Third Inter IISER Chemistry Meet at IISER Mohali
 

Since 2008 an Inter IISER Chemistry Meet is organized every year to bring all researchers in Chemistry together to share research activities of various groups through oral and poster presentations. The first and the second such meet were organized by IISER Pune and IISER Kolkata respectively. This year IISER Mohali hosted the 3rd Inter IISER Chemistry Meet held during February 20-21, 2011 at its new campus. This meet focused on the current status and future projections of research in various fields of Chemistry and related areas. In this meet oral (26) and poster (9) presentations by various faculty members and students showcased the interdisciplinary research activities in the five premier institutes of India. Through these presentations it was expected to have exchange of ideas for generating scope for collaborations as well as to give an opportunity to young minds to interact with others. 2011 is the International Year of Chemistry and thus it was a great opportunity to celebrate it together. Dr. Sanjay Mandal was the convener, Prof.  Ramesh Kapoor, Dr. S. Mukhopadhyay and Dr. R. Vijaya Anand of IISER Mohali were co-conveners of this meet. Major sponsors of this meet were Bruker AXS, India, Rigaku Corporation, Japan, and IR Technology, India.

NMR at the interface of physics, chemistry and biology

An international conference on ”Nuclear Magnetic Resonance at the interface of physics, chemistry and biology” was organized at IISER Mohali during November 29-30 2010 to mark the launch of NMR research activity at IISER Mohali. The NMR Research Facility at IISER Mohali was inaugurated in March 2010 and currently houses two NMR spectrometers (400 MHz and 600 MHz). The conference had a number of invited talks by speakers from India and abroad and was well-attended with 150 student partici- pants (both undergraduate and postgraduate) from IISER Mohali and neighboring institutes such as Panjab university Chandigarh, CSIR Palampur, IMTECH Chandigarh, GNDU Amritsar and Central University Bhatinda. The Keynote Address was delivered by Professor Anil Kumar (IISc Bangalore) on ”Quantum Information Processing by NMR:Status and Challenges”. The list of other invited speakers included:

• Prof. Anil Kumar (IISc Bangalore)
• Prof. C. L. Khetrapal (CBMR Lucknow)
• Prof. R. V. Hosur (TIFR Mumbai)
• Prof. N. Chandrakumar (IITM Chennai)
• Prof. N. R. Jagannathan (AIIMS New Delhi)
• Prof. A. S. Brar (GNDU Amritsar)
• Prof. A. C. Kunwar (IICT Hyderabad)
• Prof. K. V. Ramanathan (IISc Bangalore)
• Prof. N. Suryaprakash (IISc Bangalore)
• Prof. Walter Chazin (Vanderbilt University USA)
• Prof. Daniel Canet (Nancy University France)
• Prof. Steffen Glaser (TU Munich Germany)
• Prof. Janez Plavec (Ljubljana University Slovenia)
• Prof. Paul Gooley (Melbourne University Australia)
• Prof. Martin Stone (Monash University Australia)
• Prof. Shantanu Sinha (University California San Diego USA)

The conference introduced the students at IISER Mohali to the exciting world of NMR research, encompassing all applications from Biological NMR to Quantum Computing, Medical Diagnostics MRI, fMRI and Environmental Science.

KVPY Summer Science Camp

A national level summer science camp for KVPY scholars was organized at IISER Mohali during May 31, 2010 to June 05, 2010. About 150 young scholars from around the country participated in the camp. The camp comprised of talks (using a novel lecture/demo format) by eminent scientists from other institutions as well as by faculty from IISER Mohali. The list of speakers included: Prof. N. Sathyamurthy (Director,IISER Mohali), Prof. Ashok Sahni (PU Chandigarh), Prof. R. Shankar (IMSc Chennai), Dr. Sanjay Wategaonkar (TIFR), Dr. Lalit Bhardwaj (CSIO Chandigarh), Dr. R.K. Kohli (PU Chandigarh), Dr. S. Sahajpal (PU Chandigarh), Prof. Kapil Paranjape (IISER Mohali), Dr. R. Mehrotra (NPL New Delhi), Dr. S. Mukhopadhyay (IISER Mohali), Prof. I. B. S. Passi (IISER Mohali), Dr. A. Ramakrishna (IITK), Dr. K. S. Vishwanathan (IGCAR), Dr. N. G. Prasad (IISER Mohali) and Dr. Kavita Dorai (IISER Mohali). The camp was co-ordinated by Prof. Arvind with logistics help by IISER Mohali faculty: Prof. C. G. Mahajan, Dr. Jagdeep Singh, Dr. Sudip Mandal, Dr. Arunika Mukhopadhyay and Dr. Kaushik Chattopadhyay. A novel part of the camp was the setting up of laboratory experiments in chemistry, biology, physics and mathematics. The biology experiments were co-ordinated by Dr. Prasad and Dr. Lolitika Mandal, the chemistry experiments were co-ordinated by Dr. Vijay Anand and Dr. S. A. Babu, the physics experiments were co-ordinated by Dr. K. P. Singh, Dr. Rajeev Kapri and Dr. R. S. Johal, and the math demos were organized by Prof. Kapil Paranjape and Dr. Chanchal Kumar. A few PhD and undergraduate students from IISER Mohali also participated in this exercise. According to the feedback received, these experimental demonstrations seem to have fired the imagination of many participants. The national co-ordinator of KVPY camps, Prof Dipankar Bhattacharya from IISc Bangalore, also attended the camp at IISER Mohali and delivered a talk to the students. An evening interaction session on “Identity” was co-ordinated by Dr. Anu Sabhlok (IISER Mohali). On the last day of the camp, Dr. R. A. Mashelkar (Chairman Board of Governors IISER Mohali) gave an inspiring talk on the notion of creativity in science, which was appreciated by the students. Apart from talks and laboratory activities, KVPY scholars were given tours of the Central Analytical Facility at IISER Mohali (housing the NMR Research Facility, X-Ray lab and AFM/Laser Raman lab) in the new campus in Sector 81 facilitated by Dr. Sanjay Mandal, Dr. Kavita Dorai and Dr. Samrat Mukhopadhyay. Tours to nearby scientific institutions in Chandigarh such as Institute of Microbial Technology , Punjab University, Central Scientific Instruments Organization and National Institute of Pharmaceutics Education and Research were also organized.

Symposium on Symmetry 

Symposium on Symmetry was held at IISER Mohali on 19^th and 20^th February 2010.

IISER Mohali - MPIC Germany - DST India Partner Group Inauguration and

Workshop on Atmospheric Chemistry

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IISER-MPIC meet :  In 2011, the Department of Science and Technology, the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali (IISERM) set up a joint Partner Group on ”Tropospheric OH reactivity and volatile organic compound (VOC) measurements for validation of atmospheric chemistry-climate models and satellite retrievals”. The Partner group collaborators are Prof. Jos Lelieveld (Director, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC), Mainz, Germany) and Dr. Vinayak Sinha (Assistant Professor, IISER Mohali). On March 5-6, 2012, IISER Mohali and MPIC Mainz organized a 2-day workshop on ”Atmospheric Chemistry in South Asia: Progress and Emerging Issues” to mark the formal inauguration of the Partner group and to initiate new bilateral projects. About 20 eminent German and Indian scientists participated in the workshop along with the faculty and students from IISER Mohali. 

Astronomy Olympiad Nurture Camp

Astronomy Nurture Camp 2012 was organised by Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education at IISER Mohali during December 10-21, 2012. The camp is meant primarily for students who participate in the astronomy olympiad preparation camps to continue their engagement with astronomy. A total of 19 students participated in this camp, including four students from IISER Mohali. Dr. H. K. Jassal was the covenor of the organising committee. Students were divided into four groups which worked on different Astronomy projects. Each project had a designated mentor/supervisor. The four projects and the project supervisers are listed below:

1. Large Scale Structure of the Universe with Prof. J. S. Bagla.
2. Constraining dark energy using supernova data with Dr. H. K. Jassal.
3. Estimating photometric redshift using machine learning techniques with Dr. Ninan Sajeeth Philip (St. Thomas College, Kozhencheri).
4. Parametric Study of Low-Redshift Galaxies Using SDSS-III with Dr. Sivarani Thirupathi (IIA, Bangalore).

The camp concluded with presentations by all the participants about the projects. Dr. Aniket Sule (HBCSE) and Prof. Mayank Vahia (TIFR) also helped with the conduct of the camp and evaluation of the projects.

Discussion Meeting on Ooty Radio Telescope Upgrade

Discussion Meeting on Ooty Radio Telescope Upgrade: A meeting to discuss the ongoing upgrade of the Ooty radio telescope and the science potential of the upgraded telescope was help at IISER Mohali on July 3-5, 2012. Prof. C. R.Subramanya (RRI, Bangalore), Prof. Jayaram Chengalur (NCRA-TIFR, Pune), Prof. Uday Shankar (RRI, Bangalore), Prof. P. K. Manoharan (Radio Astronomy Centre, Ooty), Mr. Abhik Ghosh (IIT Kharagpur), Mr. V. R. Marthi (NCRA-TIFR, Pune) and Prof. J. S. Bagla attended the meeting and made presentations. Some presentations were also made via a remote video link. Prof. J. S. Bagla organized the discussion meeting.

Inaugration of NKN E-Classroom

An NKN e-classroom has been set up at IISER Mohali and it was inaugurated by Prof. R. Chidambaram on Oct.15, 2012. The e-classroom has connectivity on the NKN network and this allows seemless interactive sessions with any one or more academic or research institutes on the network. The e-classroom is being used for joint courses where a teacher from one such institute teaches students in more than one IISER. The e-classroom also serves as laboratory for courses related to  computational sciences.