Students of HDF School of Management, Bhubaneswar, carry out a cleaning drive at Naranpur on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar and (above) the group of four KISS students selected as core probables in the national women’s rugby team. Telegraph pictures

Dipti Prakasini Das, a young woman scientist at the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT), Bhubaneswar, received the CSIR-Young Scientist Award in chemical sciences from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi on September 26. The award came with a cash prize of Rs 50,000 and a research grant of Rs 5 lakh per annum for five years. Dipti earned this honour for developing novel photocatalysts leading to solar energy conversion.

Earlier, Dipti had received the Prof R.C. Tripathy Young Scientist Award (2006) and Prof Dayanidhi Pattnaik Award (2007) instituted by the Odisha Chemical Society.

Dipti has published 26 research papers in reputed journals and has filed for four Indian patents. She is the third scientist of IMMT to receive the prestigious national award in the past four years and is the first woman scientist of the institute selected for this honour.

Girls on a roll

Four girls of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), Bhubaneswar, who have been selected as core probables in the national women rugby team, are now attending a pre-tournament camp in Pune.

The selected players are Bhagyalaxmi Barik, Sitamani Hembram, Sanjukta Munda and Mirarani Hembram. Bhagyalaxmi was part of the Indian women’s rugby team at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China.

Four other students of the institute had earlier made it to the Odisha state handball team for 17th east zone (men and women) national handball championship held in Tripura last week.

The players were Chandan Tuika, Jagannath Pradhan, Sarita Sabar and Sonali Mallick.

Honour for academic

Scientist Pradipta Kishore Dash, who is spearheading research activities at Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar, was conferred the Biju Patnaik Award for Scientific Excellence for 2010. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik presented the award, which included a cash prize of Rs 2 lakh and a citation. The award has been instituted by the government-run Odisha Bigyan Academy.

Dash, who was the first vice-chancellor of SoA University and is now director (research and consultancy) at the institute’s multi-disciplinary research cell, had earlier received the state-instituted Samanta Chandrasekhar Award in engineering in 1990 in recognition of his contribution to scientific research.

His areas of research include power engineering, automation and intelligent systems, applied computer sciences and data mining and signal processing.

Cleanliness drive

Students of the HDF School of Management, Bhubaneswar, organised a village-cleaning programme on October 2 to mark Gandhi Jayanti. Sixty students visited Naranpur village on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar and began the cleaning operation, removing garbage and dirt from the village roads and water bodies. The students also worked to clear clogged drains and weeds.

Blood donation

The Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, conducted a blood donation camp on its campus on National Voluntary Blood Donation Day on October 1. Students and teachers took part in the camp. At the end of the day, around 30 units of blood were collected.

President of the district blood donors’ association Biranchi Pati talked about various myths and misconceptions associated with blood donation.

He said it was safe for a person aged between 18 and 65 years to donate around 350 to 450 mg of blood.

Service goals

The advisory council meeting of the National Service Scheme (NSS) under the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) was held last week.

Besides chalking out the annual action plan, the annual budget for 530 NSS units functioning in Plus Two colleges of the state was approved by the council headed by the chairman Nihar Ranjan Patnaik. It was also decided to formulate special plans for skill development among tribal NSS volunteers.

Social changes

A two-day national seminar — Uplift of the Downtrodden and Social Reform Movements in Odisha — was organised by the history department of Berhampur University last week.

Former vice-chancellor of the varsity Jaya Krushna Baral highlighted the different dimensions of Dalit movements in India with special reference to Odisha.

S.K. Sarkar, vice-chancellor of Burdwan University, Bengal, spoke on the various aspects of social reform movements in his state and other parts of the country for protecting the interest of the downtrodden and giving the voice to the voiceless.

G. Venkataraman from the University of Madras made a comparison of various social reform movements in the country during the 20th century and talked about how they had resulted in guaranteeing social justice to the disadvantaged sectors of society.

Let’s talk medicine

Surgeons came together to deliberate on various aspects of biliary surgery at the mid-term conference of the Odisha chapter of the Association of Surgeons of India at the Institute of Medical Sciences and Sum Hospital in Bhubaneswar on September 30.

The deliberations were led by P.K. Garg of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, and V.K. Kapoor of the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow.