When VC Amanan joined IISc in 1980, he was 26 years old. He had wanted to be a scientist, and applied to the Government Arts and Science College near KR Circle for a course in Chemistry, Biology and Zoology. But as luck would have it, he missed the interview for the seat as the letter […]
Eric Lord, a British-born mathematician, was a visiting scientist at IISc for over two decades. He first came to the Institute in 1972, and later returned to Bangalore, the city he loved, for good. A man of varied interests, Eric has written books about general relativity, mathematics, crystallography, and paranormal phenomena. He has also illustrated […]
On the day IISc first opened its doors to students, as the Institute’s Annual Report for 1911 tells us, one hostel block was ready for occupation. What the Annual Report doesn’t mention, however, is that the “students’ hostel” was only meant for men. In 1909, plans had been made for staff quarters, two blocks of […]
Violet Bajaj, a contemporary of Anna Mani and Rajeswari Chatterjee, talks about her years at the Institute and beyond Violet Bajaj is 101 years old. She sits in her room before dinner, with the Gerald Seymour thriller she is currently reading on the table before her. Reading is her favourite hobby, and a low cupboard […]
A telecommunications entrepreneur on the lure of industry I joined the Department of Electrical Communication as a research student in January 1965 after completing my MSc degree in Mathematics from Mysore University. During my PhD, I worked on a problem that drew heavily from a subject I loved, mathematics. Like many, I did not know what to expect when I joined the Institute. But […]
I was born on 24 January 1922, in Bangalore (when the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) was 13 years old) in a house called “Casetta” on Sankara Mutt Road in the southern part of Bangalore. Probably in 1934 or so, the children of our school, Mahila Seva Samaja, were taken in a bus to IISc […]
The mathematician and first woman to be dean at IISc on wearing many hats I was exhausted after facing an interview for the PhD programme at IISc’s Applied Mathematics Department [now called the Department of Mathematics], that lasted for more than three hours. Having lost hope, my father was ready to take me back home […]
The mathematician and former dean on her growth at IISc Put it in any way you like – (a) from the beginning to the end, or (b) from the start to finish or (c) from alpha to omega – of my active research life was spent at the Indian Institute of Science. I entered as […]
A computational linguist-turned-information theorist talks about the nature of research I was a Sanskrit Lecturer at Maharani’s College and BES College of Arts, Science and Commerce, while also carrying out research in language processing systems and information processing. This research was carried out in Maharani’s College in collaboration with Bangalore University. One day, I read […]
Govindarajan Padmanaban is a celebrated biochemist and biotechnologist, known for his work on malaria. In a career spanning 50 years, he has mentored several students, helped establish start-ups and several research institutes. Recently, Padmanaban turned 80 and on 23 March 2018, the Director, Anurag Kumar, released the second volume of his memoir, titled Doing Science […]
