Category: RECORDS, INDIA (National)

** New Directors appointed at 4 IITs

They are professors with strong industry links and policy experience

Signalling a new era, professors with strong industry links and policy experience have been appointed the new Directors of four of the elite Indian Institutes of Technology.

At IIT Madras, the country’s top educational institution according to domestic rankings, the next Director will be V. Kamakoti, who designed the first indigenously-developed microprocessor for use in communications and defence sectors.

The Professor of Computer Science and Engineering is currently the associate dean for Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research at IIT Madras.

“Our immediate priority would be augmenting the skill set for indigenous technology development,” he said, according to an official statement.

IIT Delhi’s next director will be Rangan Banerjee, currently the Forbes Marshall Chair Professor in IIT Bombay’s Department of Energy Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay, which he helped to start in 2007.

With academic interests in energy management, planning and policy, as well as hydrogen energy and fuel cells, Professor Banerjee was a member of the Working Group on New and Renewable Energy for the Eleventh and Twelfth Five-Year Plans and a member of the Planning Commission’s Integrated Energy Policy.

IIT Bombay is also the current home of IIT Indore’s next Director Suhas S. Joshi. With a background in production engineering, he started his career as an engine development manager at Tata Motors before shifting into academia.

He currently heads the Department of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Bombay, holds the Rahul Bajaj Chair position and is also Dean of Alumni and Corporate Relations at a time when the institution has raked in record donations from its alumni.

According to his profile on the IIT Bombay website, Dr. Joshi has undertaken 38 projects sponsored by aerospace, nuclear, defence and private organisations in India and spearheaded the establishment of an aerospace research centre in partnership with Boeing and the Central government.

Laxmidhar Behera, a Robotics professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Kanpur, has been appointed the next Director of IIT Mandi.

He heads the Intelligent Systems and Control Laboratory at IIT Kanpur and focuses on developing automation solutions to industrial and domestic problems.

Recent projects include the development of a bio-signal enabled control of a robotic wheelchair sponsored by the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council and a Central government sponsored project on robotics in agriculture.

** ICHR gets new chairman

Raghuvendra Tanwar, a professor emeritus and former registrar of the Kurukshetra University, has been appointed as chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research.

“He was appointed the director of Haryana Academy of History and Culture in 2016. He also served as a UGC national fellow, a prestigious position in academia, from 2002-2005.

“Prof Tanwar is a world-renowned expert in the field of partition studies and Jammu & Kashmir and has published a large number of books and research papers in the national and international journal in these areas,” it said.

** Madhya Pradesh villagers host funerary feast for langur, over 1,500 people take part

The residents of Dalupura village in Madhya Pradesh’s Rajgarh district hosted a mass feast for some 1,500 people as part of funerary rituals of a langur that died of the cold on December 29.

They had also taken part in the funeral procession of the simian before cremating it in the traditional way amid the chanting of hymns on December 30.

A video of the ‘mrityu bhoj’ surfaced on social media on Monday.

** A youngster from Kochi hitchhiked across Russia in 27 days

Mr. Presheed travelled from Tuapse along the western coast of Russia on the Black Sea to Vladivostok on the eastern coast near the Sea of Japan.

In his 24 years, Yadukrishnan Presheed from Palarivattom probably has had more adventures than an average man could possibly dream of during a lifetime.

For the youngster doing his journalism course in the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, also known as RUDN University, in Moscow, 2021 turned out to be one of the most memorable years in his already action-packed life.

* Karnataka’s Kodagu district becomes only place in India to have three Lieutenant Generals serving in Army

Kodagu is a small and beautiful mountain district of Karnataka and is well known in the world for coffee and its ‘brave warriors’, men and women, serving in all services.

It was a proud moment for the people of Kodagu district when Lt Gen CP Cariappa took command of India’s elite 1 Strike Corps at Mathura on Friday. Lt Gen Cariappa became the Corp Commander and the District boasts of rare distinction of three Lieutenant Generals serving the army simultaneously.

Lt Gen PC Thimmaya and Lt Gen CB Ponnappa are the other two generals. Lt Gen Thimmaya is the Army Commander at the Army Training Command and Lt Gen Ponnappa is the Chief of Staff at the Northern Army Command.  All three officers are a product of the National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla and joined the army at different times. Lt Gen Ponappa is the junior-most who joined the Army in June 1985.

** The reporters who cover the remotest parts of rural India have now reached the Oscars

As a documentary on news network Khabar Lahariya makes it to the Oscars, we look at a few news networks that report from the most neglected parts of rural India

Winter is setting in, and the pilgrimage centre on the Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh border is yet to shake off its slumber when Sunita and I set out for Gadhchapa village in Uttar Pradesh. Sunita, a reporter with Khabar Lahariya, a multi-lingual news network run by rural women journalists, has traveled an hour by bus from her house in Kol Majra village to reach Karwi town.

Khabar Lahariya is one among a clutch of news outlets and organisations — including the Gaon Connection, People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), and Lantern Marathi — that are reporting from the most abjectly neglected parts of rural India where most journalists don’t tread.

** Reliance arm to acquire New York city luxury hotel

Mandarin Oriental New York is an iconic luxury hotel located at 80 Columbus Circle, directly adjacent to the pristine Central Park and Columbus Circle in New York city

The Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) on January 8 late night said the Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Ltd (RIIHL), its wholly owned subsidiary, had entered into an agreement to acquire the entire share capital of the Columbus Centre Corporation (Cayman), and the indirect owner of a 73.37% stake in the Mandarin Oriental New York, a premium luxury hotel for $ 98.15 million.

Set up in 2003, the Mandarin Oriental New York is an iconic luxury hotel located at 80 Columbus Circle, directly adjacent to the pristine Central Park and Columbus Circle in New York city.

** Less than 100 workers of Foxconn return to one of the dormitories, operations to resume in phased manner

Resuming operations with full workforce to take some more months

Less than 100 workers at Foxconn’s plant in Sriperumbudur have returned to one of the dormitories. The plant is likely to reopen on January 12, however resuming of operations with the full 15,000 workforce will take some more months, as corrective measures have to be implemented in full, according to sources, besides there is a change in local management.

The plant which makes Apple iPhones, was shut down last month after a food poisoning incident affected more than 100 women workers. Apple has placed the plant on probation and Foxconn has apologised for the incident, while assuring of corrective action.

** Andhra Pradesh CM Jagan Mohan Reddy inaugurates 144 PSA oxygen plants

“Besides establishing the oxygen plants, the government is providing a 30% subsidy to private hospitals with over 100-bed capacity for setting up oxygen plants,” the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh said.

Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, on January 10, virtually inaugurated 144 Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) oxygen plants set up at various government hospitals in the State.

On the occasion, Mr. Reddy said the government has been taking all measures to contain coronavirus ahead of the third wave and as part of it, 144 oxygen plants have been installed in government hospitals at a cost of ₹426 crore.

** Sri Lanka launches luxury train service in Jaffna with India’s assistance

India had provided AC Diesel Multiple Units under the loan facility

Sri Lanka has launched a luxury train service connecting the country’s Tamil-dominated Jaffna district to the capital city Colombo with the help of a Line of Credit offered by India, in another significant landmark in bilateral ties.

The intercity rail service with all facilities was launched on Sunday for passengers travelling from Colombo’s Mount Lavinia suburb to Jaffna’s Kankesanthurai port suburb in the north, covering a distance of approximately 386 kms.