We announce with profound regret and sadness the death of Mrs. Manju Mohan after a prolonged illness, in November. Mrs. Mohan leaves behind her husband, Dr. Raj Mohan, daughter Priti (Parmeet Grover), son Ravi, grandchildren Siddharth and Meghna. The Mohans have resided in Auburn since the early 70s, and have been active members of the Auburn community. Manju Mohan will be greatly missed.

Congratulations to Dr. Sushil Bhavnani, professor of mechanical engineering, for receiving the 2008 Clock Award. The award is co-sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' (ASME) Heat Transfer Division and the Electronics and Photonics Packaging Division, for outstanding and continuing contributions to the science and engineering of heat transfer in electronics packaging. A reception was held at the 2008 International Mechanical Engineering Conference and Exposition (IMECE) in Boston on November 5, 2008, to recognize Bhavnani.

Congratulations to Dr. Nagaraj Chatakondi, who earned his Ph.D. in fisheries from Auburn in 1995, was presented a special Performance Award from AU for achieving world-record production of the fastest growing, disease-resistant hybrid catfish developed at Auburn. Chatakondi is director of hatchery operations for Eagle Aquaculture, an AU affiliated company established in 2005 to produce and commercialize AU hybrid fingerlings.

Congratulations to Sumit Sen, a Ph.D. student in biosystems engineering. Sen received second place award for his poster presentation on the results of his water runoff studies, at the annual conference of the Solid and Water Conservation Society-Alabama Chapter student poster competition held in Auburn. The topic of the conference was Our Changing Landscapes.

Congratulations to Dr. Puneet Srivastava, assistant professor of biosystems engineering, who won the junior researcher award at an awards function in the College of Agriculture. The award was given in recognition of Srivastava’s contributions and accomplishments in 2008.

We welcome Dr. Navin Twarakavi, and his wife, Smita, to Auburn. Dr. Twarakavi joined the department of Agronomy and Soils (College of Agriculture) at Auburn University, in the fall of 2008. After completing his undergraduate studies at S.V. University in Andhra Pradesh, the Sriharikota native Twarakavi, moved to Utah State University, where he received his master’s and doctoral degrees. Smita moved to the United States following their marriage last year. Smita, who is from Lucknow, graduated from Nagarjuna University, and worked as a business analyst in India.

The Yoga Club invites community members to join them every Friday for an evening of relaxation and rejuvenation. For meeting times, contact Vivek Patil at vipa35(at)gmail(dot)com, or at 334-332-3556

Tuskegee University College of Veterinary Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health (CVMNAH) honored and bid farewell to long-time faculty member, Dr. Irtaza Siddique, with a retirement reception on May 29, 2008, his official last day.

Siddique is a former professor of Microbiology and Public Health in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health. He has spent more than half a century serving the veterinary medical profession.

“It was indeed an honor to acknowledge the many years of service Dr. Siddique has given to the Tuskegee University School of Veterinary Medicine in particular, but also his many years of service to the veterinary medical profession on a national and international level as well. He has touched the lives of many veterinary medical students and graduate students in his diverse roles as teacher, researcher, and administrator,” said Dr. Tsegaye Habtemariam, Dean of the Tuskegee University CVMNAH.

Well over a hundred colleagues, friends, and family members, as well as Tuskegee Mayor Johnny Ford, attended Siddique’s retirement reception. Ford personally presented a Proclamation and Letter of Congratulations from the City of Tuskegee to Dr. Siddique.

Other retirement awards included: a Letter of Congratulations from the Office of the Governor for the State of Alabama, Governor Bob Riley; Proclamation from the Alabama State House of Representatives, District 82, Representative Pebblin Warren (Tuskegee); Award from the local chapter (Tuskegee) of the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association by Dr. Jerry Clinkscales; Letter of Congratulations from the Office of the President for Tuskegee University, President Benjamin F. Payton; and letters, certificates, and a plaque from the Veterinary Medicine, Office of the Dean, and the CVMNAH Department of Pathobiology presented by Dr. Fredrick Tippett, Pathobiology Department Head.

Siddique was born in Budaun, India. In 1950, he graduated from Bihar Veterinary College, Patna. He practiced veterinary medicine in India until he moved to America to further pursue his studies at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul.

He earned both the Master of Science (MS) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees at the University of Minnesota. Siddique also received a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in 1978 from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

Siddique has published several papers and book chapters as well as made many presentations and performed a tremendous amount of research. During his tenure at Tuskegee University he successfully competed for many research grants from several sources, including the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, and United States Department of Agriculture.

Siddique has been married to Shana Siddique, also former employee of Tuskegee University, for the last 53 years. They raised two children.

Siddique served an Ad Hoc reviewer of the National Research Initiative, Competitive Grants Programs for the United States Department of Agriculture from 1992 to 2002. He was the Chairman of the Executive Committee of Southern Regional Project S-92, Reproductive Efficiency of Cattle from 1976 to 1977 and served as a Guest Scientist in 1992 for the Center for Infectious Diseases at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. His World Health Organization Award allowed him to visit important institutions in South America in 1972. He also participated in a FAO Regional Conference in Argentina as an observer from the United States.

Siddique served as consultant to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, from 1974 to 1976 and as Advisor to the University of Faisalabad, Pakistan, from 1996 to 1999.

He is credited with numerous prestigious awards and honors during his long tenure at Tuskegee University. He served as the President of Foreign Veterinary Graduates of America, Inc. from 1991 to 1995 and also as President of the World Association of Veterinary Educators from 1995 to 2002.

Siddique is listed in Who’s Who in America, International Scholars Directory, Who’s Who in the United States, International Who’s Who, and Community Leaders and Noteworthy Americans.

He has many professional and community affiliations that include memberships in the American Veterinary Medical Association (Honor Roll Member), Alabama Veterinary Medical Association, Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases, World Association of Veterinary Educators, Auburn Chapter of Rotary International, Inc., Phi Zeta Veterinary Medical Honor Society, Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society, and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

Siddique’s passion is philanthropic work. Besides, being active in the local community he has also established two endowments at the School of Public Health at UAB. He has even contributed land for a bird sanctuary.

Siddique is currently working on establishing a degree college in Budaun, India. The college is being built in memory of his son, Asim Siddique, will mainly be for disadvantaged children and minorities. Initially it will offer courses in Science and Business.

Dr. C. S. Prakash was recently invited to speak at the prestigious 'Aspen Ideas Festival' in Aspen, Colorado during the first week of July. Dr. Prakash talked about the green revolution and biotechnology issues for the developing countries during a luncheon event on the global food crisis.

The Aspen Ideas Festival is recognized widely as a premier event that offers a "stimulating and invigorating celebration of the liveliest minds on the stage today". Notable speakers at this event included Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, Michael Chertoff, C. K. Prahalad, Sam Nunn, Arianna Huffington, Sandra Day O'Conner, Tom Friedman, Dan Glickman, Irshad Manji, Jack Kemp, Briah Lehrer and Dean Kamen. A series "India: The Most Important Country for the Future of the World?" featured throughout the meet had many speakers including Edward Luce, Robert Blackwill, and Vinod Khosla The Aspen Institute - "dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue" - is headed by Walter Isaacson who was earlier editor of TIME magazine and CEO of CNN. Many of the talks can be viewed at: http://www.aifestival.org

Prakash has posted photos from the family trip at: http://picasaweb.google.com/prakashcs1/AspenTrip

Dr. Ram B. Gupta has added another feather in his cap by winning state level award.  He has been awarded, “Fellow of Alabama Academy of Science”, in the “Joint Annual Banquet of Senior and Junior Academy of Science” on March 20, 2008, at Samford University, Birmingham, in an elegant Awards Banquet Ceremony. 
Dr. Gupta has been nominated for this award by Dr. P. C. Sharma for this award.  His selection to this award had very tough competition as nominees for this award were clinicians, attorneys, mathematicians, biologists, physicists, engineers, computer scientists, historians, political and social scientists, agriculturists, veterinary doctors, soil conservationists and geographers from various Colleges and Universities of Alabama.  

The FAAS award reads:

The Alabama Academy of Science

has elected

DR. RAM GUPTA

to the status of

Fellow of Alabama Academy of Science (FAAS)

for contributions in science

in the State of  Alabama & the Alabama Academy of Science

The citation for the award is given below:

Ram B. Gupta is an Alumni (chair) Professor in Chemical Engineering at Auburn University.  He received the B.E. degree (1987) from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, the M.S. degree (1989) from the University of Calgary, and the Ph.D. degree (1993) from the University of Texas at Austin, in chemical engineering.  He joined Auburn University in 1995, after two-year postdoctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley.  He is the recipient of Distinguished Graduate Faculty Lectureship award (2007) from Auburn University, Science and Engineering Award (2002-2004) from DuPont, Junior and Senior Research awards (1998, 2002) from Auburn Alumni Engineering Council, the James A. Shannon Director’s Award (1998) from the National Institutes of Health, and Young Faculty Career Enhancement Award (1997) from Alabama NSF-EPSCoR.

He has published numerous research papers on nanomedicine and renewable fuel.  His recent books are: Nanoparticle Technology for Drug Delivery (2006, Taylor & Francis), Solubility in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (2007, CRC Press), and Hydrogen Fuel: Production, Transport, and Storage (2008, CRC Press). He is a consultant to several energy and pharmaceutical companies. 

His research group at Auburn University has developed SAS-EM technology (US Patent 6,620,351) to produce pharmaceutical nanoparticles of controllable size. The drug compound is first dissolved in a solvent, and then precipitated extremely rapidly, yet controllably, using supercritical CO2 to produce nanoparticles of desired size.  The technology has now been adopted by the pharmaceutical industry for commercial production. In many of the medical applications, these nanoparticles can be used directly via oral, injection, inhalation, dermal, etc. routes. His research group is also utilizing the nanoparticles to produce smart drug formulations. For example, sustained-release medicine, where one dose is enough for the whole treatment;  magnetically responsive drug nanoparticles for targeted delivery to the disease site, avoiding the side effects; nanoparticle delivery to the brain for treatment of cancer, memory loss, Alzheimer’s, etc.  

Bal Vihar was the idea of current President of ICAEA, Mr. Sunel S. Merchant which supposedly will encompass wide variety of Kids related activities.  I have been noticing for past two decades that Indian kids, residing in USA, get very little exposure of Hindi and Indian culture. I am committed to help and teach even one student who wants my help and therefore I agreed to be in charge of Hindi Classes for our kids.  I collected dozen of community members to deliberate around this idea.  I found all of these members more committed.  The following objectives of Hindi classes were set by the committee.
*          Develop basic communication skills
*          Learn speaking and instill Indian culture and values through stories and poems
*          Writing and reading
*          Develop interest and affinity for Hindi
                                     
We will definitely need more volunteers and teachers in the Fall of 2008, as we may hold more classes for beginners and advanced level students. 

The committee organized, under the leadership of Mrs. Vatsilya Rangari, “Parents and Kids Orientation Program”, on March 28, 2008, at Foy Union Room 246 from 6:30 -9:30 p.m., followed by delicious dinner prepared by community members.  Dr. P. C. Sharma presented the proposed format of Hindi Classes and Vatsilya talked about the objectives and rules and regulations for students, parents ant the instructors approved by the committee.  Lot of discussions among parents, kids and the committee members followed after the dinner and as a result of that the “Bal Vihar Hindi Class” has taken following shape. 

“Bal Vihar Hindi Class” will begin on Saturday, April 12, 2008, from 10:10 – 11:15 a.m. in Room 246, Foy Union, Auburn University.  Parents are requested to bring their kids to room 246, Foy Union and pick them up on time as the Room is allocated to this group only for the above time.  If any parent thinks that his kid is at an advanced level, please consider the kid coming to classes and help other students.  There is no tuition fee at present time.  We may collect donations to buy books and other related activities.  Dr. Ram and Mrs. Deepti Gupta had taken extra interest in taking their kids to Atlanta Hindi School as there was no such opportunity in Auburn.  Both of them are asset to us in devising course material etc.  It is proposed to hold class once a month initially and if the need be two classes may be scheduled, one for beginners and other for advanced students, from September / October, 2008.

 In case of questions, concerns and queries, please contact any one of the following.

1.   Mrs. Vatsilya Rangari (334) 826-5410 rangari0@yahoo.com General Management/ Instructor
2.   Dr. P. C. Sharma                   (334) 821 – 8229 pcsharma@hotmail.com      Chair / Instructor

Thanks.

Dr. P. C. Sharma
Chair, Bal Vihar Committee

The members if Indian Cultural Association of East Alabama and Indian Students Association of Auburn University jointly celebrated Holi festival on Sunday, March 30, 2008, at Martin Luther King Park at Auburn from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.  It was well attended by over 100 community members.  The members started Holi Celebrations by playing cricket match that ended in a tame draw.  Members then played the real-time Holi with Gulal and Colors, arranged by Mr. Damodar Patel, the treasurer of the ICAEA.  Kids enjoyed most by using water and colors till the end of the day.  Delicious Bhel Puri, Cold Drinks and Ice Cream made the day.  Each and everybody enjoyed the sumptuous and tasty food.  The food was arranged by the chair Food Committee, Mrs. Niranjana Nayak and her committee members.  Last but not the least, members played Bingo, arranged by Mr. Sunel S. Merchant, the President of the ICAEA and Shushil Bhavnani.  The Holi Celebrations culminated into a memorable day part icularly for kids, students, visitors & guests, and members of the community.