 47. The minutes of the Court proceedings from thos e years include his annual opening address t o the members of the Court, and reveal a rathe r dogged focus on ensuring that IISc’s researc h activities expanded to include applie d research.

By the time war broke out, three committee s had reviewed the work done by the Institute – the Pope Committee appointed in 1921, an d the t wo “Quinquennial Revi ewin g

Committees” in 1931 and 1936, kn own as the c S I Sewell and Irvine committees, respective ly. All I ,

three re commended th at the Institute focu s C

on industrial research. But a lack of funds, an d AP y: the personal inclinations of IISc’s director s s te (who had included scientists focused on pur e r u o research like Morris Travers and CV Raman) c to

until then, had meant that the founder J N o

Tata’s vision of building an institute that woul d Ph support industry was yet to be realised. A 1943 photog raph of st ude nts of the Depart ment of c To Vi sve sv araya (who is supposed to h ave El ect rical Techno logy st anding before a 300 Wa� tr ansmi�e r said “Industrialise or perish”), World War II th ey designed and fabr ica ted for the Royal Air Force, fo r co mmu nication wi th Lond on during Wor ld War II APC, IIS seemed to p ro vide the perfect impetus. : o “Industries of a country in war time stimulat e ot

Ph self-help and have a bracing e ffect on the When war broke in 1939, on ly four department s mentality and aspi ra tions o f the people, ” he were in operation: Physics, General and Organi c said in 1941, qu oting a member of the Cent ral Chemistry, Biochemistry and Electrical Technolog y. Legisl ative Assemb ly who had been By the end o f the war, Ae ronautical Engineerin g impatient about Indians being called upon t o had been added, along with a cou rse in Internal subscribe to war loans and give to war funds an d Combustion Engineering. A cou rse in Metallurg y “knit stockings, but nothing more”. “Our failure t o would foll ow soon afte r. take ad vantage of the prese nt opportunity to giv e a fillip to industries, ” Vi sve sv araya told the Court , “will mean a tragic waste of a chance which occur s only once in several generations. ” IISc’s war activitie s Apart f rom h aving a long -term in fluence on th e The first major decision towards this end was th e direction of research at IISc, the war had a passing of a resolution in 1941 to provide training in signi ficant immedi ate impact on the dai ly activitie s ae ronautical and automobile engineering. In 1942, in the departments and on campus. this was extended to mechanical engineering (“Th e War that is going on,” Visvesvaraya believed, “is a The minutes of the Court proceedings of 1941 an d mechanical engineer ’s war.”) In 1944, a Joint 1942 show that work carried out for the wa r Committee o f IIS c’ s Court and Council to driv e included the manufacture of activated carbon fo r applied research put forth nine p roposals, gas masks, radio equipment, urea an d including the setting up of new departments i n formaldehyde required to make synthetic plasti c Applied Mechanics and Metallurgy, the spli tting of materials, drugs and allied substances for th e the Department o f Electrical Technology in to th e Army, among other things. Sta ff from the Institut e departments of Electrical Engineering (with a focu s helped set up fac tories to p roduce bich rom ate, an d pure ly on research) and Communication chlorates of barium and potassium. The Institute’ s Engineering, the expanding of the course i n Cent ral Workshop had been s tocked by th e chemical engineering, and the setting up of a firs t Government of India with a large number of lathes, class Research Workshop under the p ropose d and machines for purposes such as drilling, Department of Mechanical Engineering. shaping, grinding and milling.

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 4 7 IIS c’ s Annual Reports f rom the war years sh ow th at Looking beyond the war the Institute p rovided facilities to t rain “skille d artisans” such as electricians, machinists, The war, coming as it did right be fore India n carpenters, tin and copper smiths, among othe rs. independence, led to changes at the Institute th at On the request o f the Air Headquarters of th e also re flected a change in attitude. Th e Military, a plant was constructed on campus for th e Quinquennial Revi ew Committee was n ot large -scale p roduction o f hydrogen gas, and th e appointed in 1941, when it was due, on accou nt of Institute tempo rari ly leased 108 acres o f land to th e the war. “Th at Committee has the gre at military authorities as a camp site, 30 acres for the disad vantage, ” Vi sve sv araya said in his Cour t setting up of a military radio service, and othe r address the foll owing year, “o f not a lways loc ations on campus for the construction of understanding local conditions and local wants. ” workshops. Clerks were even trained in type -writin g He went on to p ropose th at ra ther than h ave and English comp osition. foreign scientists arrive to assess the Institute afte r the close of the war, the Institute should sen d Of course, the transition into war mode wasn’ t members to centres of scienti fic and educational always smooth. Letters between architect Ott o activities in foreign countries to g ather ideas. By Koenigsberger, IISc’s administration, and the hea d 1944, steps were being made by the Institute t o of the Department of Electrical Technology, move b eyond the war and begin the p rocess of K Srini vasan, sh ow th at the n ew ar rangement s nation-building – something Vi sve sv aray a was could som etimes be a source of friction. keen to drive.

“Happily the war has ended, ” Visvesvaraya told the Court i n 1946, “and the pos t-war peac e time activities are engaging the attention o f e very free countr y. The great changes that hav e taken place as a resu lt of th e two World Wars and th e progress and discoveries i n science, which are also partl y the resu lt o f the wars, h ave altered living conditions i n many parts of the world. ” Ironically, it took a development as catastrophi c as a World War for IISc to reset its course towards the pat h original ly intended for it. Th e Institute’s new direction fro m the war led to s eve ral fruitful collaborations, chief of which i s the g ro wth of Indi a’s ae rospac e industry, where the Institut e still pl ays a signi ficant role. c S I I , C AP y: s te r u o c to o Ph

Po rti on of a le� er fr om K Sriniv asa n, head of the De par tment of El ectrica l Te chn ology, to IISc’s Reg istrar rai sing co nce rns about the war arr angem ent s

connect.iisc. ac.i n | 48 ABSTRACT S IISc Ph ot og ra phy Club

Foliage near IIS c’s main buildin g