Web Team

17/01/2015

17/01/2015

Emerging Technologies: Micro to Nano (ETMN – 2013) An International Conference at BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus.

Website link : http://emtm2n.bits-pilani.ac.in

With 235 participants from 14 countries and eminent speakers from Japan, USA, Germany, UK and Sweden, BITS Pilani in collaboration with CEERI(CentralElectronics Engineering Research Institute-CSIR)Pilani hosted the International Conference on Emerging Technologies: Micro to Nano (ETMN-2013) at its Goa campus from 23rd – 24th February 2013. Inaugurated by Dr. Chandra Shekhar, Director, CEERI, The ETMN-2013 is designed to showcase cutting edge research and accomplishments, and to enrich the educational experience in these frontal and emerging fields in Science and Engineering. Prof.K E Raman, Director of the campus welcomed the guests and participants.

Dr.SumioIijima, a Japanese Physicist and a Professor at Meijouniversity, cited as the inventor of carbon nanotubes (CNT), spoke briefly about the CNT technology and its application in drug testing.Dr. M. Meyappan of NASA, USA spoke about Biochip system and its utility in Biosensor field while Dr. Paul Milner, Professor of Bionanotechnology at the University of Leeds, UK talked about Biosensor technology and Solar energy uses in water purification.Prof. Magnus Willander, Linköping University, Sweden talked about how to measure chemicals in small volumes and with high sensitivity and selectivity is of practical interest using different nanostructures like dots, nanowires, nanotubes, nanofibers, nanoflakes, nanosheets. Dr. AndeasManz, KIST (Korea Institute of Science and Technolgy) Germanydelivered his keynote address Lab-on-chip and related technology for infectious disease applications.

Twelve invited speakers from IITs, IISc, BARC delivered invited lectures while eighteen companies in the field of nanotechnology and MEMS exhibited their products. 46 research papers and 105 student posters were presented in the conference. Coordinated by Dr. P.M. Singru, Prof. Sunil Bhand, Dr. N.N. Ghosh and Prof. N.N. Sharma from BITSPilani and Dr. JamilAkhtar from CEERI Pilani and their teams made the programturne out to be a great success.
In near future, Nanotechnology, and Micro-electro-mechanical Systems (MEMS) will be dominating new frontiers of technology to maintain and improve human life. These technologies are advancing at a rapid pace and require new engineering techniques, new materials, newer or altogether different concepts of design and controls. These emerging technologies, indispensable for developing adaptable man-machine interface, equipment and artificial organs for life support, are going to be another technical revolution in all pervading science and engineering fields.

17/01/2015

31st Apogee held on 15-19 March 2013
31st edition of APOGEE was held at the Pilani campus on 15-19 March 2013. Speaking on the inaugural occasion at the Institute auditorium, Chief Guest, Dr Atul Gurtu (noted Particle Physicist from TIFR, Mumbai) lauded the efforts of the organizers in conducting the academic festival. Giving a piece of advice to the participants on this occasion, the Chief Guest said that for a successful career, they need to be innovative. “Think through the project yourself, otherwise you will end up copying from others” said Dr Gurtu. Calling for making things simple, Dr Gurtu said, “ Don’t make things complicated. When things get tough, you need to prioritize and don’t be afraid to talk to anyone. Don’t be caught up in ego”. Dr Gurtu called for being fair to oneself and to others. Speaking on the occasion, Director Prof. G Raghurama said that semantically, Apogee means the topmost point or climax. “As you reach the topmost point, do help the people who help you reach the top” said Prof. Raghurama and conveyed his best wishes.
Highlights of this year’s APOGEE included : Coding competition, Quizzles and Puzzles, Telescope making workshop, Robot exhibition, Circuit design challenge, Comic writing contest, Paper and poster presentations and display of student projects. One of the events which drew mass crowd was Think Again : Out of the Box Lecture series in which the following speakers from different walks of life delivered lectures. Dr Pawan Aggarwal (Management Guru), Piyush Pandey (Influential man of Advertising industry), Jeff Lieberman ( Sculptor, Photographer and Musician) and Devdutt Pattnaik (Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist). Nirmaan Organization presented Dhiti, a socio-technical event in which socially relevant projects were presented. Magsaysay Award winner, Mr Rajendra Singh, delivered a lecture on water conservation methods in the presence of Dr Chandrashekhar, Director, CEERI.
APOGEE (stands for A Professions Oriented Gathering Over Educational Experience) which began in the year 1983, is run since then every year without a break. APOGEE has the history of being the country’s first and at that time the only academic convention of students.

17/01/2015

BITS PILANI, DUBAI CAMPUS
DUBAI INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC CITY, DUBAI

WELCOME TO THE FRESHERS

The Freshers' Interaction of BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus, titled "Freshers’ Ice Breaker", hosted by the seniors, was held to welcome the batch of 2012-2016 on 20th September, 2012. The event started off with the planting of a sapling by the selected students of the batch of 2012-2016 in the presence of Prof. R K Mittal, Director, BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus and senior faculty and students to symbolise the start of their new life. The tree will be labeled as “2012-2016 Batch Tree” and the batch will nurture it for the four years of their stay and ever thereafter.
Senior students gave a general outline of all the official cultural and co-curricular activities and their prospective plans for the academic year. The event was conducted by the seniors Shabbir Ahmed and Sheikh Nayab Karim.
There was a talent hunt during which freshers were invited to showcase their talents. Himadri Pathak played a guitar solo; Pranav Mohan, Smile Dudee and Prakhar Nair performed a drama on the theme "Pirates lost in the ocean"; Menaka Menon, Harry Paul and Nikita Chotwani danced to their favourite songs, while Syed Shahbuddin beat-boxed with Viren Gandhi, the infamous 4th year beat-boxer. There were also special performances by the 4th year Mechanical students on "Desi Boys" and the dance group "Groove". The event ended with a cake-cutting by the Director, who then joined the faculty and students for refreshments.

17/01/2015

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. Every year, in a gala ceremony in Harvard's Sanders Theater, 1200 splendidly eccentric spectators watch the winners step forward to accept their Prizes. These are physically handed out by genuinely bemused genuine Nobel laureates.

The first Ig Nobels were awarded in 1991, at that time for discoveries "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced". Ten prizes are awarded each year in many categories, including the Nobel Prize categories of physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, literature, and peace, but also other categories such as public health, engineering, biology, and interdisciplinary research.

17/01/2015

17/01/2015

Visit of Sri B. K. Birla and Smt. Sarala Birla
Noted industrialist and Member of the Board of Governors, Sri B. K. Birla accompanied by Smt. Sarala Birla and Smt. Neerja Birla and other family members visited the Institute on Sunday, 7th April 2013. Besides seeing the construction of new academic block, they saw the Formula type race car and All Terrain Vehicle designed by the Inspired Karters team. Birla family showed keen interest in the social development initiatives undertaken by the NIRMAAN and NSS Wing of the Institute.

17/01/2015

Panel discussion organized by Center for Women Studies
UGC Centre for Women Studies organized an open forum discussion on “Breaking the Culture of Silence for Combating the Violence Against Women” on Saturday, 6th April, 2013, at LTC, BITS Pilani with the following resource persons : Mrs. Alka Bisaria Bhatnagar, and Mrs. Sonia Shandilya, Lawyers, High Court, Jaipur. The objectives of the Panel discussion were:
• To help the women and girls know how to overcome the fear and stigma surrounding sexual violence;
• To make the women aware of the legal rights or responsibilities, so that they can exercise them at appropriate time;
• To help them recognize the problem or conflict as a legal conflict and make them aware of legal solutions available;
• To highlight the gaps in the criminal justice system and suggest improvements to make it supportive for women.
Participants included faculty, families and over 80 and girls students from the BITS, CEERI and BET schools. Following the welcome by Prof. Sangeeta Sharma, Coordinator, Center for Women’s Studies, Ms. Madhusmita Das, gave a brief presentation on the findings of the research studies that had been undertaken by the Centre on different issues related to women. The presentation was followed by a lively Questions and Answers sessions wherein the questions were answered by the resource persons.
Several issues like, Domestic Violence, Gender Discrimination, Eve teasing, Sexual harassment etc. and the procedure to recognize when a problem or conflict is a legal conflict and whether a legal solution is available were discussed. Questions included issues like how to tackle eve teasing and any attempt of molestation, what should be action if one comes across any such situation, is it safe to report against any such case, whether there is any need of witness for sexual harassment or r**e cases, the procedure to approach the mobile courts by the rural women, the work of the women’s special cell in different Institution, etc.
While discussing, the resource persons emphasized the point that government has framed laws to help women but the real problem is its implementation. It was conveyed that unless women in our country become aware of their rights and exercise those rights, a solution can hardly be found.

17/01/2015

19 Board Toppers join BITS Pilani

19 Board toppers of Class XII of 2014 have joined three campuses of BITS Pilani this year. They have come from the education Boards of various states such as Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. These top ranked students are admitted under the category of Direct Admission to Board Toppers. All other admissions to the university are based on merit determined by the online test that is BITSAT. This was announced by Prof B N Jain, Vice Chancellor, BITS, Pilani on the occasion of Orientation Program for New Admission students held at BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus held on 30 July 2014.

Addressing the parents who are accompanying the new students, Prof. B N Jain said that faculty and staff of BITS Pilani are fully committed to ensure that their children will walk out of BITS Pilani upon graduation with a sense of fulfillment, pride and purpose. He said BITS Pilani is declared deemed to be a university by UGC in June 1964. In 50 years since then, the journey of this institution has been path-breaking. During 1964 to 1970, BITS Pilani has established the frame work for Science based semester system for Undergraduate and Postgraduate education with the help from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Ford Foundation in USA. It follows a system of practice school which provides every student an opportunity to spend around six months in the industry before he or she graduates. And also, the education system at BITS has dual degree programs.

In all its four campuses, i.e Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad and Dubai, it offers various Undergraduate, Postgraduate and PhD programs to over 12500 students in various disciplines of Science, Engineering, Humanities, Pharmacy, Economics and Management. Every student goes through a rigorous and transparent admission process.

Many improvements in the campus infrastructure are currently under way and many more are in the stage of planning. A new Academic Building and a Boy's Hostel have already come up. The renovation of all the existing hostels will be undertaken shortly.
The efforts are underway to transform BITS in the coming 5 to 10 years into a research focused institution. Prof B N Jain further highlighted the 7 major initiatives that BITS Pilani has taken up as part of this transformation which are:

1. Continuous Assessment of Quality of Teaching and Research that is delivered to students
2. Emphasis on PhD Programmes and sponsored Research Projects
3. Upgrading the Physical Infrastructure
4. Introducing off campus degree programmes for Industry professionals
5. Launch of the new Centre for Research Excellence and Innovation
6. Establishment of Business Incubators in Hyderabad campus
7. Offering MOOCS or Massive Open Online Courses through edX as a contributing member

Prof. G Raghurama, Director BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus in his address mentioned that many new developments are taking place in Pilani campus and assured that the parents should leave their children in the campus with confidence. He further emphasized that the parents should have belief in their wards, support them and rest assured, they will grow. He said that the success and reputation that BITS Pilani has achieved is because of its faculty and staff who are so committed and dedicated.
He said that the institute offers plenty of freedom to the students, and at the same time, expects them to act with responsibility. He said that there might be hidden talents in each one of them and BITS will help it grow. “Make friends, respect differences and learn new culture,” added Prof Raghurama.

17/01/2015

Paper by BITS faculty wins Best Paper Award in IEEE sponsored Conference

The paper entitled, “ Implementation of indirect field oriented control for HEV fed through impedence source inverter” by Prof. Dheerendra Singh of EEE & Instrumentation Department has been awarded Best Paper award in the IEEE Sponsored 1st National Conference on Power Electronics Systems & Applications organized by the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, on 16-17 March 2013. Prof Singh has published over 21 papers in national/international journals and conference proceedings. He has guided several B.E and M.E. theses besides guiding one doctoral scholar at present.

17/01/2015

WAICEE 2013 held on 22-23 March 2013

Workshop on Analytical Instruments for Chemical and Environment Engineers (WAICEE 2013) was organized by the Chemical Engineering Department in association with the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers – Pilani Chapter on 22-23 March 2013. Speaking at the inaugural occasion, Director Prof. G. Raghurama said that there are two main challenges in managing the Analytical Instruments. The first one is to create manpower who are competent to use the sophisticated instruments and the second one is to maintain the instruments in later years, the AMC escalating year after year. As a result, many a times, buying a new instrument becomes easier than maintaining an old one. Prof Raghurama said that the practice of under-writing is a good trend nowadays wherein companies supply equipment and also service them. He added that there are many opportunities in Biological Science and Pharmaceutical industries wherein instruments are too expensive and there is huge scope for maintenance. Chief Guest Dr Siddharth S. Ray, in the inaugural address, gave a general perspective on analytical techniques and their importance.

In the beginning, convener of the Workshop, Prof Pratik Seth said that the workshop would provide a sound knowledge of the basic principles of analysis, an understanding of the instrumentation involved and the opportunity to become familiar with practical techniques. The analytical instruments such as Gas Chromatograph, High Performance Liquid Chromatograph, UV-VIS Spectrophotometer, Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrophotometer, Thermogravimetric Analyzer, Differential Scanning Calorimeter would be covered. Prof Seth added that the workshop would comprise of two sessions. In the pre-lunch sessions, theoretical aspects like introduction to instrumentation, operation, troubleshooting, calibration, method development and limitations would be addressed. Ongoing research pertaining to the use of analytical instruments would also be presented by eminent researchers from allied organizations. The post-lunch sessions would consist of practical demonstration on various instruments, which would help to consolidate the presentations and discussion. Speaking on the occasion, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, Prof. Suresh Gupta spoke about the teaching and research activities of the Department. Over 30 participants from various parts of the country attended the workshop.