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Engineering and Technology Updates

Engineering Innovation in India

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• Nominations invited for Abdul Kalam Technology Innovation National Fellowship. The last date for the receipt of nominations for the call of 2021-22 is June 30, 2021. For details click on the link given below.

https://www.inae.in/research-innovation/abdul-kalam-technology-innovation-national-fellowship-2019-20

• Nominations invited for Innovative Student Projects Award 2021. Last date of receipt of nominations is July 31, 2021. For details click on the link given below.

https://www.inae.in/innovative-student-projects-award/

• Nominations invited for INAE Young Innovator and Entrepreneur Award 2021. Last date of receipt of nominations is June 30, 2021. For details click on the link given below.

https://www.inae.in/inae-innovator-entrepreneur-award/

At the behest of DST, the Vigyan Prasar had coordinated a series of films made on various institutes of DST including INAE. In this connection, Vigyan Prasar, DST informed INAE regarding release of film on INAE on Wednesday, 26th May 2021 to be watched on India’s 24×7 national science channel on the internet, called India Science (www.indiascience.in) . The English and Hindi versions of the film can be viewed by clicking on the links given below.

https://www.indiascience.in/videos/indian-national-academy-of-engineering-e

https://www.indiascience.in/videos/indian-national-academy-of-engineering-h

INAE being Member Academy of CAETS conducts various collaborative activities with other Member Academies of CAETS. In this direction, series of collaborative activities had been organized jointly with National Academy of Engineering of Korea (NAEK) since 2017. The first Workshop between INAE and NAEK was held on ‘High Temperature Materials’ on March 16-17, 2017 at IISc Bangalore. The second Workshop on ‘High Temperature Materials’ was held on May 14-15, 2018 at Changwon, Korea. The third INAE-NAEK Workshop on “High Temperature Materials and System Engineering for Aerospace, Power Generation and Defence Industry” was held on 15-17th July 2019 at Hyderabad. It is now planned to hold the fourth Workshop virtually with NAEK on June 14-15, 2021 on the topics pertaining to “Aerospace Engineering” and “Additive Manufacturing”. A total of six speakers and a Session Chair have been identified/confirmed. A two-day event is planned with three technical sessions.

The National Frontiers of Engineering (NatFOE) Symposium is a flagship event of INAE being held since 2006. The 15^th NatFOE 2021 is being organized from July 9-10, 2021 at Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad in hybrid mode with partial participation online and rest in physical mode. Prof BS Murty, Director, IIT Hyderabad and Prof Sivaji Chakravarti, Vice-President, INAE are the coordinators of the event. Prof Chandrasekhar Sharma, IIT Hyderabad is the Convener of the event. The four themes of the Symposium are (i) Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning; (ii) Advances in Materials and Manufacturing Technology; (iii) Infrastructure & Unconventional Energy; and (iv) Rural Technology & Entrepreneurship. Two Coordinators have been identified for each of the Themes. The first announcement can be viewed at https://www.iith.ac.in/natfoe2021/

An “Innovation in Manufacturing Practices (IMP)” event is being organized on sidelines of NatFOE 2021. IMP is a manufacturing design competition to provide the bright minds a platform to display and exuberate their talent in design and manufacturing. In this event, the participants (students) are expected to design, fabricate and demonstrate a hardware prototype using an innovative manufacturing process not limited to any engineering discipline. A pamphlet on the IMP 2021 can be viewed by clicking here.

INAE Youth Conclave 2021 has been planned to be organized online by National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE); IIT Bombay and ICT Mumbai on Engineers’ Day September 15, 2021. The tentative date is decided to be on Engineer’s Day i.e. September 15, 2021. The presentations would be based on five topics of national importance namely: Waste to wealth; Digitization and revolution in logistics & Engineering intervention to fight against COVID-19 and healthcare management; Innovative technologies and product developed during COVID; Teaching and learning in pandemic and Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. Preparations are ongoing for planning of the event.

Engineers Conclave 2020 was planned to be held with TERI with Dr Ajay Mathur, DG, TERI as Coordinator from host organization. However, due to impact of Pandemic the event was cancelled. This year, Dr Ajay Mathur has taken over as Director General, International Solar Alliance (ISA) and has expressed his willingness to conduct Engineers Conclave 2021. Thus, the Engineers Conclave 2021 is being planned to be held online in October 2021 jointly with International Solar Alliance (ISA). A Meeting was held on May 26, 2021 to discuss the progress of planning of the event. Dr Ajay Mathur and Prof Indranil Manna, President, INAE are the Co-Chairs of the event. The two themes are being decided and one tentative theme is Engineering challenges for Decarbonizing Indian economy.

INAE Bhubaneswar Chapter organized a Webinar on Data Analytics, Machine Learning and Deep Learning jointly with Computer Science and Engineering Department of Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Deemed to be University) on April 27, 2021. Professor Ganapati Panda, a member of Bhubaneswar Chapter gave an overview of the subject in simple and lucid manner for the benefits of the students and faculty. A large number of students and faculty from SOA and other institutes in India and from a few Institutes from abroad attended this seminar. In Addition to Professor Panda, three other Fellows of the Academy, Professor P.K. Mishra, Dr. Debashis Deb and Prof. Damodar Acharya attended this webinar conducted in virtual mode. INAE Bhubaneswar Chapter thanked CSE Department of SOA University and particularly its HOD, Prof. Debahuti Mishra for help in organizing the Webinar. The Chapter promised to have more such seminars/Webinar to be given by INAE Fellows in future.

Celebrating INAE Foundation Day 2021 by INAE Kolkata Chapter

Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) Kolkata Chapter celebrated INAE Foundation Day on April 22, 2021 in a virtual mode due to Covid-19 pandemic situation. It was a part of celebrating AAZADI KA AMRIT MAHOTSAV. On this occasion, Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi delivered a Special Lecture on “Connecting Academic R&D with Product Innovation: A few case studies and a way forward”. Prof. Indranil Manna, President, INAE graced the occasion and welcomed the audience. The evening talk on the WebEX platform was attended by about 180 participants who included distinguished fellows of the academy along with young researchers and students from the various academic and engineering institutes of the country. In his mesmerizing talk, Prof. Rao addressed the present issues and methods of translating the academic research outputs to commercially available products, paving the path for atma nirbhar bharat. It was highly motivating and was appreciated by all. The interesting lecture was followed by an interactive Q/A session. Padma Shri Prof. Sankar Kumar Pal, former Director, Indian Statistical Institute, and founding President of INAE Kolkata Chapter had shared the story of inception of INAE Kolkata Chapter as a new entity in 2007 and also encouraged the young engineers to elevate their career with INAE. Prof. Bhargab Bhattacharyya, President, INAE Kolkata Chapter and Prof. Sivaji Chakravorti, Vice-President, INAE were also present the meeting. Prof. Debatosh Guha, Secretary, INAE Kolkata Chapter conducted the proceedings of the meeting.

A webinar and Panel Discussion were organized by IEEE ComSoc Bangalore & Delhi Chapters in association with ACM India Council and INAE Delhi Chapter on April 7, 2021 featuring a talk by Dr. Swarun Kumar Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University on the topic “Towards City-Scale Low-Power Wireless Internet”.

The abstract of the talk is given below:

The number of gadgets in India has crossed then the number people. The challenge is designing the wireless network for city scale IoT, large number of devices cannot be charged every day, must talk to the base station even the UE is 10 miles away. Wi-Fi/Bluetooth does not give such high range. However, Lora can provide wide coverage range. Lora uses chirp spread spectrum technology where the frequency increases linearly with time. The paper titled “Charm: exploiting geographical diversity through coherent combining in low-power wide-area networks”, presented in IPSN’2018 proposed coherent combining of the signals at the cloud received from multiple gateways. This method is useful to recover the original signals at the cloud even when the signal is transmitted at a very low power and increases the battery lifetime. Because of the wireless modulation scheme of lora arbitrary data also has some pattern which can be recovered at cloud. Since the data is broken into multiple packets to transmit through multiple gateways, it results a huge bandwidth saving. The method is implemented in FPGA, Raspberry pi, SDR. To make the devices completely battery less, RFID tags are used which are powered by energy harvesters. However, the range is limited to 5-10m. To increase the range between RFID reader and RDID tags, a model named “PushID” is used where existing RFID readers collaborate with each other. It provides 8 times increment in range.

A Panel discussion on “Communication research and mindset” was also held and the Panellists were Dr. Swarun Kumar, Carnegie Mellon University; Dr. Sreeja Sukumaran, Christ University; Dr. Pinaki Bhaskar, Samsung and Dr. Abhinav Kumar, IIT-Hyderabad.

Brief Bio of the Speaker:

Dr Swarun Kumar is an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) where he heads the laboratory for emerging wireless technologies (WiTech lab). He designs and builds novel systems to enable faster wireless networks and new services. Dr. Kumar is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award and Google Faculty Research Award. Dr. Kumar received the George Sprowls Award for best Ph.D thesis in Computer Science at MIT and the President of India gold medal at IIT Madras

The Government of India has launched a 75-week celebration of India’s 75th Year of Independence (Aazadi ka Amrut Mahotsava) with a grand celebration on 15th August 2022. In this connection, it has been decided that DST will publish a compendium of most significant scientific and technological achievement of India since independence. For this purpose, the Sectoral Group of Secretaries (SGoS) has been constituted. The Secretary DBT, Chairperson of the Sectoral Group of Secretaries (SGoS) has requested all Science and Engineering Academies of the country including INAE to join hands and produce an encyclopaedia containing all those feats in Science & Technology that make us proud and will inspire future generations since independence. In this regard, the Presidents of INSA, IASc, NASI and INAE had met on April 3, 2021 and committed to help create a volume and a website that would provide a comprehensive view of India’s growth and contributions in S&T since independence. Further, it was decided to solicit suggestions (initially only name or item) to propose a list of 75 or 100 landmark innovations (individual or collective) in S&T in India achieved primarily after our independence that eminently merit a mention in the proposed volume so as to select deserving items. Suggestions were invited from Fellows/Conveners.

Subsequently, a meeting was held to consider suggestions received earlier and also to discuss and formalize the methodology to propose a list of 75 or 100 landmark innovations (individual or collective) in S&T in India achieved primarily after our independence that eminently merit a mention in the proposed volume so as to select deserving items. During the said meeting, it has been decided that each Convener of the Sectional Committee may request Fellows affiliated to his/her respective Engineering Section to seek 10 to 20 topics of such landmark technical achievements since independence. The inputs received are since being collated.

Last year, INAE had prepared a White Paper on “Technological Preparedness for dealing with National Disruptions”. Dr. B.N. Suresh, Past – President, INAE had prepared the base paper in this regard, with inputs from Dr. P.S. Goel, another former President, INAE, Dr. Bhujanga Rao, FNAE and other domain experts from INAE Fellowship. The White Paper on “Technological Preparedness for dealing with National Disruptions” integrating all the inputs was compiled by Dr BN Suresh and forwarded to Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog; Dr VK Saraswat, Member, NITI Aayog; Prof K VijayRaghavan, PSA to Govt. of India and Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST, Govt. of India with a request for an opportunity of consulting with them over a WebEx meeting to take this initiative forward. In response to this initiative, NITI Aayog convened a meeting, through ‘Video Conferencing’ on 10^th August 2020 chaired by Dr. VK Saraswat, Member, NITI Aayog to discuss the future course of action to implement the recommendations of the White Paper on ‘Technological Preparedness for dealing with National Disruptions’, with a view to take the initiative forward. It was suggested that a Peer Committee be constituted with member experts from INAE and NITI Aayog who would further identify Sub-committees to take up specific task envisaged to take this initiative to its logical conclusion.

Accordingly, a high-level Peer Committee was constituted under the chairmanship of Dr PS Goel, Former President, INAE with the purpose to bring out a roadmap to recommend a mechanism to maintain an up-to-date dashboard in the public domain and easy-to-access data base on history, experts, facilities, and archives related to all kinds of disasters. The Committee now also has representation from NDMA besides other agencies viz DST, CSIR, ICMR, DRDO, DAE, ISRO, ICG and DBT. Several meetings of the Peer Committee have been held so far in order to review the progress achieved on the initiative. Six expert Committees have been constituted so as to specifically focus on the respective domains. A meeting of the Peer Committee was held on May 14th, 2021 wherein five out of six Chairmen of following Expert Committees made presentation on the progress:

• Atmosphere and Climate related disasters chaired by Dr Mrutyunjay Mahapatra
• Geology related disasters chaired by Dr VM Tiwari
• Health related disasters chaired by Dr Chander Shekhar
• Ocean related disasters chaired by Dr M Ravichandran
• Fire related disasters chaired by Dr Rajiv Narang

Inputs from the sixth expert committee, “Cyber Security related disasters”, chaired by Dr Gulshan Rai would be obtained later.

It has been decided during the meeting that first draft of the report should be completed by last week of June 2021. This initiative is important as it enhances the visibility of INAE as an advisory body.

INAE has been discussing the Gender Parity issue for the past several years but with no tangible solution. For this purpose, a Gender Parity Advisory Committee has been constituted under the Chairmanship of Dr. BN Suresh, Past-President, INAE to deliberate and suggest proactive measures to achieve acceptable level of gender parity in INAE. The composition of the Committee of INAE Fellows is as follows: Dr. BN Suresh, Former President, INAE is the Chairman of the Committee with Dr. Saswasti B Roy, Prof Sushmita Mitra, Dr. VR Lalithambika, Prof. Ligy Philip, Ms Alpa Seth, Prof K Chattopadhyay, and Prof Prem Krishna as Members. Dr BN Suresh had prepared a Base Paper on the issue of Gender Parity in INAE which is summarized as follows. Gender parity subject is being discussed in many forums in India for a long time including the reservation for women in Indian Parliament. INAE has been discussing this issue for the past several years but with no tangible solution. As on date, INAE has only 28 women Fellows out of 871 Fellows in India, which is a meagre 3% of the entire Fellowship. Similarly, the representation of women in Young Associates is also poor. Although we have been pursuing very proactive policy to induct women into Fellowship for the last few years, the results are not all encouraging. It is therefore felt essential that we deliberate in detail and generate suitable recommendations to improve the situation in all these forums of INAE. There is a need for innovative and out-of-box thinking to drive gender parity. No doubt the implementation aspects also possibly demand certain structural changes to improve the nomination and selection processes and create an enabling environment. The recommendations so made should also be actionable and implementable.

The Base Paper on the subject prepared by Dr. BN Suresh was deliberated in the first meeting of said Committee held on 6th May 2021 wherein a number of valuable suggestions/comments emerged. These have been culminated in the form of Draft Recommendations on Gender Parity of INAE. The Draft Recommendation were circulated to the members to seek inputs before further deliberations in the next meeting of the said Committee held on May 22, 2021, so as to consolidate into actionable and implementable recommendations on Gender Parity in INAE. Productive meetings were held, and clear-cut recommendations were crystallized. The final Recommendations shall be put up for further discussion and approval by Governing Council during its forthcoming meeting in June 2021 for implementation from this year itself.

Industry-academia interactions over technological changes have become essential in recent times so that relevant knowledge that would be sustainable in the changing conditions can be imparted to the students in the engineering institutions. While industries could gain by using the academia’s knowledge base to improve the industry’s cost, quality and global competitive dimensions; thereby reducing dependence on foreign know-how and expenditure on internal R&D, academics benefit by seeing their knowledge and expertise being fruitfully utilized practically and also by strengthening of curricula of educational programs being offered at engineering colleges/institutions. INAE together with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) launched “AICTE-INAE Distinguished Visiting Professorship Scheme” in 1999. Under this scheme, Industry experts are encouraged to give a few lectures in engineering institutions. This scheme has become popular among industry experts as well as engineering colleges.

Brief details pertaining to recent visits of industry experts under this scheme are given below.

INAE currently has several Consultative Committees with DST, DRDO, CSIR and Office of PSA which meet periodically to facilitate interaction and identification of topics on thrust areas of engineering for conduct of technical activities and programmes. In this direction, the ISRO-INAE Consultative Committee has been recently constituted on April 27, 2021 to discuss issues of national importance.

• Meeting of INAE Forum on Energy held on May 27, 2021 over WebEx Chaired by Dr Ajay Mathur, FNAE.
• INAE Apex Committee Meeting held on May 25, 2021 over WebEx, Chaired by Prof Indranil Manna, President, INAE.
• First Meeting of ten Sectional Committees to shortlist nominations for Fellowship/ Foreign Fellowship for Peer Review and nominees for presentation for INAE Young Engineer Award 2021 were held during May 11, 2021 to May 21, 2021 over WebEx as per schedule given below.

• 1^st and 2^nd Meetings of the Gender Parity Advisory Committee held on May 6, 2021 and May 22, 2021 over WebEx Chaired by Dr BN Suresh, Former President, INAE.

• Meeting of The Peer Committee and Chairmen of Six Expert Committees for “Technological Preparedness for Dealing with National Disruptions” held on May 14, 2021 over WebEx Chaired by Dr PS Goel, Former President, INAE.

To view a list of International/ National Conferences/Seminars being held in the month of June 2021, click here…

INAE has created a Facebook and Twitter Account to post the news of recent INAE activities in the Social Media. The same can be viewed at the link below.

(a) Facebook -link https://www.facebook.com/pages/Indian-National-Academy-of-Engineering/714509531987607?ref=hl

(b) Twitter handle link   https://twitter.com/inaehq1

Prof Jyotirmay Majumder
(December 26, 1935 – April 16, 2021)

Prof Jyotirmay Majumder, a Foreign Fellow of INAE breathed his last on Saturday (April 10th, 2021) afternoon. After graduating from the then B. E. College under Calcutta University, he went to Imperial College, London for higher study. He got his diploma (MS) and Ph.D. in Process Metallurgy in 1978. After his graduation from Imperial College, he returned to India and joined BARC as Pool Officer. However, he did not stay long at BARC and decided to pursue his interest in academics and joined University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a faculty.

Professor Jyoti Mazumder had a very distinguished career. He was the Robert H. Lurie Professor of Engineering and Director of Center for Laser Aided Intelligent Manufacturing at the University of Michigan. He was a creative inventor, scholar and educator, prolific author, and scientist. He had a special zeal in teaching and research. He leaves behind a long history of excellence. He was an elected member of the USA National Academy of Engineering and foreign fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering. His career spanning 41 years (16 years at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and 25 years at University Michigan, Ann Arbor) was extraordinary. He has been a world-renowned scientist, and published 400 research papers in reputed international journals, co-authored books on Laser Chemical Vapor Deposition and Laser Materials Processing and edited/co-edited 10 books. He was credited with 25 patents. He was acknowledged expert in the field of Additive Manufacturing. His directed basic research work led to the commercialization of Direct Metal Deposition (DMD) technology and recently developed in-situ sensors for 3-D printing and welding that have the capability to detect defects, composition, and phase transformations.

Other than being recognized by his Alma Mater and Academies of Engineering from USA and India for his academic excellence, he received several awards and honours for his outstanding research work that include, Schawlow Award for seminal contribution to Laser application research from Laser Institute of America in 2003, William T Ennor Award for manufacturing from ASME in 2006, Adams Memorial Membership award from American Welding Society in 2007, Thomas A Edison Patent Award from ASME in 2010 for inventing First closed loop Direct Metal Deposition system, which significantly enhances some aspect of Mechanical Engineering, Distinguished University Innovator Award in 2012 from the University of Michigan. He was awarded as Manufacturing Engineer of the Year (1986) from Society of Manufacturing Engineers, University Scholar (1985) and Xerox (1987) from University of Illinois. He is also Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), American Society of Metals (ASM), Fellow of International Academy of Photonics and Laser Engineering (IAPLE) and Laser Institute of America (LIA) where he was President (2000).

May God Bless his Soul to Rest in Peace

Dr KN Raju
(April 27, 1936 -April 30, 2021)

Dr K N Raju, FNAE, was one of the key personalities who shaped Aerospace Research and development in India. He was an internationally known expert in the areas of Fatigue, Fracture and Structural Integrity of Aerospace Structures.

Dr. K.N. Raju did his B. E. in Mechanical Engineering from Govt. college of Engineering (now known as UVCE), Bangalore, M.E (Aeronautics) and Ph.D. (Engineering) from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). He served the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) for 35 years and retired as Director in 1996. After retirement he served as a consultant to Civil Aircraft Design (CCAD) at NAL for more than a decade. Dr. Raju nurtured the field of Fatigue and Fracture Mechanics and was the principal architect in building Full Scale Aircraft Fatigue Test facility which has become a National Facility in India. He had taken up the challenge and successfully carried out the Light Combat Aircraft carbon composite wings from the conceptual stage, design activity and supervised fabrication of the first two prototypes in Italy. As a passionate teacher he participated in several continuing education programs in Fatigue and Fracture at NAL, IISc and several Industrial establishments. He served at the fatigue and Fracture branch of the NASA Langley Research Centre (LARC), the laboratory which pioneered research in the field of Structural Integrity. He was a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, the Aeronautical Society of India and received the Distinguished Alumnus award and Platinum Jubilee Award from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, IISc.

Dr Raju Passed away on the morning of April 30, 2021 after prolonged illness. In his passing away, the nation has lost a towering personality whose contributions to Aerospace programs of the country were substantial. INAE would like to send its deepest condolences to his family on his passing away.

May God Bless his Soul to Rest in Peace

Written by Prof S Gopalakrishnan, FNAE

Dr Sanjay Bajpai
(February 19, 1965 – May 12, 2021)

Dr Sanjay Bajpai, FNAE, Scientist-G, Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, who successfully implemented creative national and international R&D programmes, passed away on 12.5.2021. He, born on 19.2.1965, pursued BTech in Mechanical Engineering from Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, followed by MBA from University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. He was awarded PhD for the work on ‘Alternative Fuels for Internal Combustion Engines’ from IIT-Delhi.

After a brief stint in industry, Dr Sanjay joined as Scientist-B in DST in 1991. His outstanding accomplishments ensured elevation to various levels, becoming Head of Technology Division-Water & Energy. During the three decades of dedicated service in DST, he conceptualised and steered various schemes, particularly, State S&T mechanisms through application of appropriate technology development and commercialization endeavours. He was responsible for the field specific initiatives in the areas of water, biofuels and clean energy, whose outcome showed a greater impact on people. His acumen in relating technology for societal relevance, was the reason for assigning Winning, Augmentation and Renovation for Water (WAR for Water) programme, spearheaded by Dr T Ramasami, the then Secretary of DST, on the directions of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, to come out with technological solutions for addressing various water challenges. His proactive approach and inclusiveness enabled in finding sustainable solutions, through establishment of appropriate drinking water facilities/units in 300 much needed villages, benefiting over 1.60 million people, across the country, which have been replicated by various states, NGOs and a few corporates. This unique approach lead to international collaborations, viz, Dutch India Water Alliance for Leadership Initiative (DIWALI), through a consortium of knowledge institutions and enterprises from The Netherlands and India, between India and European Union, and a new Indigo initiative between DST and R&D institutions of Belgium, Finland, France, The Netherlands, Germany and Spain, in designing solutions to meet the utility price envelope of countries similar to Indian situation.

Dr Sanjay shaped a strong eco-system for R&D and technology demonstration in launching Clean Energy Research Initiative, with initial focus on Solar Energy. Seeing its success, it was expanded to cover programmes related to Methanol, Desalination, Clean Coal, Building Energy Research, Materials for Energy Storage, Carbon Capture Storage and Utilization, etc, by leveraging international collaborations. These enabled India to occupy a leadership position among 23 nations under Mission Innovation. He accelerated Clean Energy Innovation with enhanced funding, greater public private partnership and knowledge sharing. In the process, India became the first country in developing collaborative programmes for Smart Grid and Off Grid in mounting demand driven convergent solutions, in consortia mode, reaching advanced technology readiness levels.

Dr Sanjay’s interventions resulted in publication of several papers, technical reports, grant of Indian and USA patents, and successful demonstration of various technologies, a few leading to commercialisation. As part of various technical committees, he ably mentored many young researchers in taking up challenging tasks and projects of great relevance. He also played a stellar role in spearheading many unique programmes of contemporary interest and guided policy makers in formulating significant initiatives of national importance. The worthy contributions of Dr Sanjay and his team received many honours, to name a few, National Urban Water Award by Union Ministry of Urban Development, Grand Challenges: Top Solutions Award by Technology Review-Massachusetts’s Institute of Technology (USA), National Award for Excellence in Ground Water by Union Ministry of Water Resources, FICCI-HSBC Water-Innovation Award by FICCI, Hydrology Research Promotion Award by the Association of Hydrologists of India, Make India Award by Indian Desalination Association, Global Water Award by Energy and Environment Foundation and Aqua Excellence Award by Aqua Foundation. Dr Sanjay is a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering and conferred with Honorary Fellowship of Association of Hydrologists of India.

Dr Sanjay will be fondly remembered by scientific fraternity as the true champion of S&T face of India. He brought together many researchers across academia, R&D Labs and Industry, in taking up some of the challenges faced across the globe. His compassion and ever willing positive attitude were his hall marks, with a great SMILE (characterized by Simplicity, Modesty, Integrity, Leadership and Empathy) in the service of the nation.

Dr Sanjay leaves behind his mother, wife, two daughters and a son. We pray almighty to shower blessings for Dr Sanjay’s soul to be in peace and also grant moral strength to members of his family to bear this loss.

May God Bless his Soul to Rest in Peace

Obituary forwarded by Prof Manoj K Tiwari and Dr Prasada Raju

Prof KL Chopra
(July 31, 1933 – May 19, 2021)

Prof. Kasturi Lal Chopra, FNAE founder of Thin Film Laboratory (TFL) of IIT Delhi, former Director, IIT Kharagpur (2 terms beginning 1987) and former Professor & founder Dean (IRD), IIT Delhi breathed his last on 18 May late night due to COVID related complications. He was a recipient of INAE-Life Time Contribution Award in Engineering in 2013 and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Physical Sciences in 1975 for specialization in Material Physics. In addition, IITD Golden Jubilee Committee honoured Prof. K L Chopra for his outstanding contributions. In August 1970, in one corner of the Physics of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, a small group of research scholars led by Professor K.L. Chopra commenced work to build thin-film technology facilities. Thus, the nucleus of a Laboratory was born. Despite constraints of finances, personnel and equipment in the early years, rapid growth took place, helped to a large measure by the zeal, of Prof. Chopra.

A distinguished physicist and administrator, Prof Chopra was also a Padma Shri awardee. He moved to USA after graduation and post- Graduation from University of Delhi and earned Doctorate in in Low Temperature Physics from the University of British Colombia (1957). He continued his stay in the USA and worked at a large number of organizations in Canada and USA. He also researched at Fritz Haber Institute, Berlin, Philico-Ford Scientific Laboratory and had affiliation with R&D Groups at IBM, Westinghouse, ARCO, etc. In 1970 he returned to India and joined IIT Delhi as Senior Professor of Solid-State Physics and later became Head of Physics Department. He was Dean of Post Graduate Studies, Industrial R&D, and also Centre for Energy Studies at IIT Delhi. He served as Director, IIT Kharagpur for a decade. On superannuation, he continued as Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Chair Professor at IIT Delhi and was Chairman BoG of BBIT, Kolkata; HDF-SoM, Bhubaneswar, Honorary Professor of IIT D, IIT BB BESU, ITM And KFUPM of Saudi Arabia.

Prof Chopra set up the Thin Film and Micro science laboratories at IIT Delhi and IIT Kharagpur respectively and contributed greatly to the field of thin films, energy, and nano matter. He published over 430 papers in international journals; authored/edited ten books and supervised 100 MTech and 60 PhD Theses. Prof Chopra held six US Patents and transferring of 8 know-hows to his credit.

Prof Chopra stood for ethics and served as President, Society for Scientific Values. He was also President, Indian Vacuum Society; Vice- President, MRSI & EMSI; Chairman, International Conference on Thin Films & Solid Surfaces and member of several national and international committees in related fields. He was on the editorial Boards of many national and international journals such as Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells.

Prof Chopra was recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award; PC Mahala Nobis Medal (1996); Aryabhata Medal (2004) and KS Krishnan Memorial Medal (1992). He was also conferred with numerous other awards such as Bhabha Award; FICCI Award; Bhasin Foundation Award; Biren Roy Medal; Citation Laureate Award of ISI, USA and Distinguished Scientist/ Life Time Achievement Awards of Materials Research Society of India; Indian Vacuum Society & Solar Energy Society; IITD Freedom of the Institute Award; Distinguished Academician Award of IITP and D.Sc. (hc) of IIT Kharagpur and UPTU.

Prof KL Chopra was a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering; Indian National Science Academy; Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore; National Academy of Sciences (India) and the American Physical Society. He served on INSA Council (1988-90).

“It is a huge loss to all his students and the entire academic fraternity. May God grant his soul eternal peace. We pray for the departed soul and for the family to have courage to bear this great loss. Our heartfelt condolences to his bereaved family.”
– TFL Family (May 19, 2021)

May God Bless his Soul to Rest in Peace

Obituary forwarded by Prof K Bhanu Sankara Rao

Dr Srikumar Banerjee
(April 25, 1946 – May 23, 2021)

With the passing of Dr. Srikumar Banerjee, in the wee-hours of 23’d May 2021, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has lost a leader, a scientist and an affable gentleman. Dr. Banerjee was Secretary to Government of India, DAE, and Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) from 2009-2012. During his illustrious career spanning over 40 years, Dr. Banerjee served in a number of important positions related to Indian nuclear programme. He was the Director of Materials Group, BARC before taking over as Director, BARC in the 2004.

Dr. Srikumar Banerjee was a well-known Indian metallurgist, researcher and academician. He was born on 25’h April 1946 in Kolkata to Smt. Shanti and Shri Narayana Banerjee. He received his B.Tech. (Metallurgical Engineering) from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1967. After graduating from the 11th batch of BARC Training School in 1968, he joined the Metallurgy Division, BARC. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1974 from IIT, Kharagpur. He was a senior visiting fellow at University of Sussex Brighton England during 1978-79 and a Humboldt fellow in Max Planck Institute for Metal research (Metalforschung), Stuttgart, Germany during 1979-80. He also served as a visiting faculty in University of Cincinnati and Ohio State University, USA over several spells.

As Director, BARC, Dr. Banerjee organized research in nuclear fuel cycle, design of innovative reactors, applications of radiation and isotope technology in agriculture, health care, food preservation and industry. He initiated several capacity building activities both in front and back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. He retired as the Chairman, AEC and the Secretary, DAE on April 30, 2012. He also served as a DAE Homi Bhabha Chair Professor at BARC. He has been the Chancellor of Homi Bhabha National Institute, DAE, Mumbai and had served as Chancellor of Central University of Kashmir, Srinagar from 2012 till 2017. Dr. Banerjee was Chairman of Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences, DAE.

Dr. Banerjee carried out pioneering work in the field of martensitic transformations, rapid solidification, omega transformation, quasi-crystalline solids, shape-memory alloys, effect of radiation on order-disorder transitions and tailoring microstructure and texture of nuclear structural materials through thermo-mechanical processing. He has over 400 research papers to his credit, a book entitled ‘Phase Transformation: Examples from titanium and zirconium alloys’ and has co-edited eight books.

In recognition of his seminal contribution to the field of materials science, Dr. Banerjee was conferred with many prestigious national and international awards including the INSA Young Scientist Award, Acta Metallurgica Outstanding Paper Award; Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize in Engineering Sciences (1989); GD Birla Gold Medal of the Indian Institute of Metals; INSA Prize for Materials Science; Alexander von Humboldt Research Award; Prof. Brahm Prakash Memorial Medal (2004) from INSA; Indian Science Congress Association’s Excellence in Science and Technology Award (2009); Ram Mohun Puraskar of Rammohun Mission (2010); CNR Rao Prize in Advanced Materials; Presidential Citation of American Nuclear Society; National Metallurgist Award from Ministry of Steel in 2010, W. J. Kroll Zirconium Medal Award from American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) ; and Robert Cahn Memorial Award. He has been conferred Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) degrees from 11 universities and institutions. He was an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences India, Indian National Science Academy, Indian National Academy of Engineering, Third World Academy of Sciences, and International Nuclear Energy Academy.

In recognition of his excellent scientific contributions to the Indian atomic energy programme, the Government of India conferred Padma Shri upon Dr. Banerjee in 2005.

The DAE fraternity offers its heartfelt condolences to Smt. Ranjana Banerjee, wife of Dr. Banerjee and Shri Rajarshi Banerjee, son of Dr. Banerjee, and pray that Almighty gives strength to the family. May the departed soul rest in eternal peace. A great scholar, dedicated scientist, and a humble human being, Dr. Srikumar Banerjee will forever remain in hearts of those who came in touch with him.

Obituary forwarded by Mr R. K. Vatsa, Head, Public Awareness Division, DAE