Hyderabad to host mega Maths event

World's super brains to come together - 'Maths Nobel' to be conferred - UoH is the exclusive academic host

By Ardra Balachandran

The brightest minds from all branches of Mathematics will descend upon Hyderabad come August. The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), the melting pot of ideas and the prestigious platform where the cream de la cream of global mathematics come together once in four years, will happen from August 19-27, 2010, at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC). What’s more, University of Hyderabad is the exclusive academic host for the event!

In recognition of the increasing contributions of Indian Mathematicians in research, our country gets to host the ICM for the first time in history. In fact, this is only the third time that the ICM is coming to Asia (Kyoto 1990, Beijing 2002). The bid made by India had the full backing of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and also the State Government of Andhra Pradesh. The local hosts are the National Board for Higher Mathematics (NBHM), a board constituted by the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India, and UoH.

“We competed with several other institutions which wanted to bring the ICM to their place. The International Mathematical Union (IMU) team came to inspect us and I gave them a blank cheque; also showed them the HICC. Our university’s phenomenal work in the field of Mathematics and the world class facilities available in HICC made the case for India,” Vice Chancellor Prof. Seyed. E Hasnain elaborated.

Although the history of the event can be traced back to August 1897, its execution in an organised fashion started in 1924, when IMU, a body of mathematicians formed in 1920-21, took over the reigns.

The ICM is also important because of the prestigious awards that are given away at the event, especially the Fields Medal. Known as the Nobel for Mathematics globally, it is awarded to a young mathematician (under the age of forty) who has done a substantial piece of research in the preceding four years. Besides this biggie, the Nevanlinna Prize (for theoretical computer science) and the Gauss Prize (for mathematics leading to applications) too will be awarded. Also, for the first time ever, the Chern Prize for outstanding lifelong achievement in mathematics will be awarded in Hyderabad.

With 20 plenary talks and more than 170 invited talks (the highest till date) lined up, ICM 2010 is sure to incite a whirlwind of new ideas. Most of all, the event gives what the Indian talent pool across disciplines often misses out on international exposure. And for mathematicians, it does not get bigger than this!

We lead, others follow – VC

Special interview with Prof. Seyed E Hasnain

By Ardra Balachandran and Bipin Sebastian

ICM is coming to Hyderabad. Your thoughts?

This is a great moment for UoH. That India was chosen based on IMU team’s visit to our campus is a great honour.

How do we stand to benefit from the ICM?

The biggest gain will be the revival of Mathematics and its education in the country. The world’s most powerful man Obama said that the world must learn from India and go back to what we are doing to bring back science and mathematics into mainstream. But we feel that we are not doing enough. This meeting is precisely a step in that direction. Of course, the visibility and the recognition the event are the by-products.

There is separate meeting being conducted for women mathematicians on the sidelines of the ICM. Isn’t science a platform to reduce differences?

Oh no, its purpose is not to have parallelism and denigrate women. It could be more to showcase what we have achieved there. Also, whether we like it or not, we are losing out on talented women. After masters, they vanish. This meeting will hopefully address this issue.

It is noticed that our arts departments are lagging behind science.

That is true everywhere, not just here. We do not have comparable benchmarking that we have in science. Most scholars in Humanities and Social Sciences publish their work in journals that are not even indexed on Google. Your work goes unnoticed and you are losing out.

Does this directly reflect on the investment you make as a university authority?

One thing, the very nature of enquiries non science scholars undertake demands less financial inputs. They are not laboratory driven. Even the start up grant that non-science faculty members ask for are meagre amounts. In the beginning, people used to come to me asking for paltry sums to conduct international meetings. I would say, go add two zeroes to your budget and come back.

Shouldn’t fellowship be based on the demands of students’ stream of study? For example, Fine Arts students have to spend a lot on their supplies.

The system does not recognise their needs, not just in our country but globally. If you are doing a PhD in Philosophy and want to attend a meeting in Cambridge, there is no agency in India that will fund your entire trip. But if you are a Physics student, DST will write it off. And that explains why many of our discoveries take so much time in getting integrated to our social system. Unless scientific discovery is transferred to the society through a healthy exchange and dialogue with social scientists, you will have a problem.

We always hear that the science departments in our university feature in the top two in the country. What about others?

The award we received last year was based on publications in scientific journals – number two just below Delhi University. But the NAAC and the Scopus ranking is for all areas of human enquiry. We have received 97% with Scopus. I am waiting to see what rank DU and JNU get. NAAC looks at more than one thousand parameters including wifi connectivity and hostel facilities. We still have been given the highest ranking.

You had mentioned that there is a plan to convert the Department of Economics into a School on the lines of the LSE.

I want it to set a very tough benchmark for us and it should be equal to or better than the LSE. Recently, Jagadish Bhagawati and Aravind Subramaniam were here. Joseph Stiglitz, who won the Nobel will be coming soon. The idea is to learn from these people what makes a good school. We also have an international advisory committee. We have a blueprint ready to make it happen in 2011.

During the inauguration of the tennis courts, you had mentioned introducing a compulsory sports credit course.

Yes, in this academic council, we will take a decision on that.

Considering the stature we have as a university, don’t you think the present sports infrastructure is inadequate?

No, the mindset of students needs to change. How many people make use of the sports complex that is there?

Another academic year is coming up. Is any work underway to solve the accommodation shortage on campus?

We have fulfilled the numbers that were obligated on us regarding the reservations. Every year we used to increase the seats on our own to fulfil a dream of having 10000 students on campus. But you need money to build hostels for all of them. So no more increase in seats from this year.

Land allocation kicks up a row

If KIP does not materialise, many activities including students' fellowship will be affected: VC

By Ashok Putta

The employees’ and students’organizations of University of Hyderabad agitated against the allocation of university land to the Knowledge and Innovation Park (KIP) and Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) on February 8, 2010.

Resenting the decision of the UoH management to allocate 200 acres of land for KIP and 25 acres for CDFD, the teaching, non-teaching employees and students protested near the administrative building. They demanded a roll back of the decision.

University Teachers’ Association President Prof. Appa Rao said that land which should be used for education purpose is being allocated to Special Economic Zones (SEZs). The Staff Union President Narasimhulu Goud said that allocating land to CDFD would cause a lot of pollution. He said that the students would not benefit from KIP which according to him would be home to a large number of IT and pharma companies. He said that if the land is given away like this, the university would have to be run from apartments in the near future.

The VC Prof. Seyed E Hasnain strongly refuted this argument.“This is a very misinformed campaign. Alexandria is a real estate company that specialises in laboratory development for research. They are not going to build flats and apartments here,” he explained.

Goud also said that in the past, university land had been given to RTC Depot, IIIT, Gachibowli stadium, MRO office, Navodaya School and Electricity sub station from which the public benefited. “But the allocation of land to KIP and CDFD which belong to private companies would benefit neither students nor common people,” Goud maintained.

Speaking exclusively to UoH Dispatch, the VC added: “We do not own this land. Government of Andhra Pradesh can issue an order and take it away from us any time. If we do not collaborate with them to have an arrangement that benefits us, we are at a loss. Through this project, we can raise our corpus fund to Rs. 1000 crores. Without that, most of the activities on campus like foreign trips of faculty and Ph D scholars and students’ fellowships will become unsustainable. In short, if KIP does not materialise, students’ fellowship will be discontinued come July.”

Non Teaching employees’ association Chief Secretary M Sudhir, United Employees Union Chief Secretary Sebastian and Students Union President Chaitanya Prasad have also demanded a withdrawal of the decision. But the Officers’ Association has, in a letter dated February 7, 2010, offered its support. “We had a lot of misgivings and apprehensions and could not see what you saw years ahead for the institution,” the letter applauded.

Health Centre needs a face lift: reveals survey

By Ardra Balachandran

If doctors and nurses do not get over their fascination with paracetamol, students may soon stop visiting the university health centre. The assumption is not far fetched at all going by the revelations in a survey conducted by the Science Communication students of Department of Communication in 2009.

The survey, titled ‘Health and the campus community’, was carried out among 90 campus residents which include students (54), teachers (18) and non teaching staff (18). The complaint about health centre staff considering paracetamol being the solution for all health troubles came up mainly from students. While a faculty member also commented that medicines should be bought on the basis of quality, not cheapness, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) had a different story to tell. He explained that there are Government of India rules and regulations to be followed while procuring medicines and the system cannot be compared with Apollo’s. “We have to buy basic medicines ordered by the ministry and do not have the freedom to buy what they call ‘fancy drugs’; B Complex for example,” he said.

Most of the respondents opined that the health centre is fit only for tackling minor illnesses. The CMO also reaffirmed that our health centre is only a primary health care unit and should be expected to fulfil only reasonable responsibilities. “That is why we have a referral system,” he said. However, one respondent also alleged that a particular doctor in the health centre demanded commission from the city hospital he was referred to.

Another shocking revelation apparent in the responses of the non-teaching staff was, “Doctors treat workers in a particular manner and students and teachers in a better way.” One professor seemed to agree that as a faculty member he was privileged to better health care at the health centre.

One of the most popular suggestions for improvement was that doctor facility should be made available round the clock. The lack of a dentist was also a matter of concern to many because dental services are very expensive outside, in the city.

Also, everyone seemed to agree that the health centre needs to work on its Public Relations. The public, in this case, may be a group as small as the campus community, but there is a need for them to know about the available facilities. With no improvement in PR, the situation best illustrated by an M.Phil scholar is likely to remain at status quo,“I know of research scholars who have been here for more than five years and have no clue about how the health centre can be useful!”

Girls undertake bucket struggle

By Itishree Samal

Demanding a solution to the problem of water shortage, inmates from ladies hostels marched towards the administrative block with buckets and sticks and gheraoed the VC’s office on February 24, 2010. Irregular and inadequate water supply has been a major issue for the girls for some time now. Frequent complaints and several visits to the administrative and engineering department have served no purpose.

Bagmi Priyadarshini, an MPhil student said: “We are denied basic amenities which we have been assured both by the university and the UGC. The administration is not responding even after various complaints made to the warden and the DSW.”

In LH 5, with the tanks being situated at heights, water fills up in the end and finishes first. From February 17 to 19, there was no water in LH 5. A tanker of water was provided to the residents by the Department of Horticulture. The situation in LH 4 is worse, where half of its water goes to the food court.

V Venketesh, Junior Engineer of university electrical department said, “There is just one water connection to all the ladies hostels. There are proposals of a separate water connection for LH 5. After the VC and the Registrar approve, the work will start.”

The students had gone to report their concern to the DSW Prof. Rajashekhar with buckets and tooth brushes in their night clothes on February 21. They were assured of immediate action and regular water supply by Prof. Uma Maheshwari from the Amenities Maintenance.

Chief Warden Prof. B S Surraju said, “Already, separate bore well has been dug up behind LH 6, and there is another proposal to replace existing smaller water tanks with bigger ones. The proposals have been given, but it may take one month to buy those tanks. It is taking time as it has to go through various departments.”

“We are trying to ensure that the water flow is consistent. The main problem was that the plumbers were on strike for months. Also, girls keep the taps open when water is not there. Precious water, when made available with great difficulty, is wasted. We should create awareness to save water,” he opined

With the temperatures already soaring high and the administration cooling its heels, the upcoming months are sure to prove extremely tough for the girls.