Dr Suresh Govindapuram Completes a Course on the Fundamentals of Case Teaching by Harvard Business Publishing

Dr Suresh Govindapuram, Assistant Professor of Economics, IFMR GSB, Krea University has completed  an online course on the Fundamentals of Case Teaching by Harvard Business Publishing (HBS). 

Case study pedagogy in Business Schools places students in real-world decision-making roles, enhancing analytical skills, critical thinking, creativity, and communication. Effective faculty approaches are crucial, and MBA/BBA students benefit from mastering management concepts through case studies for informed decision-making. 

Dr Kalyan S Chakrabarti Publishes an Article in the Journal NPJ Systems Biology and Applications

Dr Kalyan S Chakrabarti, Associate Dean (Students) and Associate Professor of Biological Sciences and Chemistry, SIAS, Krea University has co-authored an article titled Bifurcations in coupled amyloid-β aggregation-inflammation systems, published in the journal NPJ Systems Biology and Applications. The article was co-authored with Davood Bakhtiari (Stadtapotheke Calw Pharmacy) and Dr Nasrollah Rezaei-Ghaleh (University of Düsseldorf). 

Dr Chakrabarti extends his gratitude to Krea University for providing computational facilities and intramural funding. He also acknowledges the contributions of Krea alumni Lipi Savitha, Kathan Pandya, Meghna Rao, Yazhini LA and Gauri Velloor, as well as SIAS student Netra Krishna, who have contributed to different aspects of the project as part of their Capstone Theses at Krea University. Additionally, he thanks Dr Abuthahir Abdul Rahuman and Professor Gaurav Raina for their discussions, which significantly contributed to the project’s conception.

About the Paper

In this article, the authors investigate a simple coupled system of amyloid-beta (Ab) aggregation and inflammation relevant in Alzheimer disease (AD) and demonstrate its complex and rich dynamics ranging from overdamped kinetics to sustained oscillations in dependence of various aggregation- and neuroinflammation-related parameters. They suggest that sustained oscillations in inflammatory response to Ab aggregation and its resultant exhaustion of the immune system can lead to a transition to a more progressive phase of amyloid pathology in AD brains. Accordingly, oscillations in aggregation and/or inflammation levels can serve as potential biomarkers in early diagnosis of AD. The authors also propose that the relative ease of triggering oscillatory dynamics in coupled aggregation-neuroinflammation systems should be taken into consideration in clinical trials related to anti-AD drug development.

Read the article here

Dr Swarnamalya Ganesh Presents ‘Textures of Traditions’ Documentary Release

Dr Swarnamalya Ganesh, Assistant Professor of Practice at SIAS, Krea University, and the Festival Director of the Culture Festival Textures of Traditions (ToT), is excited to announce the second edition of this festival, produced by Ranga Mandira Academy, set to take place in early 2025.

As a special prelude to this event, the ToT 2025 Festival Team is releasing and screening a documentary film made by students from the L V Prasad College of Media Studies. This documentary captures the moods, ethos, and movements of ToT, showcasing the festival’s many layers of meaning as an inclusive cultural celebration in Namma Chennai.

The release and screening of Textures of Traditions – A Documentary Film is scheduled for Saturday, August 3, 2024, at the Tagore Film Center, NFDC in R A Puram, at 10:30 am. The film will be released by Dr Thamizhachi Thangapandian, Hon’ble Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha.

Watch the Teaser | Textures of Traditions | Cultural Festival | Documentary Film here

Dr Vivek Radhakrishnan Coordinates and Speaks at the ‘Kant Studies in India’ Panel for the Virtual Kant Congress with a Cosmopolitan Purpose

Dr Vivek Radhakrishnan Coordinates and Speaks at the ‘Kant Studies in India’ Panel for the Virtual Kant Congress with a Cosmopolitan Purpose

Dr Vivek Radhakrishnan, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, SIAS, Krea University recently coordinated the Kant Studies in India panel for the Virtual Kant Congress with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (VKC), organised by Princeton University, the North American Kant Society and the Leuven Research Group in Classical German Philosophy. At this event, held on 29 July, 2024, Dr Radhakrishnan also presented a paper titled Kant and India: ‘Seeing through a Glass Darkly’. 

The video of the 12th Session – Indian Kant Group, in which Dr Radhakrishnan spoke, can be seen on the conference website. 

Dr Annu Jalais Argues for Wildlife Conservation Approaches That Put Agency in the Hands of Local Communities

Dr Annu Jalais, Associate Professor of Anthropology, SIAS, Krea University has shared her expert insights on tiger conservation in a recent Deccan Herald article, titled A better way to save tigers?. Her perspective on the vital role of local communities in preserving ecosystems underscores the need for inclusive conservation strategies. 

Author of the critically acclaimed anthropological account Forest of Tigers – People, Politics and Environment in the Sundarbans, Dr Annu Jalais has also appeared as an expert guest on the podcast titled The Story of Sundarbans. Along with the author and photographer Arati Kumar-Rao and the local entrepreneur Rajesh Kumar Shaw, she speaks about the forces that shape the unique socio-ecological system of the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest. This video is a production of InHERIT by Ashoka, an initiative by Ashoka University supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust, dedicated to rediscovering and exploring the natural and culinary heritage of India. 

Read the article here

Watch The Story of Sundarbans

Dr Rama Koteswara Rao Kamineni’s Paper, Published in the Journal Physical Review B, Selected as an ‘Editor’s Suggestion’

Dr Rama Koteswara Rao Kamineni, Associate Professor of Physics, SIAS, Krea University has co-authored a paper titled Vector detection of ac magnetic fields by nitrogen vacancy centers of single orientation in diamond, published in the journal Physical Review B. The paper, selected as an ‘Editor’s Suggestion’, was co-authored with Pooja Lamba (Bennett University), Akshat Rana (Bennett University), Sougata Halder (IIT Jodhpur), Dr Siddharth Dhomkar (IIT Madras) and Professor Dieter Suter (Dortmund University). 

About the paper: Nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have useful properties for detecting both ac and dc magnetic fields with high sensitivity at nanoscale resolution. The vector detection of ac magnetic fields can be achieved by using NV centers having three different orientations. In this paper, the authors propose a method to achieve this by using NV centers of single orientation. In this method, a static magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the NV axis, leading to strong mixing of the mₛ = −1 and 1 electron spin states. As a result, all three electron spin transitions of the triplet ground state have nonzero dipole moments, with each transition coupling to a single component of the magnetic field. This can be used to measure both the strength and orientation of the applied ac field. To validate the technique, the authors perform a proof-of-principle experiment using a subset of ensemble NV centers in diamond, all having the same orientation. This method is equally applicable to single NV centers.


Access the paper here

Read the full publication here.

Dr Gowhar Fazili’s Translation Work on ‘For Now it is Night’ Reaches a Global Audience

Dr Gowhar Fazili’s Translation Work on ‘For Now it is Night’ Reaches a Global Audience

Last November, Krea University hosted the release of a book titled For Now it is Night by Hari Krishna Kaul, published by HarperCollins India. This volume of short stories, translated from Kashmiri, features the work of a team of translators, including Dr Gowhar Fazili, Assistant Professor of Social Studies, SIAS, Krea University, along with Kalpana Raina, Tanveer Ajsi, and Gowhar Yaqoob. 

We are pleased to announce that the book has recently been republished in the United States by Archipelago Books, a prestigious publishing house known for works in translation. 

For the US edition of the book, click here

For the Indian edition of the book, click here.

Dr Gowhar Fazili Publishes a Book Review of M K Raina’s Memoir ‘Before I Forget’ in The Wire

Dr Gowhar Fazili, Assistant Professor of Social Studies, SIAS, Krea University has published a book review in The Wire. The review, titled A Fragmented Memory of Independent India and the Kashmir That Once Was, delves into M K Raina’s memoir Before I Forget. The review provides a critique of the memoir’s reflections on India’s postcolonial history and the cultural changes in Kashmir. 

Read the book review here.

Dr C P Anil Kumar Publishes a Paper in the Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IJPA)

Dr C P Anil Kumar, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, SIAS, Krea University authored a paper titled On Infinity Type Hyperplane Arrangements and Convex Positive Bijections, published in the Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IJPA). 

About the Publication

Consider a hyperplane arrangement, i.e., a finite collection of hyperplanes, in an n-dimensional Euclidean space. We say that an arrangement is generic if there are at least n hyperplanes and a codimension k intersection is formed by exactly k many hyperplanes.  This is an interesting arrangement – for example, for a fixed m ≥ n, a generic arrangement of m hyperplanes in an n-dimensional Euclidean space has the maximum number of regions. Two arrangements are (combinatorially) isomorphic (or equivalent) if there is an ambient linear homeomorphism which preserves incidences between strata and the polyhedral structure of each stratum. In general, it is an interesting (and difficult) problem to understand the isomorphism classes of arrangements.

In this paper, the author introduces and defines a new type of hyperplane arrangements called infinity type hyperplane arrangements.  The concept of normal systems (which is a collection of normal directions to these hyperplanes)  are used to uniquely identify such generic arrangements. The main theorem states that the equivalence of two infinity type generic hyperplane arrangements is equivalent to the isomorphism of corresponding normal systems. The author also considers the case of all generic arrangements and proves that equivalence of arrangements implies isomorphism of normal systems. Further, a counter example is provided to show that the converse need not be true.

DOI ID

Read the article here