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Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- Science
- Hindustan Times
Narlikar was deeply committed to IUCAA's welfare: Srianand
IUCAA is a living memory of Jayant Narlikar,' said professor R Srianand, director, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) recalling the legacy of the astrophysicist who laid the foundation for one of India's premier research institutions. 'Even decades from now, I believe IUCAA will continue to reflect the ideals he established. Our ideas may evolve with time and context, but the spirit he injected into this institute will remain unchanged.' The Pune International Centre on Saturday hosted the Dr Jayant Narlikar Memorial Lecture as tribute to the life and works of the globally known scientist and founding director of IUCAA. Srianand said, 'One of the most important things I hope to learn from him is how to conduct meaningful, independent research. He was among the few who boldly proposed alternate theories about the universe.' He noted Narlikar's extraordinary ability to engage and continuously inspire students, recalled the structured pace of his lectures — very calm, non-hurried, and deeply impactful. 'You would never feel rushed in his class,' he said. 'He maintained a consistent speed throughout the one hour and yet managed to cover a tremendous amount of material. It reflected the level of preparation and research he brought to his lecture.' Srianand said that Narlikar as an administrator was a very democratic person, tolerant, and deeply committed to the welfare of the IUCAA. 'He had incredible tolerance. Where others might have reacted harshly, he chose to listen and let people be heard. Despite being an internationally respected physicist, Narlikar always remained available for everyone from faculty to driver,' he said. He recalled Narlikar's emotional attachment to IUCAA, especially his continued presence at events such as retirement functions of faculty, and did not impose his ideas on the new director. Professor Ajit Kembhavi said, 'Narlikar, along with Fred Hoyle and others, helped develop the Steady State Theory, which was a serious alternative to the Big Bang. They suggested that new matter is constantly created, so the universe always looks the same and has no beginning. Even though this idea was later set aside after the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, it was an important and creative theory at the time.'
Time of India
18-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Parents of alumnus give Presi 16L as 2nd tranche for gym, smart classes
1 2 Kolkata: The parents of a Presidency University alumnus, Rajarshi Bhattacharya , who died while pursuing his PhD at IISC Bangalore, donated Rs 16 lakh to Presidency for its gymnasium and upgradation of the lecture theatre for chemistry department into a smart classroom . In 2023, Rajarshi's parents donated Rs 7 lakh to the chemistry department to buy a spectrometer after reading a TOI article on the lack of funds plaguing several departments, including chemistry. The parents, who requested anonymity, have already handed over Rs 16 lakh to the university, out of which Rs 6 lakh were spent on buying fitness equipment for the gymnasium, and Rs 10 lakh will be utilised for renovating the chemistry lecture theatre. Both these facilities will be named after Rajarshi. "I visited the chemistry department during the Rajarshi Bhattacharya Memorial Lecture and saw that the lecture theatre is not in good shape. There is no podium to deliver lectures. Looking back at the legacy, I felt bad and decided to donate the money for ramping up its infrastructure for teaching and learning. I got in touch with the university authorities and proposed my idea. They welcomed my proposal and told me that the amount can be split and utilised for buying fitness equipment for the gymnasium and upgrading of the lecture theatre," the 76-year-old father said. The retired central govt employee opted for making this donation with a desire that his son would be remembered forever. Moreover, the university was close to his son's heart— a reason that prompted him to take up such an initiative. "A well-equipped gymnasium was a long-standing demand of the students, which has been fulfilled by the kind support of Rajarshi's parents," said dean of students, Arun Maiti. The chemistry department has also submitted its requirement for instruments such as an audio podium, amplifier, interactive panel, wireless mic, and gooseneck mic, to the authorities. Sources said renovation and upgradation of the chemistry lecture theatre will begin shortly. "The smart classroom can also be used to conduct international seminars and talks. This facility will also be the first-of-its-kind in the university. The fund that will be left after the upgradation will be utilised for ramping up facilities for other classrooms," head of the chemistry department, Arnab Halder said. Rajarshi graduated in chemistry in 2016 from the Presidency University. Professors remember Rajarshi as a "meticulous, intelligent, interactive, and ardent lover of the subject." He completed his Masters from Rajabazar Science College, Calcutta University, in 2018 and got admitted to IISC Bangalore as a PhD scholar in the organic chemistry department.
New York Times
24-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
From Book Bans to Canceled Lectures, the Naval Academy Is Bending to Trump
For 65 years, the U.S. Naval Academy's annual foreign affairs conference has been a marquee event on campus, bringing in students from around the world for a week of lectures and discussions with high-ranking diplomats and officials. But this year, the event was abruptly canceled, just weeks before it was set to start. The conference had two strikes against it — its theme and timing. Organized around the idea of 'The Constellation of Humanitarian Assistance: Persevering Through Conflict,' it was set for April 7 through 11, just as the Trump administration finished dismantling almost all of the federal government's foreign aid programs. According to the academy, each foreign affairs conference takes a year to plan. But killing it off was much faster, and the decision to do so is among the many ways the school's leadership has tried to anticipate the desires of an unpredictable and vengeful president. The moves have included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's order last month that led to the banning of hundreds of books at the academy's library, and the school's cancellation of even more events that might attract the ire of President Trump or his supporters. Most colleges and universities decide what courses to teach and what events to hold on their campuses. But military service academies like the Navy's in Annapolis, Md., are part of the Pentagon's chain of command, which starts with the commander in chief. The Naval Academy said in a statement that it was reviewing all previously scheduled events to ensure that they aligned with executive orders and military directives. Representatives for the academy and for the Navy declined to comment for this article, but school officials have said privately that their institution's academic freedom is under full-scale assault by the White House and the Pentagon. A Discussion of Coups and Corruption Even before the presidential election, the academy began preparing for Mr. Trump's potential return to power. In January 2024, the academy's history department had invited Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at New York University, to give a lecture as part of a prestigious annual series that has brought eminent historians to the campus since 1980. She was scheduled to speak on Oct. 10 about how the military in Italy and Chile had adapted to autocratic takeovers of those countries. The title of her lecture was 'Militaries and Authoritarian Regimes: Coups, Corruption and the Costs of Losing Democracy.' Ms. Ben-Ghiat, who had written and spoken critically about Mr. Trump, said she had not intended to discuss what she considers his authoritarian tendencies in front of the students as part of the George Bancroft Memorial Lecture series at the academy. Even so, just a week before her lecture, an off-campus group formed in opposition to her invitation. After reports about the upcoming lecture by right-wing outlets, Representative Keith Self, Republican of Texas, wrote to Vice Adm. Yvette M. Davids, the academy's superintendent, on Oct. 3 urging her to disinvite Ms. Ben-Ghiat from speaking to the midshipmen, as the students are called. The next day the Naval Academy's dean of academics, Samara L. Firebaugh, called to say the lecture had been postponed, Ms. Ben-Ghiat recalled. It was one month before the election. Although victorious, the critics still were not satisfied. The Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society criticized Ms. Ben-Ghiat's invitation, even after it was revoked. A group of 17 House Republicans said in a letter to Admiral Davids that the situation had raised concerns about 'the academy's process for choosing guest speakers.' Ms. Ben-Ghiat recalled that she was told that the lecture was a potential violation of the Hatch Act, a law that limits certain political activities of federal employees. 'That would have only been true if I had been talking about current U.S. politics and Trump's attitude to the U.S. military, and that was never part of the plan,' she said. Ms. Ben-Ghiat now assumes that the lecture will never be rescheduled. 'A small purge was orchestrated,' she wrote in February about the cancellation of her lecture, 'to make sure the Naval Academy fell into line when Trump got back into office and the real purges could take place.' 'It was a loyalty test for the Naval Academy, and they passed it, but Trump and Hegseth will surely be back for more,' she added. A Climate Lecture On March 10, leaders from the academy's class of 1969 got their own unwelcome message from Ms. Firebaugh. The class, which graduated at the height of the Vietnam War, sponsors the Michelson lecture series, which has been given annually since 1981. The event brings in academic luminaries for midshipmen studying chemistry, computer science, mathematics, oceanography and physics. This year's lecture, which was scheduled for April 14, would have welcomed Susan Solomon, a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a recipient of the National Medal of Science. But like Ms. Ben-Ghiat's talk, Ms. Solomon's lecture was canceled as well. 'Unfortunately, the topic that we had selected for this year was not well aligned with executive orders and other directives,' the academic dean wrote in an email, which was shared with The New York Times, 'and there was insufficient time to select a new speaker that would be of sufficient stature for this series.' M.I.T., Ms. Solomon and Ms. Firebaugh did not respond to requests for comment. A Book Ban In late March, Mr. Hegseth's office directed the school to comply with a Jan. 29 executive order intended to end 'radical indoctrination' in kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms. According to several school officials, the academy initially tried to push back by stating the obvious: The order did not apply because the academy is a college. Mr. Hegseth's office ordered them to comply anyway. By April 1, 381 books had been removed from the school's Nimitz Library, which was named for Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, a five-star naval hero of World War II who graduated from the academy in 1905. 'I think he would have expected honest pushback,' his granddaughter, Sarah Nimitz Smith, said in an interview. 'He never would have thought the academy would fold.' Soon afterward, the New Press, which publishes three of the now-removed books, offered faculty members at the academy free copies for the midshipmen they teach. 'We thought book banning had gone the way of the Third Reich, and we're very unhappy to see it again,' Diane Wachtell, the executive director of the New Press, said in an interview. At least two members of the faculty have resigned in protest of the book ban, and 18 others at the school have opted for early retirement, according to several campus officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Around the same time that books about race, racism, gender and sexuality were being pulled from Nimitz's shelves, an award-winning filmmaker was on the chopping block as well. A Documentary In November, representatives for the filmmaker Ken Burns reached out to the academy with an offer to screen clips from his new six-part series on the American Revolution at the academy in a private event for a select group of midshipmen. The school accepted and booked the event for April 22. But in late March, the school's leadership felt that Mr. Burns's criticisms of Mr. Trump before the 2024 election could cause another outcry from conservative think tanks and Republican members of Congress. According to three Navy officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, Admiral Davids initially ordered her staff to cancel Mr. Burns's event but later decided to reschedule it for the next academic year. An Ethics Lecture On April 14, the academy's leaders canceled a third lecture. The author Ryan Holiday had planned to speak to midshipmen about Stoic philosophy, and why it was important to read books that challenged their thinking. But he said a staff member at the academy's Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership screened his presentation and objected to its discussion of the school's book ban, which included screenshots of Times reporting about it. Named for Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale, who graduated from the academy in 1947, the center pays homage to his service as a leader of American prisoners of war in Hanoi. After the war, the admiral often said his postgraduate studies on the writings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin had offered him an edge over his interrogators. 'My father would engage in conversation with his tormentors, questioning them about Vietnam's Communist Party while they were trying to break him,' the admiral's eldest son, Jim Stockdale, recalled in an interview, noting that his father enraged one of his interrogators by besting him on the finer points of Leninism in an argument. 'I was able to do a duel in dialogue with the guy,' Mr. Stockdale recalled his father saying after the war. 'That was like a magic trick in a torture prison in an autocracy.' An Annual Dedication William McBride, a history professor, retired in January after 30 years at the academy. He was invited to stand beside Admiral Davids on April 25 at the school's annual Dedication Parade, where midshipmen don their dress uniforms and march with rifles to honor retiring faculty members. But on Saturday, Mr. McBride, who graduated from the academy in 1974, declined the honor and fired off a broadside against the admiral. The book ban, he said, was a 'limitation on the intellectual inquiry of midshipmen' that 'is contrary to the academy's motto: 'From Knowledge, Sea Power,'' and had damaged the school's mission. In an email sent to the admiral and shared with The Times, Mr. McBride accused the school of tarnishing its reputation by bending to political pressure. He cited a line all incoming students had to memorize when he began his studies there 55 years ago: 'Where principle is involved, be deaf to expediency.' 'No matter what you have done before,' he wrote, 'your legacy will be that of a careerist who banned Maya Angelou but retained Hitler's 'Mein Kampf.''
Time of India
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Why Ambedkar said the Constitution can't be amended ‘at the sweet will of the majority'
Why Ambedkar said the Constitution can't be amended 'at the sweet will of the majority' Sunil Baghel Updated: Apr 23, 2025, 12:44 IST IST Delivering the Dr Ambedkar Memorial Lecture in New Delhi recently, Supreme Court judge BR Gavai recounted Babasaheb's contributions in giving India a Constitution, which 'has not only stood the test of the time for past 75 years, but has also kept the country strong, stable and united' Justice Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai, next in line to become the Chief Justice of India, recently remarked that Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar was against the idea of amending the Constitution 'at the sweet will of the majority' although he wanted it to be a dynamic, living document. Delivering the first Dr Ambedkar Memorial Lecture, organised by Dr Ambedkar International Centre on April 14, his birth anniversary, in New Delhi, the Supreme Court judge recounted his contribution in shaping the Constitution.
The Hindu
22-04-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
M.S. Ramaiah Memorial Lecture held in Bengaluru
Ramaiah Institute of Technology (RIT), to mark the 103rd birth anniversary of Dr. M.S. Ramaiah, hosted the Dr. M.S. Ramaiah Memorial Lecture on Monday, April 21. The event gathered dignitaries, academicians, and members of the Gokula Education Foundation (GEF) to honour the founder's contributions to education and national development. V. Narayanan, Secretary, Department of Space and Chairman, ISRO, delivered the memorial lecture titled 'Indian Space Programme – Pride of the Nation: Past Success, Present Efforts and Future Endeavours.' He discussed the Indian space programme, key milestones such as the Chandrayaan missions, and future goals focused on innovation, sustainability, and collaboration. M.R. Jayaram, Chairman of GEF (Medical) and Chancellor of RUAS, spoke on the progress since independence and the role of Ramaiah institutions. M.R. Seetharam, Chairman of GEF, delivered the presidential address, highlighting the foundation's ongoing work. The programme included GEF Trustees who paid tribute to Dr. Ramaiah's vision. The lecture reflected the founder's mission to promote education, discipline, and self-reliance. The event ended with a vote of thanks to all participants.
