News and Events, NAL, Bangalore

Hindi Fortnight was organized between 29 August and 12 September 2007. There has always been a festive mood at NAL when the Hindi fortnight and Hindi Day are celebrated. The number of participants in the Hindi competitions has increased this year and there were more varieties of competitions (Hindi Quiz and Antakshari using multimedia for the first time).

Dr A R Upadhya, Director, NAL presided over Hindi Day function celebrated on 14 September 2007. Dr Mithali Bhatta-charjee, Professor of Hindi, Bangalore University was the Chief Guest. Dr A Vanaja, Scientist, FRP presented a melodious invocation followed by a welcome speech by Smt. Rama Mahadev, Sr.COA. The Hindi Day Key-note Lecture was delivered by Dr Anjana Jain, Scientist, Materials Science Division on ‘Characterization of Materials using X-ray Diffraction’.

The chief guest Dr Mithali released the Director’s Report: 2007-08 and addressed the gathering. She professed that Hindi occupies a prominent place in the world on the basis of the Hindi speaking population. Hindi is being taught as a subject in almost all Indian universities and in many foreign universities as well. As regards the usage in central government offices, the OL policy of the Govt. of India gave a tremendous impetus to Hindi.

Dr Upadhya, Director, NAL in his presidential address said that the NAL fraternity must use Hindi with a zeal and to the best of their ability in the day-to-day official work. He further said that it was a collective effort wherein the senior officers were to take initiative and set an example before the subordinates.

Dr Mithali distributed the prizes (as many as 114) including the awards to the winners of various competitions, shields for the Best Rajbhasha Division Award to FMCD (received by its Head Smt. Padhma Madhura-nath and former Head, Dr J R Raol); Best Rajbhasha Section Award to Finance & Accounts Section (received by Mr E Nagarajan, COFA) and the Award for the maximum number of participants and prizes in the Hindi competitions was received by Dr M R Nayak, Head, ALD). The function concluded with vote of thanks proposed by Dr P S R Murthy, Sr. Hindi Officer.

Mr Shyam Chetty’s distinction

Mr Shyam Chetty has been elected as the Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering from 1 January 2008.

A paper presented in Kannada by H V Ramachandra, ACD on Smart Materials for Aerospace Applications co-authored by G N Dayananda, Ramesh Sundaram, G M Kamath, H V Ramachandra and M Subba Rao received the Best Paper Presentation Award.

Dr S T Aruna, SED received the Best Women Scientist Award for a paper presented in Kannada on Combusion Synthesis and Properties of Nanosize Anode Material Suitable for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Fabrication.

A conference on Students for Exploration and Development of Space International Conference (SEDSIC) 2007 was held at VIT-University, Vellore from 22-23 September 2007. The chief guest Ms D Purandareswari, Minister of State for HRD, Govt. of India, delivered the inaugural address and released the Souvenir. Mr G Viswanathan, Chancellor, VIT-University, presided over the event.

SEDs organizes an international conference every year, as an annual get-together of SEDS members worldwide to share their knowledge with regard to the current developments in the field of aerospace and astronomy.

This year around 400 students (50 foreign students) participated in the Conference. NAL displayed posters describing its strength in aerospace R&D technology development and its capabilities. The purpose of the two-day event was to highlight career opportunities in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics and aerospace to young engineers and students from various fields.

Report on the third Kannada Vijnana Sammelana

The third Kannada Vijnana Sammelana was held on 16 and 17 September 2007 under the aegis of Swadeshi Vijnana Andolana-Karnataka(SVAK) and Kuvempu University, Shimoga. The venue was Kuvempu University set in the serene, beautiful landscape of the Sahayadri range.

The inaugural function started with an invocation followed by nada geethe (state anthem) beautifully sung by the Director of Bhadravathi Radio station Mr. Raghavendra and his team. Prof. Sherigar, VC of Kuvempu University, in his formal welcome address, described the nature of the venue Shankaraghatta. Prof. KI Vasu, Chief Co-ordinator, SVAK speaking in Kannada, said that it was important to teach science in Kannada.

The Hon’ble Minister for Education, Mr. Shankar Murthy, in his address, emphasized the importance of teaching science in Kannada (mother tongue); “it is ironic to tell that science has become synonymous with English”. Conveying his appreciation of the Chinese decision to light the entire 2008 Olympics village using solar energy, he also mentioned the huge investments made annually by the US (as much as $5 billions) towards nanotech-nology. It was with extreme difficulty that he succeeded in getting Rs 5 crores grant for nanotechnology for Karnataka.

Dr. A.R. Upadhyay, Director, NAL, released the souvenir. In his short speech in Kannada he expressed his happiness at the growth of the event; Kannada Vijnana Sammelana had its origin in NAL in 2005. He said “Science is not anybody’s property. It should spread, only then can it grow”. He highlighted the fact that Kanaada, the science journal in Kannada, has been published for over 30 years at NAL. He expressed his happiness on the selection of the theme of the conference on the nature of Sahyadri mountain ranges.

Four prominent dignitaries were conferred the Sir M. Viswesvaraiah award. The first recipient was Dr. Rama Jois an eminent personality who served as Chief Justice and also as Governor of Bihar and Jharkhand. He expressed his happiness at receiving the award named after Sir M. Visweswaraiah, the eminent engineer who was instrumental in designing and building KRS dam, Bhadravathi Steel factory, Jog falls and many other hydrothermal projects. He quoted how, even at 90 years, when no one could come up with a plan for the 6 km long bridge on the River Ganga, Sir M Visweswaraiah actively inspected the place and prepared the plan. He remembered the simplicity, dedication and promptness of Sir MV in all his endeavours. Another fact that he brought out related to a 12th century book that shows the potential of Kannadigas. In a small village near Gulbarga, Vijnaneshwara had written a book on Hindu law; this is now used as part of PG course material.

The next recipient was Dr.V. Prakash, Director CFTRI. In his address he said that we should work not for 24 hours but for 25 hours, even in our dreams, because there is so much to be done. He emphasized the importance of nutrition for brain growth during a child’s first 5 years and regretted that 200 million children have just one meal in three days. “We should all forget differences of opinions and drive away hunger among children”. He said Karnataka should not mean only IT-BT in addition we should add FT (Food technology) to it.

The other recipients were Dr. K. Nagarathna of Sri Vivekananda Yoga Kendra, and Dr Sudhamurthy, Chairperson, Infosys Foundation.

Thereafter the sessions on various topics proceeded, based on the themes of Bio-Diversity of Sahyadri mountain ranges, ecology and environmental awareness. Subjects that were covered included topics in chemical and biological sciences; physical and mathematical science; electrical, electronics and communication sciences; Civil, Mechanical and Aerospace Science, Agricultural, Forestry, Fishery and Veterinary Science; Ayurveda and Modern Health Sciences, Folklore Sciences, Earth Sciences and Cosmology; Energy: Thermal, nuclear, biofuels, petroleum alternatives and transportation; Information Technology / Bio technology and Nanotech-nology;Social Sciences: Economics, Sociology, Linguistics, Psychology and Spiritual Science. Over 100 participants made presentations on diverse topics. It was interesting to see a farmer, who, out of his own interest, has researched butterflies, identified a large number of species (>150), and preserved them. His presentation and display of butterfly and insects collection drew a huge crowd and appreciation.

A cultural programme in the evening staged by native talent was well-appreciated. At the final session several prizes were given for the best presentations made in Kannada and NAL bagged two prizes.

S T Aruna

Multimedia Projection Technology at its functional best during the NAL Foundation Day Celebrations.

Setting up of a multimedia projection system at the S R Valluri Auditorium solved two major technical problems. A sustainable projection quality through a special mid-throw lens was attained from a challenging throw distance of 65 ft. An optimal screen dimension of 9 ft x 12 ft was achieved to project NAL’s presentations. Two full-blown multimedia films on SARAS put this projection facility to its optimum use prior to the commencement of the main foundation day function.

At the same time, the outside corridor of the S R Valluri Auditorium had another interesting story to convey… The 42” Plasma screen to cover the SARAS presentations and also the live telecast of the function caught my immediate attention. Unlike the conventional television cathode ray tubes, the Plasma picture develops spontaneously and is extremely sharp. Live telecast of the function through the Plasma was the ‘proof of the pudding’.

At the meeting with the Chief of the Air Staff, at the Director’s Conference Hall, prior to the Foundation Day function, Dr A R Upadhya, Director NAL, in his presentation, made it a point to run two documentaries on SARAS. The documentary on SARAS flight displayed at Aero India 2007 kept the audience in rapt attention, more so as the projection system is now fixed with a special wide-angle lens and powered by a 5000 ANSI lumen lamp. Coupled with this is a high-end desktop PC fitted with a 5.1 Digital Theatre Surround (DTS) system. This truly gives it a ‘Surround Theatre Effect’.

The use of multimedia technologies to showcase NAL’s capabilities is the right way to go. And, how effectively this ‘powerful media’ was put to use during the foundation day celebrations was clearly evident from the expression of my senior NAL colleagues.

Getting these projection facilities up and running would not have been possible but for the excellent support received from our colleagues from the Director’s Office, Engg. Services, Electrical Section, Model Shop and the audio-visual group of KTMD.

NAL’s Foundation Day celebration was held on 7 September 2007 at the Valluri Auditorium. This unique R&D establishment will soon be celebrating its Golden Jubilee, (starting in June 2008) after having rendered distinguished service to the nation in several critical areas of aerospace technology.

The programme commenced with a brief welcome address by Dr A R Upadhya the Director of NAL. Dr Upadhya spoke about the importance of the Foundation Day and said that it has been an emotional event at NAL. He paid homage to the former Director, late Dr P Nilakantan whose vision and effort led to the founding of NAL and its major facility – The 1.2m Trisonic Wind Tunnel. NAL was also fortunate to have had equally capable Directors to succeed Dr P Nilakantan, and they have nurtured the laboratory.

Stressing on the strong ties NAL had with the IAF, Dr Upadhya mentioned that NAL had carried out several important projects for the IAF. He expressed NAL’s gratitude to the IAF for the interest and valuable support provided for the flight testing of SARAS, and said that “We would be happy to see our SARAS flying in the Indian skies with the IAF colours”.

Air Chief Marshal F H Major, the Chief Guest of the event, delivered the 21st NAL Foundation Day lecture on “Strategic Aerospace Power: Technological and Maintenance Challenges”

The Air Chief felicitated NAL for 48 glorious years and expressed appreciation for the good services rendered by NAL to the IAF. He said that air power reflected the national power and stressed on the need to develop high end indigenous technology backed by research for the country’s military power to have an upper hand over adversaries. A strong aerospace power was necessary for the country’s security. Aerospace dominance could be achieved only through cutting edge technology. Commending NAL on its contributions, he said that SARAS had great potential and the IAF was eagerly looking forward to it passing the certification tests. Stressing the need to invest more on R & D in aerospace technology, the Air Chief said that the national security policy needed to be integrated with national technology. He was in favour of encouraging private sector in defence related research.

The Air Chief Marshal distributed NAL’s “Special Recognition” awards to ASTE flight testing team and DGCA flight certification team in appreciation for their contribution to the SARAS project.

The tenth NAL Technology lecture was delivered by Dr Sekhar Majumdar, Head, Computational and Theoretical Fluid Dynamics Division, NAL on “CFD Technology - The NAL Experience”. It was a thought provoking and illuminating lecture.

Dr V K Aatre (Former Adviser to the Defence Minister) presided over the function and released the NAL Annual Report for 2006-07. He distributed the NAL Outstanding Performance Awards and also distributed prizes to children of NAL employees for excelling in the field of sports, academics and extra–curricular activities. In his presidential address Dr Aatre stressed on the need for research and development and the need to invest in academic research. Ninety percent of the academic research was sponsored by government, and there was a need to change our attitude towards academic research. He said that the number of people in science and technology research was dwindling and there was a need for a sound policy to arrest this decline.

The function concluded with a vote of thanks proposed by Dr M R Nayak Adviser (M&A). Dr M N Sathyanarayana, Jt Head, KTMD, compered the programme.

Information Centre for Aerospace Science and Technology organized a workshop on 'Setting up of Institutional Repositories using DSpace' from 6-10 September 2007 at ICAST Digital Laboratories. The inaugural function of this workshop sponsored by HRDC, CSIR was held on 6 September at KTMD Seminar Hall. Dr Naresh Kumar, Head, RDPD/HRDC, CSIR delivered the inaugural address. Dr. J J Isaac, Acting Director, NAL presided over the function.

Dr I R N Goudar, Head, ICAST welcomed the gathering. In his welcome speech he gave an overview of developments on 'open access initiative' in the world and mentioned about four channels of open access for research communications including subject based e-prints archives, open access journals, institutional repositories (IRs) and self-archiving on author's website. Presenting the current scenario, he said that more than 900 IRs have been set up in the world out of which India accounts for about 25. IRs give wider exposure to the research output and there by increase the impact factor value of the concerned journal. Further he mentioned the contribution of Advisory Committee on CSIR LICs which was headed by Dr. Naresh Kumar in identifying the five target services to be implemented at the earliest, out of which IRs is one. As the first step towards implementing the decision taken in the meeting of Heads of CSIR LICs held recently at Gaziabad this workshop has been arranged at NAL. Dr Goudar introduced the Chief Guest and the resource persons Dr A R D Prasad and Mrs Devika Madalli from ISI/DRTC and their team to the gathering.

Dr Naresh Kumar in his inaugural address expressed his happiness to be at the inaugural function as the subject and the cause of the workshop are very 'close to his heart'. He narrated the efforts that were put in for the last 8-9 years to bring out the Manual for Procedures and Practices for Managing CSIR LICs. He recalled the contributions of CSIR LIC colleagues like Dr Goudar, Dr Tapaswi, Dr Krishnan, Dr Dhawan, Mr Sadasivan, etc. for this cause. He also mentioned about the need to implement the target services identified including online public access catalogue of all the CSIR libraries. While concluding his remarks, he assured his unstinted support to CSIR LICs including financial support.

Dr A R D Prasad released the CD containing the presentations, DSpace Software and many useful documents on IR. Dr J J Isaac in his Presidential remarks expressed his happiness about the ICAST services and the latest initiatives taken to meet the ever growing needs of the user community. Further he advised the centre to preserve the heritage documents which he termed as 'Old is Gold'. MrsPoornima Narayana, Deputy Head, ICAST proposed the formal vote of thanks.

More than 25 participants from 16 CSIR laboratories have been participating in the workshop. Apart from lectures an intensive hands on experience is the highlight of the workshop. The resource persons have been drawn from ISI/DRTC, IISc, GE and the host.

The former Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ashesh Prosad Mitra, died in New Delhi on Monday the 3 September 2007. He was 81. He is survived by his wife and two daughters. Dr Mitra was the Director of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) from 1982 to 1986 and Director General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research from 1986 to 1991. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1989.

Dr Mitra was involved in ionospheric and related atmospheric research. His major work was in the field of earth's near-space environment through ground-based and space techniques. His work on cosmic radio noise to study the upper atmosphere led to a series of discoveries in ionosphere, solar physics and cosmic rays.

He introduced troposphere radio research in the country and brought improvements to radio communication capabilities.

Mr D V Venkatsubramanyam, has been appointed as Head, Fibre Reinforced Plastics Division (FRPD) in addition to his present duties as Head, Structures with effect from 1 September 2007. Dr Shylaja Srihari, has been nominated as the Co-ordinator for the R&D activities of the Division.

NAL initiated research in smart technologies, although at a modest level, more than a decade back. Materials development has been an important aspect of this effort. Towards the goal of manufacturing indigenous materials leading to new devices, two facilities have been recently set up at NAL: a tape casting facility for the processing of piezoceramic materials and a vacuum arc melting facility for manufacturing of shape memory alloys. On August 23, 2007, these facilities were inaugurated by Dr. VK Aatre, former SA to RM and currently Visiting Professor at ECE Dept., Indian Institute of Science. The inauguration was followed by a Seminar on Smart Materials and Technologies held under the aegis of NAL and the Institute of Smart Structures and Systems (ISSS). It is only apt that Dr. Aatre inaugurated this event. He has been championing the cause of this technology for more than a decade, and has largely been responsible for the government research programmes in this area. In his inaugural address he said that the programmes carried out so far have produced many successes. He informed the audience that the second phase of NPSM, which is much larger in scale, is just an ‘ink-signed copy’ away from sanction.

The inaugural function was presided by Dr AR Upadhya, who was wearing the two hats of Director, NAL and President, ISSS. In his presidential address, he recalled how the foundations for this research at NAL were laid with the help of projects funded by agencies such as ARDB and DST. Thus, when the specific programmes such as DISMAS and NPSM were initiated, NAL was well placed to take up and execute the projects. He also highlighted the role of ISSS towards promoting these technologies. This is being done, he said, through its national and international conferences, training programmes for engineering faculty, industry meets, and its newsletter Sukshma.

The one-day seminar, coordinated by Dr. TG Ramesh, Head, Materials Division, covered a wide spectrum of research and development. Nine lectures were spread out in two sessions chaired by Prof. Gopalakrishnan of IISc and Dr. Vijayaraju of ADA. Four lectures were from scientists of the Materials Division covering the ongoing work on development of piezoceramics (Dr. PK Panda), piezopolymers (Dr. Anjana Jain), shape memory alloys (Dr. SK Bhaumik) and Micro-electro-mechanical systems (Dr. Soma Dutta). Two lectures by Ms. Shashikala Prakash and Mr. V Shankar covered the work in the areas of vibration and aeroelastic control, smart structures modeling, and instrumentation development being carried out in the Structures Division. Technologies related to aerodynamic shape control (Mr. GN Dayananda) and structural health monitoring (Dr. GM Kamath) being developed in the Advanced Composites Division were the topics of two talks. Dr. GK Ananthasuresh from the Mechanical Engineering Dept., IISc spoke on the devices being designed and fabricated by his group using the SMA developed at NAL.

The day’s programme saw a good number of participants from NAL and outside. Speaking at the concluding session, Dr. Aatre stressed the need to have more of these seminars, which he felt would help in bringing together scientists of different disciplines and creating more opportunities for cross-fertilization of ideas.

Ms Dhanalakshmi K, CTFD
Dr J S Mathur, CTFD
Mr Kamaleshaiah M S, CAD
Mr Lakshminarayana R, PR
Mr Rameshaiah M S, ACD
Ms Sarasamma V R, FSU
Mr Shantha Kumar N, FMCD
Ms Shashikala Prakash, STR
Mr Subramanya H Y, STR
Dr S K Bhaumik, MT

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