Date:18/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/18/stories/2008111860130600.htm

Karnataka

Luminaries to grace IISc. centenary celebrations

Staff Reporter

Four Nobel laureates will deliver lectures during a conference

Bangalore: The Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) in its centenary year will be drawing a host of luminaries and dignitaries, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who will participate in the celebrations.

According to sources at the IISc., the Prime Minister will visit the campus on December 3 and will be present for the curtain-raiser of the centenary celebrations and for the release of an institute publication authored by eminent scientist C.N.R. Rao.

Four Nobel laureates will deliver lectures during the centenary conference to be held between December 13 and 16.

They are Martin Rees, leading astronomer; Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town; American economist Eric S. Maskin; and South African biologist Sydney Brenner.

Meanwhile the institute’s staff, faculty members and students swung into the spirit of celebration on Sunday and Monday. No less than 400 people from the institute created a human formation in the shape of the IISc. emblem at the Gymkhana Grounds to mark the occasion. The emblem symbolises the “lamp of learning” and was designed by British sculptor Gilbert Bayes, said Sharath Ahuja, coordinator of the IISc. Archives Cell.

G.K. Ananthasuresh, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, and an organiser of the event, said that professional photographs taken of the emblem in human formation will form part of the centenary conference coffee table book.