Up In The Air

IISc’s second campus at Challakere provides an ideal locale to study aerosols and their impact on climate   Travelling down the National Highway from Bangalore to Challakere in the Chitradurga district of Karnataka, and past the city limits, I noticed the air becoming fresher to breathe. Could it have been because of the reduced pollution, […]

From Boon to Bane: The Changing Face of Assam’s Floods

With each passing year, floods in Assam have become increasingly catastrophic, driven by a combination of socio-political factors and climate change   The Udalguri district in Assam, which shares an international border with Bhutan, has historically been an area largely unaffected by extreme climate. But in recent times, this district, like many others across the […]

Setting the stage

Rangmanch and Rhythmica offer students space for creativity   IISc is famed for its science and engineering éclat. Students here are expected to be academically brilliant and consistently work hard to excel. In such an environment, Rangmanch and Rhythmica are two student-driven clubs that allow them to showcase their artistic ingenuity. In the absence of […]

Understanding COVID-19 Through the Lens of the Social Sciences

COVID-19 has brought upon us an extraordinary situation, throwing our lives into tumult. While the crisis is largely being reported and understood from the biological and epidemiological viewpoints, we tend to sideline the fact that it is essentially a watershed moment in human history. Connect spoke to scholars from the social sciences and humanities about […]

Why I Teach Science Students About Folk Arts

A faculty member reflects on an unusual course offered to undergraduate students This year, I am teaching the sixth edition of the undergraduate humanities course “Mapping India with the Folk Arts”. In this course, we delve into indigenous knowledge, or common people’s knowledge, focusing on a different form of Indian folk art every year. By […]

Students Shake a Leg, Using Folk Dance to Communicate Science

On 8 April 2017, undergraduate (UG) students from IISc performed Indian folk dances that communicated complex scientific ideas. The performances, which brought together the arts and sciences, were part of their humanities course Mapping India through the Folk Arts. The Saturday morning spectacle comprised six different dances, each of which was performed by a group […]