Una verdad simulada

A colleague and a close friend of mine from our department, Prof. Tanmay Basak, has won the NASI-SCOPUS Young Scientist award.

Tanmay works in the areas of microwave processing, heat transfer and fluid dynamics. He is considered foremost authority on microwave driven flows and visualization of heat transfer through Bejan’s heat lines concept.

This is a great personal achievement for Tanmay and a proud moment for our institute. Also important is the context. Our department “loses out” to ICT-Mumbai, IIT-Kanpur, IISc and IIT-Bombay, in terms of faculty recruitment as well as graduate student hiring. In this respect, Tanmay’s achievement is especially commendable. Awards like this help both the recipient as well as the department.

Tags: General by Niket
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Via Pharyngula, a perfect punchline delivered at the last second:

Tags: General by Niket
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Barack Obama essentially smacked down the White-House Press Corps, much like Jon Stewart did in his Crossfire interview five years back:

Not one of them asked me about Asia. Not one of them asked me about the economy. I was asked several times about had I read Sarah Palin’s book. (Laughter.) True. But it’s an indication of how our political debate doesn’t match up with what we need to do and where we need to go.

Whether he was factually correct or not (he mostly was right), the incessant tabloid-like reporting in the media makes this comment resonate with people. This comment didn’t get as much press as the Crossfire smackdown by Stewart, but it sounds as true.

Of course, between American press and the Indian counterparts, I don’t know who is worse. No wonder my TV watching is limited to Pogo (and occasionally HBO).

Tags: General by Niket
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