2002 - Annual Report

Abstract

The construction of additional office space and an auditorium was completed and the new office space has now been occupied. The Auditorium, which has a seating capacity of 190,was named the Ramanujan Auditorium and was inaugurated on June 22nd by Dr. Anil Kakodkar. On behalf of the Institute, we convey our sincere thanks to Dr. R. Chidambaram(the previous Chairman of AEC), Dr. Anil Kakodkar (the present Chairman), and Mrs.Sudha Bhave (Joint Secretary, DAE), for the keen interest shown by them in the progress of this building project and the help and support extended to us at every stage. The B. M. Birla Award was given to Dr. Kapil Paranjape for Mathematical Science for the year 1999, and to Dr. Sudeshna Sinha for Physical Sciences for the year 2001. Dr. Kapil Paranjape was awarded a DST-Swarna jayanthi Project on Cycles,Arithmetic and Cryptography. Prof. K. Srinivasa Rao was awarded the Tamil Nadu Scientists Award for the year 2000 by the Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology. A three day International Conference in “Analytic Number Theory with special emphasis on L-functions” was held during January 3 - 5, 2002. On this occasion, Prof. M. V.Subbarao, who turned 80, was felicitated. The Institute conducted an orientation course in Theoretical Computer Science for teachers from South Asia, a workshop on Reasoning about Parameterized and Infinite State Systems, a workshop on String Theory, an Indo-Russian workshop on Integrable Models, String Theory and Quantum Gravity under the Integrated Long Term Programme (ILTP), a mini-workshop on Theoretical Biology, and a Workshop on Topological Methods in Group Theory. The Institute co-sponsored and took active part in the Conference on Field Theoretic Aspects of Gravity-II (FTAG-II) held at RAC, Ooty; a Conference on Condensed Matter Physics held at Bangalore; a symposium on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Prof. C. S. Seshadri at Chennai Mathematical Institute, and the Indocrypt 2001 Conference at IIT, Madras.The following activities have become an annual feature of the Institute: (i) The Institute Seminar Week, (ii) NBHM Nurture Programme, (iii) Refresher course in Physics (once in winter, for City colleges, and once in summer, for teachers throughout India).

This year the annual report committee consisting of Drs. G. Date, K. Srinivasa Rao, S.Kalyana Rama, D. S. Nagaraj, Meena Mahajan and Mr. Paul Pandian (Librarian) took the initiative to automate the preparation of the Annual Report. A project, which simplifies the task of data collection, report generation and subsequent editorial processing, was commissioned and completed. This report has been compiled using the automated procedure through the efforts of the committee together with secretarial assistance from Ms. Usha Devi. Photographs have been contributed by Dr. Rahul Basu and the administration.