Physician Lord Khalid Hameed (third from right) receives his DSc (honoris causa) from governor and chancellor Keshari Nath Tripathi at the annual convocation of Calcutta University on Wednesday as interim VC Sugata Marjit (extreme right) and social scientist and historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam look on. Also present were Pandit Birju Maharaj and university pro-VC Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee (extreme left). Subrahmanyam, who is the distinguished professor and Irving & Jean Stone Chair in Social Sciences, department of history, University of California, received DLitt (honoris causa). The doyen of Kathak, Birju Maharaj, and poet Joy Goswami received DLitt (honoris causa). Chief guest K Vijay Raghavan, the distinguished professor and former director, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, could not make it to the event because of the Chennai floods. Former Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi could not collect the Asutosh Mukherjee Memorial medal because he, too, was stuck in Chennai. Raghavan delivered the convocation address over phone from Chennai, which was played out on a microphone at the Centenary Hall auditorium. Marjit read out Gandhi's mailed speech. The Swami Vivekananda Medal was conferred on 104-year-old Sanskrit scholar Dinanath Tripathi.

Picture by Bishwarup Dutta