Prof. B. B. Bhattacharya, Vice-Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, has been conferred with the highest French Civilian Award “Officer of the Order of Academic Palms (Officer dans I'Ordre des Palmes Academiques)” by the Prime Minister of the French Republic.

The order of the Academic Palms is one of the oldest civil distinctions.  The Palmes Academiques is an order founded in 1808 by one of France's most widely known figures, Napoleon Bonaparte, as an award for devotion and accomplishment in the areas of teaching and research.  Today, the Academic Palms honours those who render important services to French National Education and contribute to the intellectual, scientific and artistic influence of France in the world.

Prof. B.B. Bhattacharya, Vice-Chancellor has also been conferred with the 'Award for the Best Promoter of Indo-Romanian Relations in the field of Education''  by the Embassy of Romania to India.

Prof. Varun Sahni, Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament, School of International Studies has been appointed as of Vice-Chancellor, University of Jammu.

Prof. R. Ramaswamy, School of Physical Sciences have been selected for the award of prestigious “J. C. Bose Fellowship” by the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology.

Prof. Ranjit Kumar Saha, Centre of Indian Languages, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies has been Conferred with the honour for the Best Promoter of Indo Romania relations in the field of Literature, by the Embassy of Romania.  

Dr. Tulika Prasad, Assistant Professor, AIF has been selected for the Ranbaxy Science Scholarship  2008 for Young Scientists in the field of Medical Sciences. Her award winning research work involved “Finding Novel Strategies to combat drug resistance in Candida - 2 new approaches” was carried out in JNU. Investigating the extensive role of membrane lipids, she found interactions between ergosterol and sphingolipids are important determinants of multidrug resistance (MDR) and morphogenesis in Candida (an opportunistic dimorphic fungal pathogen). She established sphingolipid biosynthetic pathway as a novel attractive antifungal drug target. Working in collaboration, she could successfully demonstrate iron as a novel modulator of drug resistance and morphogenesis. Her work established MDR reversal by iron modulation, independent of the already known drug efflux pumps. Reversal of MDR by controlling cellular iron could represent a new target for infection and drug resistance. The work opens the possibility of combination of iron chelators and azoles as novel therapeutic strategy for MDR reversal.

Prof. Romila Thapar, was conferred the 2008 Kluge Prize by United States Library of Congress for lifetime achievement in the study of humanity.  Emeritus Professor of history at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Prof. Thapar is the seventh recipient of the award. Established in 2003, the Kluge Prize is for contributions in a wide range of disciplines including history, philosophy, politics, anthropology, sociology, religion, criticism in the arts and humanities and linguistics as well as a variety of cultural perspectives in the world.

Prof. Kedarnath Singh, Professor Emeritus, Centre of Indian Languages, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies has been Awarded “Bharat Bharati” by the Government of Uttar Pradesh.

Mahamahopadhyaya Satya Vrat Shastri, Honorary Professor, has been bestowed upon the Jnanpith Award by the Government of India, and with the Lifetime Achievement Award 'Vidyalankara', by the Purbanchal Academy of Oriental Sciences and has also been selected for the 3rd Sardar Patel Award  2008 by the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Foundation, New Delhi.

Mr. Satheese Chandra Bose K.P, Research Scholar, Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences has been awarded “Jawaharlal Nehru Young Leaders Fellowship” for the year 2008 under the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SYLFF) of the Nippon Foundation & Tokyo Foundation, Japan.

Mr. Shelly Johny, Research Scholar, Centre for West Asian & African Studies, School of International Studies, has been awarded “Jawaharlal Nehru Young Leaders Fellowship” for the year 2008 under the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SYLFF) of the Nippon Foundation & Tokyo Foundation, Japan.

Ms. Joyee Ghosh, Research Scholar, School of Physical Sciences has been awarded The Optical Society of America Certificate of Excellence and cash prize for outstanding student paper oral presentation “Electromagnetically-induced transparency and slow light in a hot vapor of 4He undergoing collisions” at the International Conference PHOTONICS  2008 organized by IIT, Delhi.

International Migration and Diaspora Studies

The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA), GOI has signed an agreement of partnership with Jawaharlal Nehru University to sponsor a major long-term research project on International Migration and Diaspora Studies at Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies (ZHCES), School of Social Sciences (SSS) of the university. Binod Khadria, Professor of Economics at ZHCES, JNU will head the research project.

The partnership is a landmark initiative in locating such major research on international migration in South Asia. Focusing primarily on the complex links between social, economic, political, cultural and educational aspects of globalization and migration, the project envisages achieving its goals by conducting collaborative research through workshops, conferences, training modules, publications, hosting of visiting scholars and other appropriate research activities on major migration themes of significance in the Indian as well as the global contexts.

Apart from interfacing with MOIA, the project would also seek international collaboration with globally renowned organizations in the field of international migration. An advisory committee comprising nine nominated members has been constituted: G. Gurucharan, Jt. Secy. (FS) and Ranbir Singh, Dir. (Emigration) are nominees of the MOIA; and there is one nominee each from the Bureau of Emigration (MHA) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). From JNU, the Dean of SSS Professor Harjit Singh, Emeritus Professor Tapas Majumdar, and Professor Deepak Kumar are members. Professor Furqan Qamar of the Jamia Millia Islamia, currently Advisor (Education) at the Planning Commission is another member. Two other members are to be co-opted for each sitting. Professor Binod Khadria, the project director is the Member Convenor of the committee.

It is expected that this research initiative would provide the Ministry with a scholarly think-tank to work in collaboration with and bring intellectual rigour in policy making. As its first major activity, the project co-hosted the 20th Conference of the International Association of Historians of Asia (IAHA) in New Delhi, from 14th -17th November 2008. Another important event being organized jointly with MOIA is an International Conference on 'India-EU Partnerships in Mobility: Data, Agreements, and Policy in International Migration' to be held at Vigyan Bhavan on February 21 -23, 2009.

In recent decades, India has witnessed tremendous changes in international migratory flows  outward as well as inward. The increasing dimension and complexity of the paradigm of globalization and migration, and the significant position that India holds in it makes the project an important beginning. Furthermore, the positioning of the project in JNU, a premier university in South Asia, is all the more significant. A multi-disciplinary centre like Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies (ZHCES) in SSS, with faculty and students from across a variety of social science disciplines would provide an appropriate meeting ground for researchers in the field from across different Centres and Schools of the university as well as from elsewhere in India and abroad.

Sanskrit Software released by Ministry of Information Technology & CDAC

The technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) program of the Ministry of Information Technology (MCIT) with CDAC Pune Released a Sanskrit software CD on 25 November at Tirupati.  This CD has a total of 19 software applications for Sanskrit.  Out of this 12 are from the team led by Dr. Girish Nath Jha at the Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies.  The copyright has been retained by Computational Linguistics R&D, Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies, JNU.  One software has been contributed by Dr. Sudhir Kaicker.

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