Category: Faculty & Staff Spotlight

Dr Sambaiah Gundimeda, Associate Professor of Politics, SIAS, Krea University published an article titled Consent or Coercion? Looking back at the Constituent Assembly Debate on Uniform Civil Code in the Hindu’s Frontline Magazine.  

This article critically analyses the Constituent Assembly’s discourse on Uniform Civil Code. By analysing the arguments and counter-arguments of the proponents and opponents of the UCC, respectively, this article argues on the importance of securing the consent of the affected people, and the responsibility of the majority in facilitating the will of the minority. 

To access the article published in Frontline: click here.

You can read the article here

Ritwik Kaikini, Visiting Faculty, Global Arts, SIAS, Krea University, delves into Christopher Nolan’s filmmaking approach in an article titled At Oscars 2024, the triumph of the Christopher Nolan grammar, published in The Federal, India. Following Nolan’s Oscar win, Kaikini examines how Nolan constructs narratives infused with science and a phenomenological perspective. The piece offers insights into Nolan’s distinct style and its impact on cinematic storytelling, shedding light on his unique approach to filmmaking.

Read the article here. 

Dr Shyam Kumar Sudhakar, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, SIAS, Krea University presented a poster titled Discovering Disease Comorbidities in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Patients Using Graph Network Approach: A Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems Study during the 16th Young Investigators’ Meeting organised by IndiaBioscience on 11-13 March at IISER Bhopal. 

More info about the event can be found here. 

A book chapter titled I Am as Big as the City I Walk: Documenting Maya Rao’s ‘The Walk’ by Dr Anannya Dasgupta, Director, Centre for Writing & Pedagogy (CWP) and Associate Professor of Literature, SIAS, Krea University, has been published in the anthology Contemporary Gender Formations in India. The book is edited by Nandini Dhar and published by Routledge, in March, 2024. 

For details, click here. 

Dr Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Assistant Professor of Physics, SIAS, Krea University has been awarded a grant by the UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, An Autonomous Institution of University Grants Commission (UGC), under the Collaborative Research Scheme (CRS). 

Dr Chakrabarty is the principal investigator in this project titled Exploring the magnetically ordered states in novel magneto-electric compounds. Dr Sumanta Chattopadhyay, Scientist-D at UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, Mumbai Centre is the principal collaborator on the project. 

Professor Mukund Padmanabhan, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at SIAS, Krea University, recently launched his book The Great Flap of 1942: How the Raj Panicked over a Japanese Non-invasion at The Leela Bhartiya City in Bengaluru. Virender Razdan, General Manager of The Leela Bhartiya City Bengaluru, and the journalist Karan Thapar have been part of the event. The book launch has been featured in an article published in The Hindu. 

Read the article published in The Hindu here.

Dr Sonia Ghalian, Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature at SIAS, Krea University presented a paper at the International Online Symposium on Queer Children’s Film and Television, co-organized by the University of Cambridge and the University of Glasgow on 1 March, 2024.

The paper titled (Im)Possibility of Queerness in Indian Children’s Films directs attention to a fundamental yet frequently overlooked connection between being queer and being a child. The talk focused on the ideological, economic as well as cultural contours of the Indian context to highlight the impossibility of the connection and its lack of adequate representation in Indian cinema. The paper strives to highlight certain children’s films that navigate these identities beyond societal norms to acknowledge such characters’ differences— their struggles for acceptance because of them—but just as importantly to acknowledge their sameness, their shared existences, and their mutual bonds with the larger community.

Dr Vivek Tewary, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at SIAS, Krea University, delivered a talk at the Workshop on Multi-scale Analysis / Conference on Differential Equations (MSADE-24) held at IIT Ropar from 26 February to 2 March, 2024. 

The workshop focuses on multiscale methods in mathematics, particularly as they apply to questions of homogenization, control theory, and inverse problems. Mathematicians are developing new tools to investigate multiscale phenomena that arise in the design of new materials.

Dr Tewari delivered a lecture on Bloch wave homogenisation of periodic media. Bloch waves are special waves supported by periodic media and can be used in various applications in physical models. They are also used in homogenisation – where one studies approximations of highly heterogeneous media. Dr Tewari talked about the existence of Bloch waves and demonstrated their use in finding a macroscopic approximation for highly heterogeneous periodic media.

Sayantan Datta, Assistant Professor of Practice at the the Centre for Writing and Pedagogy (CWP), Krea University, and a children’s book author, was a speaker in a panel discussion titled STEM With Stories: A Webinar on Fuelling Curiosity and Shaping STEM MIndsets. The panel was organised by Storyweaver by Pratham Books, and took place on 28 February, 2024. Other panelists included Sarit Sharma (Co-founder, Aavishkaar), Neha Parti (Director Schools, Quest Alliance), Veena Prasad (author), Sampad Mohapatra (journalist) and Seema Acharya (teacher). In this panel, Sayantan discussed the need for children’s literature in STEM fields, and their process behind creating a STEM-focussed children’s book.

For more information, click here. 

Sayantan also delivered a special lecture on the lived experiences of queer, transgender, and intersex persons in the Indian science ecosystem, at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Bengaluru. Titled Trans as Transformation: Queer, Transgender and Intersex Persons in the Indian Science Ecosystem, the event took place 1 March 2024. 

For more information, click here.