INDIAN PHYSICS ASSOCIATION

 

ANNUAL GENERAL BODY MEETING (AGM)

Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education

V. N. Purav Marg, Mankhurd, Mumbai.

January 10, 2005.

 

 

GENERAL SECRETARY’S REPORT

 

  1. Distinguished IPA members and my young friends present here.  It gives me a great pleasure to welcome you all to this Annual General Body Meeting of the IPA.  It is my pleasure to present the summary report on IPA activities for the period 2003 - 2005.

 

  1. This year has been a period of somewhat scaling down of the programmes. When we took over the IPA in November 2003, we found that the reduction in the interest rates had reduced our income to such an extent that our expenses had begun to eat into the original corpus fund of IPA. Clearly, this was not a situation that we could accept. So we decided to curtail our activities and concentrate our efforts in regenerating our corpus funds. I am happy to state that our treasurer has been working very hard to try and regenerate the funds. Our efforts have been three folds, in increasing membership, in writing to original donors to replenish the funds and writing to new potential sources of funding as well as creating new programmes which can generate revenues. We have had a mixed bag of success and I will leave it to the treasure to explain the financial intricacies which he has followed up with great care. He has also ensured that we have all our recognitions in place so that the future interactions with government bodies are simplified. Let me therefore concentrate on other organisational aspects.

 

1. General Administration

 

3.     For several years IPA members have felt that keeping IPA offices inside BARC discourages free interaction between members due to the security constraints in BARC. At the same time, an office within BARC premises is also necessary since a large number of the most active members of IPA are in BARC. This year therefore we decided to have duel office, thanks to the generous offer of Prof. Arvind Kumar to give office space for IPA in HBCSE. Hence we now have two offices. While all our records are kept in BARC and we continue to use the BARC infrastructure, for meetings etc., we have a separate office in HBCSE and I have made it a habit of coming to the IPA office at least once a week. In keeping with this emphasis of involving HBCSE also, we have even changed our postal and electronic address to HBCSE. I hope that this will encourage non DAE members to take greater active interest in IPA affairs. An IPA web page has also been created through my area in TIFR web site but we do hope to have an independent web page at HBCSE, sooner rather than later. We will welcome members who are willing to help us make and maintain a dynamic web page for us.

 

2. IPA Chapters

 

  1. Officially IPA has 40 chapters in India besides one in USA. However, I am sorry to say that not all chapters are very active and we are making vigorous efforts to revive them. We have succeeded in reviving the Mumbai Chapter and initiated process to create two new chapters in Latur and Shreenagar. Also several of our dormant chapters have also come back with promise of more activity.

 

a.     Kolkata Chapter conducted Workshop on Basic and Applied Fluid Dynamics at SINP on September 16-17, 2004 with Kalpana Chawla Centre for Space and Nano Sciences, Kolkata.

 

b.     Bangalore Chapter they co-sponsored the 1st Regional Convention for college teachers with the focus “Teaching Physics at Undergraduate Level”, held on 28-29 August 2003, at VVS First Grade College for Women. 

 

Professor C. Sivaram, Indian Inst. of Astrophysics, Bangalore, delivered the annual lecture on the Recent Nobel Prize in Physics (2003), at St. Joseph’s College of Arts and Science on 16/12/2003.

 

Professor A.W. Joshi, eminent physicist and educationist from Gujarat, was in Bangalore to deliver a series of lectures coinciding with the Science-day Celebration Week in the last week of February 2004. IPA sponsored a lecture “Appreciating Physics” and another, “Simple Innovative Experiments in Physics” on 26th February 2004 at the Department of Physics, Bangalore University. 

 

They also conducted Prof. S. P. Bondade Memorial Lecture Contest for M. Sc students on March 6, 2004 at the Dept of Physics, Christ College, Bangalore.  The lecture contest was followed by an interesting lecture by Dr. Satyajit Meyer of National Centre for Biological Sciences, TIFR, Bangalore on “Applications of Physics in Cell Biology”, at the same venue that afternoon.

 

c.     Indore Chapter held one day Seminar at UDC Indore on January 23, 2004.  The talks were delivered by Prof. V N Bhoraskar on “Application of nuclear techniques”, Prof. K P Maheshwari on “Microwave generation using backward (BW) oscillator” and Dr. S R Mishra on “Physics of cold atoms”. They also organised a Popular Lecture on “Physics and Human Values” by Prof. P. Krishna INSA Visiting Professor, DAVV, Indore on August 11, 2004 at UDC, Indore.

 

    1. Baroda Chapter arranged many invited talks and activities  like “Optical pattern recognition” by Prof. Kehar Singh, IIT, New Delhi on 26-07-’03.  They also cosponsored with Vigyan Parishad an Elocution competition on “Progress of science and technology during last decades” on 09-08-’03.

 

In 2004, they celebrated the National science day in a different way i.e.  on 8th  February -2004. They selected a theme of “SCIENCE AWARENES”.  It was partly sponsored by Vigyan Parishad Several talks were delivered by the eminent speakers:

 

    1. Kalpakkam Chapter also conducted about 20 lectures on different topics during 2003, 2004.  

 

3. Membership

 

  1. IPA has enrolled 149 new Life members, 39 new Annual members and 26 new Student members from May 2003 to December 2004. 

 

4. Physics News

 

  1. ‘Physics News’ is being published regularly despite the high cost of publication and distribution.  Two issues have been published during this period (Vol 33 No. 4, & Vol. No. 34 No. 1 Oct-Dec. 2002 & Jan-March 2003, Vol. 34 No. 2 & 3 Apr-June 2003 & July –Sep. 2003 and Vol. 34 No. 4 & Vol. 35. No. 1 Oct-Dec. 2003 & Jan-March 2004).   We would like to place on record the excellent job done by the Editor, Dr. R. R. Puri who spared his valuable time and the kind support and help received from Dr. P. R. Vijayraghavan.  We thank both of them.

 

  1.  However, I must also confess that Physics News has been most severely hit by our funding problems as well as lack of high quality articles. While Dr. Puri is working vigorously on correcting the second problem, Prof. Major has been working hard to correct the funding situation. We have been promised a sympathetic hearing by DST for our request for an exclusive, one time funding for Physics News and Prof. Major will discuss this while discussing the funding.

 

5. Awards

 

8.     While we began the year determined to complete the back log of all awards to be presented, I am afraid that the financial problems overwhelmed us. Hence we have only completed the awards for 2002. I seek the permission of the IPA to allow us to not give awards for 2003 and 2004 and allow us to re-start our awards from 2005. Even this will be possible only if the original or some other donors increase the funding. Failing this, we will have no choice but to curtail the cash awards significantly. In any case, allow me to inform the General Body about the results for the 2002 awards.

 

  1. S. N. Seshadri Award: For the year 2002, the oral presentations were conducted on April 14, 2004 in Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education.  Mrs. Manjiri M. Pande and group (Shri V. Nataraju and Shri Milind M. Gulhane) BARC, Mumbai and Shri Mahesh M. Belekar, Gogate-Jogalekar College, Ratnagiri have been jointly awarded the S. N. Seshadri Memorial Award for the year 2002.

 

  1. N. S. Satyamurthy Award:  For the year 2002, total 7 nominations were short-listed and 5 candidates came for the presentations. Oral presentations were conducted on July 1, 2004 in Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. The award has been given to Dr. G. D. Mukherjee, BARC, and Mumbai. 

 

  1. I take the opportunity to thank Dr. Alok Saxena, Convener S. N. Seshadri Memorial Award and Dr. B. K. Godwal Convener, N. S. Satyamurthy Memorial Award   who have put in considerable efforts in helping us in the selection process for these awards.  I would also like to thank all the referees and judges for their help in this selection process.

 

  1. R. D. Birla Award / M. M. Chugging Award:   For the year 2002 the R. D. Birla Award was jointly awarded to Prof. P. K. Kew, Director, IPR, Gandhi Nagar and Prof. Bikes Sinha, Director, VECC and SINP, Kolkota.  The M. M. Chugging Award was jointly awarded to Prof. A. K. Ghatak, Emeritus Professor, IIT, New Delhi and Dr. S. K. Sikka, Scientific Secretary, Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Govt of India, New Delhi. Both the awards presentation was held in BARC Multipurpose Hall, Anushaktinagar, and Mumbai on November 7, 2003. 

 

  1. Best Thesis Award:  The position with respect to the IPA awards under this category is as follows:  

Nuclear Physics:  Dr. Sarla Rathi, BARC, Mumbai on “Study of High Energy Gamma Rays in Nuclear Reactions” during DAE Nuclear Physics Symposium held during December 8-12, 2003 at BARC Training School Hostel, Mumbai. Dr. A. Bhagwat, Dept of Physics, IIT Bombay, Mumbai on “Description of Nuclear Properties of Loosely Bound EXOTIC Nuclei” during DAE Nuclear Physics Symposium held during December 6-10, 2004 at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

 

Solid State Physics:  Dr. Ranjan Mittal, BARC, Mumbai on “Inelastic neutron scattering and lattice dynamics of geophysically important minerals and novel compounds” and Dr. S. V. S. Nageshwara Rao, University of Hyderabad on “Iron beam characterization and engineering of strain in semi conductor multi layers.

 

     Atomic & Molecular Physics: No request received.

 

14.  I would like to inform you that in spite of all our problems, we have created a new C L Bhat Memorial Award in honour of one of our most active general secretaries, who unfortunately died in a road accident a couple of years ago and whose memory we warmly cherish. I want to place on record my heart felt appreciation of Prof. Sir Arnold WolfendaleFRS, who generously donated a 1,000 UK Pounds to the fund. As per the wishes of Prof. Wolfendale and keeping in mind the most cherished cause of the Late Dr. C L Bhat, the award will be given to the best Junior and Senior Student at the Indian Astronomy Olympiad Camp. I am happy to tell you that the organisers of the camp have agreed to execute this award and the first awards were given to Mr. Ashish Agarwal, a class XII student in Delhi and to Mr. T V Raziman, a class X student in Kozhikod. Both went on to represent India at the International Astronomy Olympiad in October this year and won Gold and Bronze medals respectively. I must also mention that the prize money for the award at Rs. 1000 per student has been kept sufficiently low compared to the corpus of Rs. 80,000 so that the award does not become a financial liability for IPA in future.

 

6.  Interaction with Physics Associations/Societies Overseas

 

15. Institute of Physics (IOP), U.K Prof. A. M. Stoneham, FRS, Massey Professor of Physics and Director, Centre for Materials Research, Dept of Physics and Astronomy, University College London was selected as the Cockcroft and Walton Lecturer under the IPA – IOP Visiting Lecturer Exchange Programme visited India from January 5 – 17, 2004.  He gave lectures under the auspices of IPA chapters in Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore and Mumbai.  The Sec IPA has also been made a free member of the IoP for the present and we hope to make this an ex-officio appointment.

 

16. AAPPS: We have also vigorously revived our interaction with the Association of Asia- Pacific Physical Societies and we hope that this will bear fruits in future.

 

17. AIP: We have also activated our association with the Australian Institute of Physics with a view to have an exchange programme similar to the IOP.

 

18. Collaboration with Indian Associations: I think we have worked hardest in increasing the association within various physics associations in India such as the Indian Physical Society and Indian Association of physics teachers, especially in the backdrop of the World Year of Physics and this has borne excellent fruits as we shall see when we discuss the World Year of Physics Programme.

 

7.  IPA Seminars

 

19. A three day seminar was organized by IPA in collaboration with Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education and IIT, Mumbai in BARC Training School Hostel on “Physics Education, Research and New Technologies”  from November 6-8, 2003.  The seminar was well attended.  It had 25 speakers.   A report on this seminar has been published in Physics News, Vol. 34 No.4 & 35 No. 1 Oct.-Dec. 2003 & Jan-Mar, 2004 issue.

 

8. IPA celebration IYP-2005

 

  1. The year 2005 marks the Centenary of the 3 major papers by Albert Einstein on Special Relativity, Photoelectric effect and Brownian Motion. The three papers changed the world of physics as few single years have done in the history of Mankind. In light of this physics organisations across the World, led by UNESCO and European Physical Society decided to celebrate the Year as the World Year of Physics. Subsequently, the United Nations, through a General Body resolution agreed to mark the year 2005 as the International Year of Physics. Various physics organisations from all over the world met in March 2004 and worked out several programmes.

 

  1. In India, IPA has taken the lead in organising the programmes. We have then joined hands with the Indian Association of Physics teachers, Indian Physical Society. In order execute the programme satisfactorily across the country and to coordinate it with international efforts, the President IPA requested Dr. Chidambaram, Principle Scientific Advisor to the Government of India to chair the International Advisory Committee and the National Programme Committee. Accordingly various committees have been constituted and the programme has begun. Under this commitment we have to organise various programmes in India and participate in some International Events.

 

  1. Our International commitments include participating in the Physics of Tomorrow programme, Physics Talent Search Programme and in programmes like Physics in Architecture. I am happy to say that we have made good progress in both these activities and I will be happy to discuss them in detail with interested members.

 

  1. For the National Initiative, the emphasis of programme is attracting and retaining talented youngster in physics. The highlight of the programme will be the release of a stamp on International Year of Physics by the Philatelic Bureau of India on Feb 28, 2005. This will be followed by an intense brainstorming session amongst some physics educationists to work out a set of recommendations for the Government of India for increasing high quality intake in Physics .Apart from this two more programmes, in Physics and Industry relation and Physics and International Collaboration are also planned. This is apart from several programmes being organised in collaboration with other organisations as well as local initiatives of different chapters.

 

  1. By the end of the year we hope that the student community in India will have a much better position to understand the excitement of pursuing a career in Physics and explore this option in their life. I am sure that you will all agree with this sentiment.

 

9. Conclusion

 

  1. I would now request the IPA members present here to accept this brief report before I close. 

 

  1. I take this opportunity to thank all the members of the Executive Committee and other members of the Executive Committee.  I would also like to thank all my IPA colleagues, including Dr. V. C. Sahni, Prof. S. S. Major and Shri P. R. Vijayaraghavan for their excellent co-operation in helping me to discharge my responsibilities as the General Secretary.  It would not have been possible to make whatever small gains we have made during the period of this report, but for their cooperation and all the help received from the IPA administrative staff. I will fail in my duties if I do not acknowledge the painstaking and consistent work of Latha and Dhule, without whose efforts IPA would have been in far more serious problems. I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

 

  1. I am extremely happy to express my gratitude to them.  Thank you all!