No. 47 March 2008 Newsletter of the Indian Academy of Sciences 2007 Annual Meeting The seventy-third Annual Meeting of the Academy was held at Thiruvananthapuram during 1– 4 November 2007. It was a return to this location after twenty six years, and the hosting institutions this time were the National Inside... 1. 2007 Annual Meeting .................. 1 2. 2008 Elections ............................. 3 3. Special issues .............................. 5 4. Public lectures ............................. 8 5. Discussion meeting ..................... 9 Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, Vikram Sarabhai Space 6. Refresher Courses .................... 10 Centre, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, and University of Kerala. About 130 Fellows 7. Lecture Workshops .................... 12 and 41 invited teachers attended the meeting. 8. Obituaries................................... 17 In a departure from past practice, the inaugural session, including introduction of Fellows and the President’s address, was held on the evening of the opening day. The Presidential address by D. Balasubramanian was titled “Approaches to understand and treat eye diseases”. He dealt with both the avoidable kinds of blindness in the Indian population – about nine millions – and those which have no ready solutions – some three millions. The former include cataract cases and uncorrected refractive errors, the latter cover corneal dystrophies, glaucomas and retinal disorders. Work at the LV Prasad Eye Institute is at EDITOR the molecular genetic and biochemical levels, and goes even N. Mukunda as far as the use of adult stem cells to repair damaged corneas. Published by It was very moving to see how much can be done to relieve such distressing afflictions, how much is being done, and yet Indian Academy of Sciences Bangalore 560 080, India remains. Phone: (080) 2361 2546, 2361 4592 email: [email protected] M.L. Munjal’s special lecture on This newsletter is available on the “Towards quieter automobiles’ Academy website at : www.ias.ac.in/patrika/ was in many ways an ‘ear- To receive a regular copy of the opener’. He described the range Newsletter, please write to the of the human ear – much larger Executive Secretary of the Academy in a sense than the eye – and ([email protected]) the harmful effects of excessive noise. The 1997 EU limits on Forthcoming Events – automobile noise levels are now 2008 in force in India, and by 2010 the current EU limits will be th 19 Mid-Year Meeting, Bangalore enforced. The sources of automobile noise, design of mufflers (4–5 July 2008) to bring down noise levels, and the counter intuitive idea that th 74 Annual Meeting, Delhi all noise generating machines should be located near one another st (31 October– 2 November 2008) rather than far apart, were explained beautifully. Refresher Courses Sulochana Gadgil’s special lecture ‘Foretelling the monsoon’ Experimental physics gave a historical-cum-technical Bharathiar University, Coimbatore account of a notoriously difficult 16–31 May 2008 subject, often the target of Experimental physics humour. The enormous Pondicherry University economic consequences of the 7–23 July 2008 quality of the monsoon are well known even to lay persons. Lecture Workshops Paradoxically, while the Indian Mathematics monsoon is a quite reliable Pondicherry University event in the tropics, swings within the normal 10% variations 3–5 April 2008 can go from drought conditions to disastrous flooding, over and Frontiers in chemistry above spatial variations. Modelling is also extremely difficult, St. Thomas College, Pala evidence the absence of predictions of the 2002 and 2004 10–11 April 2008 droughts. There are efforts currently to generate forecasts at Medical biotechnology the district level. The influences of the El Nino Southern NMKRV College, Bangalore Oscillation over the Pacific and the Equatorial Indian Ocean 10–11 April 2008 Oscillation over the Indian Ocean, and our improved Molecular biology understanding of these global scale phenomena, were brought Mangalore University, Madikeri out in dramatic fashion. There is hope that in the near future we 11–12 April 2008 may see substantial improvement in simulation skills and quality Probing electronic states in molecular of predictions of our monsoon. materials, Bharathidasan Univ, Tiruchirappalli, 24–27 September 2008 Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Public Lecture ‘Dance of the Enchantress’ was a brief spoken introduction to his 2 recent documentary The meeting included a good number of film on the classical presentations by recently elected Fellows and dance form Associates, covering a wide variety of subjects: Mohiniyattam, followed symmetry of solutions of differential equations; by a screening of the prospects of India becoming a leader in wireless film. The latter was a technology; lopsided spiral galaxies; the faunal visual treat, the response to India’s northward drift and collision with Asia; unobtrusive camera and several others. capturing in a lyrical manner the grace, As has become normal, the quality of presentations and dignity and elegance of logistic arrangements were both extremely high, and of the movements of this dance form and its all participants felt this was a rewarding and memorable musical and rhythmic accompaniments. The lush meeting. background scenery of the region also made a striking impression. There were two symposia, one on ‘Space sciences and applications’ and another on ‘Re-emerging infections in India’. The first one covered solar system studies, space transportation systems, earth viewed from space, and the numerous societal contributions of our thriving space programmes. The second symposium dealt with the Chandipura encephalitis, re-emergence of Cultural Programme during Annual Meeting chikungunya in India, the malaria problem, and the problems of prediction and control of recurring infections. The earlier cases of chikungunya involved the Asian genotype, mainly in urban areas; the more recent 2008 ELECTIONS 2005–2006 occurrence affected about 13.6 million persons mainly in rural areas, and was caused by the Fellows: African genotype. Anil Kumar National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad The S. Ramaseshan Areas of interest: Earth sciences; isotope Memorial Public Lecture geochemistry; palaeomagnetism delivered by Lotika Varadarajan described Apte, Shree Kumar the ‘Seafaring traditions Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai of the Indian West Molecular biology; biotechnology; physiology, biochemistry; stress biology of Coast’. This was a bacteria and plants fascinating journey in both space and Bhalla, Upinder Singh time, with splendid National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore Systems biology; computational neuroscience; visual material, systems neurobiology highlighting the different kinds of seagoing vessels crisscrossing the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. One could see the great Chandy, Mammen differences as compared to the Eastern Coast, Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore Hematology; bone marrow transplantation; the cultural features and continuity of skills over molecular genetics of blood diseases centuries. 3 Chattopadhyay, Joydev Krishna Kumar, K Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune Mathematical modelling on ecology; Monsoon dynamics; predictability and epidemiology; eco-epidemiology prediction; climate change and impacts; climate applications Chaudhuri, Arabinda Kundu, Tapas K Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Organized surfactant assemblies; bioorganic Scientific Research, Bangalore chemistry; liposomal delivery systems Mechanisms of transcriptional regulation; nonhistone chromatin proteins in genomic integrity; chemical biology Das, Puspendu Kumar Manna, Indranil Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur Physical chemistry; laser spectroscopy and Structure-property correlation of engineering dynamics; nonlinear optics materials; nanostructured materials; surface engineering Dey, Gautam Kumar Nangia, Ashwini Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad Phase transformations in metals and alloys; Organic chemistry; crystal engineering; electron microscopy; metallic glasses and supramolecular chemistry nanocrystalline materials Goswami, Ravinder Panda, Dulal All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai Autoimmune endocrine disorders; sporadic Biochemistry; cell biology; biophysics idiopathic hypoparathyroidism; metabolic bone disorders in India Gupta, Anil Kumar Pandit, Aniruddha B Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai Paleomonsoon; paleoclimatology; Design of multiphase reactors, cavitation paleoceanography phenomena; environmental engineering Gupta, Yashwant Parnaik, Veena K National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Pune Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad Astronomy and astrophysics; radio astronomy Cell biology; molecular biology instrumentation; signal processing Karanth, K Ullas Roy, Sujit Centre for Wildlife Studies, Bangalore Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur Carnivore ecology; animal population Organometallic chemistry; catalysis for fine analysis; conservation biology chemicals; C-H functionalization Kesavan, Srinivasan Sarkar, Utpal The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai Physical