‘My Work on National Projects Became the Driving Force of my Life’

Narayanaswamy Balakrishnan (“Balki”) has spent over five decades at IISc. Upon completing his BE (Hons) from the Coimbatore Institute of Technology, he pursued his PhD from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, IISc, where he continued as a faculty member. He contributed to diverse areas, including aerospace electronics, computational electromagnetics, and information security. He also played […]

Driving Change

Elected bodies are giving voice to student issues   On a rainy October evening in 2024, Chiranjeevi Sadana, PhD student at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and newly elected Chairperson of the Students’ Council, is making arrangements for the first open mic of his term. The Students’ Council had finally been reinstated after six months. […]

Dancing with Sticks and Swords

Kalari club nurtures the cultural practice on campus   It was the inaugural event of Rhapsody, an annual fest of IISc, in July 2023. The JN Tata auditorium was packed with an ecstatic audience looking forward to a cultural extravaganza. Draped in red-and-black costumes, resembling ancient warriors, the members of the IISc Kalaripayattu club marched […]

Dancing with Cells, Surfing the Laminar Flow

Ahead of Satish Dhawan’s birth anniversary on 25 September, his daughter Jyotsna writes about her childhood on the IISc campus, life beyond, and her father’s indelible presence In the 1960s, while our parents (mostly fathers) worked away in labs and offices, libraries and classrooms, the children of IISc staff (mostly barefoot and unsupervised) explored that […]