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Welcome to the first issue of Update in its new avatar. Update is the newsletter of Industrial Research and Consultancy Center (IRCC) at IIT Bombay (IITB).While IITB was known primarily for its undergraduate education in early years, lately it has become a major Research and Development (R&D) organisation with a simultaneous emphasis on postgraduate studies.IRCC oversees the R&D activities at IITB.In this issue we present an example of the research work acrried out at IITB: IITB's contribution to earth-quakes. India has been experiencing earthquakes on and off.Two recent major earthquakes that we witnessed took place in Latur and Bhuj.The earthquake that some parts of South India experienced on 25 September 2001 remind us that there is a strong case to study them in detail and propose steps to mitigate the resulting hardships.The readers may recall that IIT Bombay took part in the relief activities after the Latur earthquake in a major way under the leadership of Prof. B. S. Pani of Civil Engineering.In this issue, Prof. Sandip Roy, with inputs from experts, studies earthquakes and summarises IIT's role in the relief activities of the Bhuj earthquake.The conclusion of this article is that the damages would have been minimal if only the buildings had been constructed as per the mandatory building codes.Thusenforcement is the need of the hour. This issue proposes the use of Honge Oil as an alternate energy source under the column Sounding Board.We welcome your response to this.Through this column, we hope to publish reasonably sure but not completely proven technologies.The column Corridor Consultant tries to answer technology related questions.These are sort of quick and first-cut answers given by a typical consultant while walking along the corridors of IITB.Under the head Epitome, we plan to provide an essential summary of a book written by an author affiliated to IIT Bombay.In this issue, we present a book written by Prof. H. Narayanan of Electrical Engineering. In the column Reflections, we discuss the state of funding at IIT Bombay.It is also clear from this column that IIT Bombay is emerging as a major research institution from the shadows of being an undergraduate college.With the changed economic scenario due to globalisation, cutting edge technology is indispensable to remain competitive. The column Business Connection offers a case study on handling technology obsolescence.
IITB has begun the process of packaging its R&D results in the form of technologies and patenting them. It also provides logistical support to its students and alumni to become enterpreneurs. Please see announcements regarding these as well as a news item on a technology transfer in At a Glance.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Kannan Moudgalya |
