For KG Haridasan, IISc is truly home. It was on the campus that he grew up, did most of his schooling and on-the-job training, culminating in a nearly four-decade-long stint which ended with a role of Multi-Tasking Staff at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. One thing that always drove Haridasan was his interest in learning. […]
How informal settings unlock new ways of thinking When he started working at IISc many years ago, Rishikesh Narayanan used to pull people from his lab to get coffee at Prakruthi, an outdoor campus cafeteria that closed down in 2020. “I am a coffee addict,” says Rishikesh, now Professor at the Molecular Biophysics Unit […]
Picture a typical morning at the Indian Institute of Science in the early 1980s. Three attenders set out on bicycles, each assigned to a different part of the sprawling campus. Their task is to collect the day’s mail. They stop at departments and offices along their route, gathering letters, handwritten notes, official messages, and […]
Indumati Srinivasan has spent over three decades navigating some of India’s most complex public institutions – from the vast system of the Indian Railways to the research-driven environment of the Indian Institute of Science. Trained as an economist and shaped by years in the Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS), she brought rigour and quiet resolve […]
A day at DIGITS If IISc were a living organism, with the Main Building as its brain, then the DIGITS office (Digital Campus and Information Technology Services) would be its spine: positioned just behind the “brain”, tasked with carrying signals and coordinating responses across campus and beyond. The office building stands at the intersection […]
Spooky stories of campus past IISc is equal parts a university and an epic, covering several epochs in its century of existence. Stacks of dusty files overflow with correspondence and documents, digital folders burst with names and passwords, and fossilised records lie silently in the farthest corners of the library. Yet, there is more. […]
A day in the life of Geetha Ramaswamy A drizzle coats the pathway as Geetha walks steadily towards IISc’s Main Guest House (MGH). Today, she had commuted from her home in Benson Town to IISc by auto rickshaw. The previous evening’s downpour had left her scooter marooned on campus. She quickens her pace to […]
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 […]
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. […]
The fact that IISc has produced several scientists over the past century is well documented. The less heralded though is that the Institute has provided a quiet backdrop for several people to find themselves and their significant others amidst the daily toil. These are some of their stories … Fighting for love In […]
