“Do people in highly competitive spaces lack empathy?” That was a question a student had for a panel of mental health professionals at an event on 9 November 2019 called Shades of Blue: Understanding Depression. With increased concerns about students’ mental health on campus (two students took their lives this year), this was a student-organised […]
Jawaharlal Vaid, 88, was at the Institute from 1951 to 1957 at the Department of General and Applied Chemistry (eventually renamed Inorganic and Physical Chemistry), doing his Master’s and PhD. He went on to have a distinguished career in industry, working for the Indian Telephone Industry, and setting up India’s first capacitor plant for Jay […]
Using IISc’s biodiversity for undergraduate education “How many of you noticed the beautiful, white-coloured, fragrant tree just outside the stairs that lead us here to the lecture hall?” I asked the first year UG students in my first class of organismal biology at IISc. Barely two or three uncertain hands were raised out of 120. […]
Why do some find life as a postdoctoral fellow in India so challenging? Ask any PhD student about their next endeavour and the most common answer you would receive is a postdoctoral stint, preferably abroad. Postdoctoral positions allow one to pursue independent research in one’s field of interest, paving the way for a future academic […]
The evolutionary biologist recounts his love for the campus of IISc which has also served as a laboratory for his research The year was 1963, and it was my first week in Bangalore. As a 10-year-old boy, I was travelling with my parents and my two siblings, in the Bangalore Transport Service (BTS) bus no. […]
Polamada Lalantika worked at the Institute for 29 years. She joined on 21 June 1973, at the age of 27, working as a Stenographer, Supervisor and later Superintendent until her retirement in 2002. She worked through an era of advancements in technology, moving from typewriters to computers, Gestetner-cyclostyling machines to Xerox machines, and even sent […]
Jane Robinson was poet-in-residence this summer at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. Starting off as a biologist, she gradually turned to poetry and published her first book, Journey to the Sleeping Whale, in 2018. She was at IISc in June for a talk, “Of Poetry & Science”. In this email interview, she talks […]
How Hindustani music composers depict the monsoon in abstract terms Karen L Aplin and Paul D Williams have written* about the influence of weather in classical music, cataloging pieces that evoke meteorological phenomena, ranging from the thundering storms depicted in Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to the more serene meditations of Debussy’s La […]
A workshop on Hindustānī music inspired by the monsoon by a vocalist who also wears a biologist’s hat I define myself as a musician with an academic approach. I have been a student of Hindustānī music since my childhood. Besides what I learned from my gurus, the well-known vocalist Geetha Hegde and Ojesh Pratap Singh, […]
An undergraduate (UG) instructor reflects on her experience teaching IISc’s students My students often complain that I answer their questions with more questions. I am convinced that they know why I do it, and aren’t serious in their protests. Here are some examples: Scene 1: First year UG lab, Subject: Microbiology M was comparing growth […]
