UAA – Website - UDCT Alumni Association

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UDCT Alumni Association

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NEWSLETTER

YEARS OF EXCELENCE

December, 2013

Message from the Chancellor, ICT

Dear Alumni, ICT’s journey of 80 years is a journey of an exceptional education and research institution, which has done the nation proud. The Alumni have played a huge role in it progress, growth and its current high standing among the peers.

Office Bearers: Dr. Vijay G. Habbu President Prof. Aniruddha B. Pandit Imm. Past President Mr. Yashwant H. Jhaveri Snr. Vice President Mr. Ravi Raghavan Vice President Dr. Parag R. Gogate Secretary Mr. Vijay Y. Sane Treasurer

Members: Mr. Lalit R. Chadha Mr. Nitin J. Deshmukh Prof. Padma Devarajan Dr. Sandeep B. Kale Prof. Alpana Mahapatra Dr. Sanjay V. Mehendale Dr. Prasad M. Nabar Dr. M.G. Palekar Mr. Rajeev S. Panse Dr. Pariti Siva Rama Kumar Mr. Vinay D. Patil Mr. Koteswara Rao Dr. Virendra K. Rathod Mr. Virendra D. Sanghavi Mr. Parth Shah Dr. Parasuveera Uppara Mr. Rajan K. Vaidya Mr. Sharad S. Vengsarkar Student Secretary: Mr. Kheizer Thakur

While applauding the memorable journey of UAA till this silver jubilee year, we must chart out a new vision of UAA as we move towards its golden jubilee year. I welcome the new BOG and the new initiatives that it is bringing to the table with so much energy and enthusiasm. As Thomas Alva Edison has famously said, ‘you can always do better’. So we must strive to not only reach our potential, but try to exceed it, when we reach it! What could we do better? What could be my wish list at this juncture? First, the already established alumni network needs to be strengthened by innovative, creative and aggressive use of technology. We must build social networks, use Facebook, create blogs and be a vibrant family, which does not get infromed just once in a month through monthly newsletter (which itself is a laudable and valuable start) but stays connected 24x7 day after day, week after week and month after month, just like a family! Second, a dynamic UAA website must be the source of information, interaction and inspiration. This means making it so exciting and rewarding that an ICT alumnus, wherever he is in the world, feels like visiting the website atleast once a day! This means creating and maintaining a dynamic content, comprising perhaps highlights of alumni achievements, big events, job opportunities, exciting information on new technological breakthroughs of interest to our alumni for a vibrant dialogue amongst the alumni on issues of topical interest. Third, UAA must use the power of ICT’s young students far more and far more creatively than we have done so far. The young students have unbound energy, they are web savvy, they use social networks. UAA should glavanize itself through this ‘yuvashakti’. Fourth, UAA must actively contribute to raising the level of excellence and relevance of ICT’s education and research. UAA, for instance, can help by ensuring that the standard of student projects and undergraduate research goes up by introducing them to industrial problems that are in search of urgent solutions. This will enable the students to solve problems that ‘need to be solved’ rather than those that ‘can be solved’. And this is possible because our alumni are out there in the field and they know the ‘demand side’ much better. I always have said that it is not enough if ‘some Indians’ are doing well, ‘India’ must do well. The same thinking applies to ICT. UAA can help in supporting our

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UAA NEWSLETTER

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dynamic Vice-Chancellor’s valiant efforts to create a navigation and other aspects, we rolled out the website new look ICT, a new look in both physical as well as on 5th October 2013. I am sure you will find the website as intellectual terms. colourful as the Navratris, during which it was formally launched. Fifth, UAA must become more resourceful but for that it will require more resources. Our corpus must From that day onwards, a dedicated team has been double up from its current level of Rs. two crores. Our relentlessly working to constantly update and refine the alumni have been generous in supporting the cause of website. Each and every of your suggestions (and not UAA as well as that of ICT. I am sure they will respond forgetting some teething problems too) have now been enthusiastically to a clarion call during this silver jubilee addressed. The looks and features are contemporary. For year. example, you can go to the Members Browser and see all the alumni, or just select the ones that you want to see in I am sure the UAA will do everything possible to any particular collation. There is a News Update section convert these five ideas into reality and make ICT stand that will immediately tell you what the upcoming events tall amongst the tallest of institutions worldwide. are, and what the earlier ones were. There is a photo gallery where you can see album after album of pictures of various UAA events. And, there is a section only for YOU, wherein you can post any discussion or query. In R.A. Mashelkar a another dedicated section, you can post job openings or look for them. You will find a section for listening to plenary talks given by our stalwarts. More sections   From the President’s Desk will be included as we go along – and yes, each page has a provision for you to give your ideas/suggestions/ feedback as well !! Dear Alumni, We recently had a stupendous event: conferment of the 4th UAA-ICT Dhirubhai Ambani Lifetime Achievement Award on Prof. George Stephanopoulos. I am sure you have read the details and seen the pictures on our website.

So, look at this website as your instant guide to everything on the UAA, including making direct payments (e.g. for the Lifetime Membership, donations). While we do want all alumni to become Lifetime Members before the fees go up in 2014, we have delinked this aspect from website registration.

Have you heard these phrases from me too often (pl. So, hurrah!! Registering on the website is FREE, and register on udctalumni.org.in, or, details available on ALL ALUMNI can sign-up, irrespective of whether you the website)? Today, I want to explain why this BOG are UAA’s Life Member or not. It is simple and easy: feels so passionately about our website. it takes less than 5 minutes including uploading your Recall my first message to you a couple of months ago. I had said that times have changed and are further changing at a pace faster than the times when we were at UDCT/ICT. It is no longer a hard-wired world and our interactions are increasingly in the virtual world. We may like this or not, but it is the reality. Just ask yourself, when was the last time you wrote a letter on the good old post-card versus how many times you have written an email? We won’t even want to answer this. Yet, our emotions and our need to stay connected remain as intense as before. The UAA cannot be insulated from this reality. The obvious starting point is a website. After intense efforts, both in designing the architecture, the features, the 2

Dr. Vijay Habbu presenting a T-shirt to Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, Chancellor, ICT when a team of the BOG called on him in Pune on 29th November

December, 2013

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UAA NEWSLETTER

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photo. (Clarification: alumni who already are UAA’s Life Members will still have to separately register on the   UAA activities website, as signing up needs to be done by you, using your own your password). BOG initiatives So, enjoy surfing on it! It may not be as instantaneous as the social media, but it certainly is one of the best and Your BOG is implementing a warmest alumni-media. number of novel initiatives to reach Finally, I can’t resist saying “See you on udctalumni. out to alumni, students, faculty and other well-wishers. org.in before I see you on our Annual Day“. Vijay G. Habbu President – UAA 30th November 2013

  BOG member’s speak

IAGs to be expanded: With the successful launching of the ICT Alumni Groups (IAG)s at Reliance Industries Ltd., and Atul Co. Ltd. your BOG proposes to take the idea to other companies where a significant number of companies are present. The interactions amongst ICT alumni at a company level had led to renewed interest in the affairs of ICT/UAA. If you would like to seed the idea in your organisation, please do let us know. Assistance to Chapters: The BOG will assist Chapter level activity up to the tune of Rs. 10,000 annually.

Rajeev Panse Head, Chapters Coordination The Chapters Coordination Team has initiated efforts to establish contacts with all existing chapters including:

Nine domestic Chapters at Ahmedabad, Ankleshwar, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Tarapur & Vapi; and

Six overseas Chapters in China, Singapore, Thailand, UK and US (Houston & New Jersey).

Patron Membership Drive: Your BOG is planning an event at ICT shortly to enable Patron Members to interact with ICT staff and alumni. A comprehensive assistance package for Patron Members is also being given shape. Expect to hear more from us in the coming months. Infrastructure improvement: The alumni office now has a new and colourful look – keeping with the mood of the Silver Jubilee. A new email system has been installed that will permit quick and efficient communications with members. A notice board has been installed outside the office. UAA Thanks to Prof. P.A. Mahanwar, Head, Department of Polymer & Surface Engineering, for his support to this.

We are taking steps for continuous interaction T-shirts available: with chapters, to activate, mobilise and guide them on programmes, membership drive, funding, operations, etc. Colourful T-shirts (in grey, black and red) in various We believe that inter-chapter activities will also sizes (medium, large and have a symbiotic effect, and our plan is to have regular extra large) emblazoned visits to chapters, with half yearly meetings of Chapter with the Silver Jubilee Office Bearers with the BOG. An ‘Annual National logo are available for sale Conference of UAA’ hosted by one chapter can also be (Price: Rs. 500). Purchase a great way to energise Chapter activity. them from the UAA office December, 2013

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UAA NEWSLETTER

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the next time you visit, or whenever you come for any of the UAA events. Publicity posters: Your BOG has also prepared a free-standing poster to enhance the visibility of the UAA at all events that it supports. UAA-ICT Dhirubhai Ambani Lifetime Achievement Award conferred on Prof. George Stephanopoulos [Wed, 13th Nov 2013] The ‘UAA-ICT Dhirubhai Ambani Lifetime Achievement Award’ sponsored by Reliance Industries Ltd. was conferred on Prof. George Stephanopoulos, A.D. Little Professor of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at a ceremony held at ICT on 13th November.

Director and Member of Board, Reliance Industries Ltd.; Prof. G.D. Yadav, Vice Chancellor, ICT; and Dr. Vijay G. Habbu, President, UAA.  Prof. Stephanopoulos is the fourth recipient of the award and the previous recipients have been Prof. George Whitesides, Prof. Robert Grubbs and Prof. C.N.R. Rao. The award carries a cash prize of US$ 20,000, a citation and also covers travel expenses. Speaking at the event, Dr. Habbu, highlighted several initiatives taken by UAA, funded both by large corporations and by individuals. Prof. Yadav highlighted future plans for ICT including the setting up of a research and innovation park, and for creating an additional campus. He noted that the State Chief Minister, Mr. Prithviraj Chavan is aggressively pushing for this.

Mr. Meswani pointed out that Reliance owes its The award was given in recognition of his success to world-scale operations, leveraging the latest monumental contributions to Process Systems technology. “Think big, think fast, as ideas are nobody’s Engineering & Chemical Engineering. It was presented  monopoly,” he said, quoting the company founder, Late at the hands of Mr. Nikhil R. Meswani, Executive Shri. Dhirubhai Ambani. Prof. Stephanopoulos, delivered a lecture on ‘Systems Thinking: The Core of Modern Engineering’ during which he highlighted the fact that all interesting contemporary problems involve the engineering of complex systems. As an example he pointed to the Boeing 787, which has 2.5-mn components, 100 major sub-contractors (including four from India) and hundreds of smaller companies. Likewise, the ‘Obamacare’ website involved 100 mn functions that had to be written and work together and “problems came from the poor coordination.” In the pharmaceuticals industry, according to Prof. 4

December, 2013

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Stephanopoulos, the active ingredient is produced by a series of chemical reactions selected from thousands of potential routes, and there are many options for delivery systems, making it vital to take a systems view – rather than just an API-centric view. Quoting from his experience as Chief Technology Officer for Japan’s Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Prof. Stephanopoulos noted that the company’s Mizushima complex was a complex system involving 12,000 static and 6,000 rotating equipment. “This is not a simple system to monitor for safety and efficiency, of company/institute policies before deciding to but these are the kinds of systems that take my juices publish, as this could conflict with plans for patenting flowing,” he noted. or securing other forms of intellectual property protection. Ecological systems, he noted, are exceedingly complex, but need to be understood in order to make Factory visit the right policy decisions. “The interest is clearly the behaviour of the whole, but in order to do that we The UAA facilitated a factory visit for First Year need to understand the individual behaviours and their B.Pharm. students on 16th November, to two local interactions.” companies: Omkar Speciality Chemicals Ltd. and An Interactive Seminar on Technical Writing Mr. Ravi Raghavan, Vice-President, UAA and Editor, Chemical Weekly, conducted an interactive seminar on technical writing at ICT on 31st October. The event was attended by about 50 students.

Amogh Chemicals Pvt. Ltd. at Badlapur. Our Hon. Treasurer, Mr. Vijay Sane accompanied the students on this visit.

Membership status Category Life Mr. Raghavan highlighted a structured approach to writing papers and proposals and urged students to do so as early as possible in their student life. He stressed the increasingly collaborative and inter-disciplinary nature of research work and the challenges that it poses to authors. Mr. Raghavan also urged students to be careful December, 2013

Members 3751

Overseas

166

Wellwishers

219

Patron Ordinary

32 2

Student Wellwishers

1087

Total

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UAA NEWSLETTER

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UAA President on TV

  News from our alumni Polymer Science & Engineering Dept. bags Rs. 50 lakh endowment from B.S. Rajpurohit Mr. B.S. Rajpurohit, founder, Chemical Process Equipment (CPE), a leading plastics engineering and fabrication company headquartered in Mumbai, has through a generous personal donation of Rs. 50 lakh, instituted the ‘Shri. B. S. Rajpurohit Visiting Professor of Polymer Science and Technology Endowment’ ICT. The cheque was handed over by Mr. Rajpurohit to Prof. G.D. Yadav, Vice-Chancellor, ICT on 30th October, 2013, in the presence of Professor M.M. Sharma, Former Director, ICT.

Dr. V.G. Habbu appeared on Saam TV live panel discussion on 29th October. The discussion centred around the subject of ‘Value-education.’

  Forthcoming events Annual Day Celebrations [21st December] The UAA Annual Day is shaping up to be a bigger and better than ever before. The event will include:

Guided tours (starting at 3.30 pm) of the ICT campus (did you know that we have built a “Hall of Fame” - a panoramic exhibit of the evolution of Chemical sciences?)

As per the norms of ICT, the annual interest earned on this endowment will be utilised to appoint a faculty in the Department.

The celebratory cake-cutting on the badminton court, for the special batches (Golden, Silver and Decennial)

“I am sure many more alumni will follow Mr. Rajpurohit’s example,” Prof. Yadav said on the occasion.

Awards to Distinguished Alumni, in the categories of Professional, Research, Academics and Extramural accomplishments (see table below)

Inspiring speeches (only 3!)

Entertainment capsules planned and executed by students

Dinner (at 8.00pm) The event is open to all alumni, irrespective of your Life membership status, branch or year.

Prof. G.D. Yadav receiving the endowment cheque from Mr. B.S. Rajpuorhit, in the presence of Prof. M.M. Sharma

If you cannot attend, watch the live streaming of the event on our website www.udctalumni.org.in.

UAA Silver Jubilee “Distinguished Alumnus” Awardees Current Affiliation

ICT Batch, class

Executive Director, Gujarat Narmada Fertiliser Corporation (GNFC)

B.Sc. (Tech) - Plastics, 1981

Dr. Raj Shah

Director, Koehler Instrument Inc., USA

B.Chem. Engg, 1991

Academic

Prof. Samir Mitragotri

Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

B.Chem. Engg, 1992

Research

Dr. Ashish Lele

National Chemical Laboratory (NCL)

B.Chem. Engg, 1988

Extra-mural

Pt. Shrikrishna (Babanrao) Haldankar

Classical Music (Pune)

B.Sc. (Tech) Dyes, 1954

Category

Award winner

Professional Jagdeep Singh Kochar

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The concluding function of the Silver Jubilee of the UAA will be a grand musical that will be held on Sunday 11th May, 2014 (evening) at the Ravindra Natya Mandir (Prabhadevi, Mumbai).

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Silver Jubilee celebrations (Grand Finale)

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UAA NEWSLETTER

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  Awards & recognitions received   by our alumni Prof. CNR Rao awarded Bharat Ratna One of India’s stalwarts in the field of chemistry, Prof. C.N.R. Rao has been awarded India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

Watch our website for further announcement of the event, and pencil the date in your diary.

Prof. Rao, who was also felicitated by the UAA in the year 2011 with the ‘Dhirubhai Ambani Lifetime A special souvenir will also be released on the Achievement Award’ became the first Indian to reach occasion to raise a significant corpus for funding the activities of your association. Tariffs and other sponsorship details will be intimated soon. Pune Chapter get-together [6th December, 6 pm onwards] The Pune Chapter of the UAA has organized a Gettogether of members to know each other better and chalk out further plans. The programme will be followed by High Tea. Venue: Seminar Hall, URDIP, Jopassana Building Near Vanaz Company, Paud Road, Kothrud, Pune.

the h-index of 100 which reflects the kind of work he has done in his career spanning over six decades. We congratulate Prof. Rao for his achievements and his contributions to basic sciences.

Contact: Dr. Sanjay P Danao, Secretary, Mobile: CII-AICTE survey places ICT at the top +91-9545648496. ICT has received the ‘AICTE-CII Best Institute Award for Industry Institute Interaction’   New members in chemical engineering. The award was presented The following members were inducted in the months of October/November 2013









Mr. J.S. Kochar, B.Sc. (Tech.), 1981, Plastics Mr. S. P. Kale, M.Tech., 1987, Oils Dr. Varsha Pradhan, M.Pharm., 1992, Pharma. Dr. Ashok Athalye, Ph.D. (Tech.), 1993, Textiles Dr. V. P. Mishra, Ph.D., 1993, Chem. Engg Mr. S.V. Chavan, M. Pharm., 1995, Pharma. Mr. Arindam Chakrabarti, M.Sc. (Tech.), 1998, Textiles

Mr. M. B. Zamre, M.Tech., 2007, Foods

Mr. S.B. Birwadkar, B.Tech., 2010, Textiles

Ms. Kamini Sharma, M.Tech., 2012, Textiles December, 2013

Prof. G.D. Yadav, Vice-Chancellor, ICT receiving the award from Mr. Kapil Sibal, Minister for Information and Telecommunications,

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by Mr. Kapil Sibal, Minister for Information and Telecommunications, at the inaugural function of the ‘Global University Industry Congress 2013’ in New Delhi on 7th November, to Prof. G.D. Yadav, ViceChancellor, ICT.

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  UAA – Website: registrations   cross 700

Registrations on our recently launched website (www.udctalumni.org.in) have crossed 700. We The award was bestowed based on the findings have received several suggestions for improving the of an annual survey initiated by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), for best industry institute interactions. ICT Faculty bag IIChE Awards Several ICT faculty have bagged awards of the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (IIChE) that were announced recently:

Dr. Ashwin Patwardhan: Herdillia Award For ‘Excellence in Basic Research in Chemical Engineering;

Dr. Parag Gogate: Hindustan Lever Award For ‘The Most Outstanding Chemical Engineer of the Year’ below the age of 45 years; and

Ms. Bhagyashree Lele: The Chemical Weekly Prize for Best Research Paper published in a High Impact Factor International Journal by an Undergraduate Chemical Engineering Student (First Prize).

experience and are working to implement at least some of them. Do use this as the preferred platform for interacting with your classmates, and your seniors! You will be pleasantly surprised with the ease with which you can keep in touch!!

The website has several modes of interactions for The awards will be given in the upcoming Chemcon ALL alumni – not just for members of UAA. 2013 to be held at ICT in December.

Update your information!

The UAA office is updating its database so that we can serve you better Please send us your latest contact details by email to: [email protected]

UDCT Alumni Association

Nathalal Parekh Marg, Matunga, Mumbai - 400019. India  Phone: +91-22-24141164/24141741  Fax: +91-22-33611020 Email: [email protected] / [email protected]  Web: www.udctalumni.org.in

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