Awards and words of worth

Kalyan Sourav Das receives gold medal for being best BTech graduate of NIT, Rourkela. (Above) Fulbright scholar John Cussen receives a warm welcome at the alumni lecture of the English Department of Ravenshaw University. Telegraph pictures

It was a hectic two days for students of Buxi Jagabandhu Bidyadhar (BJB) Autonomous College as the 51st Annual Athletic Meet-2011 was held on the college grounds on January 11 and 12. Both boys and girls of first, second and third years of all the three streams - arts, science and commerce - took active part in a wide range of activities that ranged from 800-metre and 1,500-metre race to javelin throw, discus throw, high jump, triple jump, slow cycle race and even musical chairs. The prelims of all the events were held on the first day and the finals on the following day. A colourful march past kick-started the two-day event. Oriya footballer Sasmita Mallick was the guest of honour and Surendranath Mohanty, principal of BJB Junior College, was the chief guest. Prithviraj Sethi, from the arts stream, was declared college champion while Basant Kumar Dalai was adjudged runners-up. In the women’s category, Himangini Nayak bagged the champion’s trophy and Minati Sahoo (second year, arts) was declared runners-up.

Talk time

An alumni lecture marked the appointment of eminent Oriya poet Soubhagya Mishra as writer-in-residence for the year 2011. The lecture was organised by the department of English at the Heritage Hall of Ravenshaw University on January 17. Vice-chancellor of the university, members of the faculty, eminent litterateurs, renowned bureaucrats and reputed politicians of the state, all former students of the department, were present on the occasion. The ceremony was followed by a lecture by visiting Fulbright scholar John Cussen who spoke about the writings of Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri, of the Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake fame. State income tax commissioner Pradosh Mohanty, also the president of the alumni association, D.R. Pattanaik, head of the department, also addressed the audience. Three advisors - Sashibhusan Behera, member of Parliament, Binay Kumar Behera, additional director general of police, and Shyamaprasad Choudhuri, income tax commissioner, Calcutta - delivered speeches. The alumni association also gave away prizes to meritorious students of the department, both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The programme ended with a vote of thanks from professor Rajanikanta Nayak.

Fuzzy logic

Fuzzy logic and neural networks are terms that may not be easily understood by the common man, but scientists are using them in a variety of fields, from easy car-parking to requirements in areas such as defence, medical science and criminal investigation. Experts in the field debated these possibilities at the three-day workshop on “Soft Computing and Applications” jointly organised by the Centre for Soft Computing Research of the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta, and the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER) under the Siksha O Anusandhan University that concluded on January 15. “Soft computing is an area that can help find solutions in varied fields based on fuzzy logic, genetic algorithm and artificial neural networks,” Shankar K. Pal, principal investigator of Centre for Soft Computing Research, told participants at the workshop. Elaborating on the car-parking solution, he said it involved designing a controller capable to move a mobile robot from an arbitrary initial position to a goal position avoiding collision with objects that could be present. While fuzzy logic emulated human reasoning process, genetic algorithm is related to optimisation and searching based on biologically inspired phenomena. Artificial neural networks emulated the learning mechanism of the human brain, he said, adding, “You have to integrate them judiciously to solve real world ambiguous problems.” The vice-chancellor of Siksha O Anusandhan University, M. P. Jain, the university’s deputy chairman, B.K. Sarap, director (research) P.K. Dash, dean of ITER, R.K. Mishra, scientist of ISI, Calcutta, A. Ghosh and professor of ITER, P.K. Nanda, also addressed the inaugural session.

Full marks

Participants at the annual athletics meet at BJB Autonomous College in Bhubaneswar. (Above) Speakers attend the workshop on soft computing skills at the Institute of Technical Education and Research in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph pictures

Kalyan Sourav Das received the coveted gold medal as the best BTech graduate from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela, during the seventh annual convocation ceremony held on the institute’s premises on January 15. Kalyan Sourav was conferred the medal for securing the first position in electronics and instrumentation degree. Chairman of Coal India, P.S. Bhattacharya, presented the medal and certificate to him. The previous evening too, this meritorious boy had been felicitated with the Memorial medal for bagging the title of best graduate of NIT, Rourkela. After receiving the honours, Kalyan Sourav administered the oath to all BTech, MTech and PhD students of the institute. His parents, Kalikinkar Das and Soubhagini Mishra, were also invited to the function. NIT director, P.C. Panda, senators, professors, scholars and parents of other students also participated in the event. Kalyan Sourav has had an eventful journey in his academic career. He was the topper at matriculation (from Nagabasta High School, Puri) and Plus II (from BJB Junior College) levels. At present, he is working with IOL and is also preparing for the civil services examination.

Advantage, research

Researchers have stressed the continuous development of drugs and pharmaceuticals to combat life threatening diseases such as cancer, AIDS and viral diseases in a scenario where specific targeted drugs to treat such ailments are not found. Research and development costs have increased 23 times in the last 28 years with an all-time high of $1.25 million per development of new drug molecules while the time for drug development had also gone up from 11.6 years in the 1970s to 14.9 years in 2001. This has led to a critical situation as the R&D pipeline was continuously thinning while the challenges of healthcare continued to widen, experts said at the two-day AICTE-sponsored national seminar on “The Changing face of Pharmaceutical Research in the Present Global Scenario” held at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (SPS), Siksha O Anusandhan University recently. Explaining the scenario, S.C. Si, dean of the SPS, said that in the present Indian context, the academic-industry linkage had not yet taken proper shape, which was required for better growth of the drug and pharmaceutical industry. Both the elements were working without any collaboration, he said. Si said the academia should share the burden of drug development and continuous interaction between academia and industry through collaborative research would serve the purpose. Dhiraj Chopra, deputy general manager, research and development, Bharat Serums and Vaccines, Thane, who spoke as the chief guest, focussed on the development of sustained release injectable products (depot injections) that are very patient compliant. Efforts by various product development teams across the globe had led to the availability of more than a dozen biodegradable polymer based depot injections in the global pharmaceuticals market and many more were expected in the near future. The vice-chancellor of Siksha O Anusandhan University, M.P. Jain, and Y. Madhusudan Rao of Kakatiya University also addressed the workshop.