• List of Recommended Innovation Projects - Updated till October, 2012
• Format for Quarterly Report
• Half Yearly Report - Cover Letter, Format for Report

DU Professor wins prestigious ‘Hind Rattan Award’

Padma Kant Shukla, distinguished professor of physics at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and an adjunct professor at the Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi, will be honoured with the "Hind Rattan Award" (The Jewel of India) by the Prime Minister of India in recognition of his contributions to physics.

Padma Shukla, (b 1950) hails from the village Tulapur, Uttar Pradesh (UP), India. After his Ph. D. in Physics from BHU he moved to Bochum, Germany in 1973 where he holds a permanent RUB International Chair (RUB Distinguished Physics Professor). Prof Shukla is internationally renowned and one of the most outstanding productive physicists with over 1410 papers in journals of high impact factor and an H index of 61. He has received numerous prizes, medals, honorary degrees, and fellowship of academies and societies e.g., fellow of American Physical Society, Institute of Physics, London, Royal Swedish Academy, Stockholm, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow to mention a few.

The ceremony will take place during the 32nd International Congress of Non-resident Indians (NRI) on 25 January 2013 in Ashok Hotel Delhi, India

Delhi U Researcher gets M. N. Srinivas Memorial Prize 2012

Ms. Shelly Tara, Senior Fellow at Women’s Studies and Development Centre, University of Delhi has been awarded this year’s M. N. Srinivas Memorial Prize 2012.
The Professor M. N. Srinivas Endowment Fund was jointly set up by the Indian Sociological Society and the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) in 2001. This Fund instituted M. N. Srinivas Memorial prize for one young sociologists/social anthropologists (below 40 years), for publishing the best sociological/social anthropological paper in India.
Ms. Shelly Tara has been awarded this prize for her article entitled “Private Space in Public Transport: Locating Gender in the Delhi Metro” published in Economic and Political Weekly (Vol. XLVI, No. 51, 17 December 2011).
The award will be presented to her, during the inaugural session of the forthcoming XXXVIII All-India Sociological Conference, which will be held on 27 December 2012 at the Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur.

DELHI U CREATES KIT TO DIAGNOSE SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES -PROF. DAMAN SALUJA

Sexually transmitted diseases are emerging as a major threat to reproductive health of men and women at large. Several Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are caused by bacteria that can grow and multiply easily in the warm, moist areas of the reproductive tract, including the cervix, uterus, and fallopian tubes in women, and in the urethra in women and men. The most common among these are Chlamydia & Neisseria. The usual method of detection is Gram-staining followed by confirmation using methods like antigen detection or biochemical assay. Both methods are highly unsatisfactory, especially in asymptomatic patient (where the infection load is low) which largely contributes to the persistence and transmission of disease to the sexual partner. Unavailability of a reliable and cost effective test for detection of the infection is a growing concern especially in developing countries.

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BACTERIAL LIFE IN HOT WATER SPRINGS ATOP THE HIMALAYAN RANGES - PROF. RUP LAL

Hot water springs harbour unique microbial diversity, which is naturally selected to survive under high temperature conditions. Ever since the discovery of first reference bacterial strain, Thermus aquaticus, from the hot springs in Yellow Stone National Park, USA, several bacterial strains have been isolated from such hot water springs around the world. These bacteria are of special biotechnological interest as they produce thermostable enzymes and have been used for eradicating heavy metal and organic pollutants in ground water and clearing clogged wells. For example, the Taq DNA polymerase enzyme (for DNA amplification) was isolated from Thermus aquaticus and this enzyme has become a household word in molecular biology. The market for this enzyme is growing into hundreds of millions of dollars every year. While in India there are about 303 thermal springs located in different states, the major ones gathering attention are in Yamunotri, Gangnani, Kedarnath and Rudraprayag in Uttrakhand, Bakreshwar and Bhuri in West Bengal, Tantloi in Jharkand, Gangtok in Sikkim, and Manikaran in Himachal Pradesh. However, these hot water springs have not been explored for bacterial diversity and biotechnological applications. We initiated a project to explore bacterial diversity from one of the hot springs located in the Himalayan ranges at an altitude of 1760 m in Manikaran (Figure 1) under the DU/DST Purse (Promotion of University Research and Scientific excellence ) Program.

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