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Cambridge and India

 

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2013
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December 2013

Dr Vince Cable, the UK's Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, announced the winner of the Bioinnovation competition launched by the Science & Innovation Network in partnership with the Bangalore-Cambridge Innovation Network. The winners, Jubilant Biosys and Metaome Science Informatics Ltd, were judged to be Bangalore's most innovative biotech companies looking to expand internationally, and are to visit Cambridge for 2 weeks in March 2014. They will be hosted by ideaSpace.

November 2013

Cambridge University Press India and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore announced a new collaboration which will publish a series of new academic titles as part of the Cambridge IISc Series. The books will be written by eminent academicians, researchers and subject experts in science, technology and engineering. A total of 15 academic titles will be published over a span of three years, all focusing on advanced research in diverse areas of science and technology. As well as this initiative to co-publish books with the IISc, the Bangalore-Cambridge Innovation Network (BCIN), an association of similar-interest groups within academia and industry is also working to build closer links between academics, businesses, researchers and entrepreneurs from both cities.

October 2013

The Speaker of the Lower House of the Parliament of India, Mrs Meira Kumar, visited Cambridge on 10 October 2013. In this visit, which was in response to an invitation to visit from the Vice-Chancellor whom she met in Delhi last year and again last month, she met with a number of leading Cambridge academics in a lunch hosted at Clare College by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for International Strategy. She then met with the Vice-Chancellor before ending her visit by delivering a lecture to a packed hall at the Sidgwick site on 'Parliamentary Democracy in India'.

The first publication of the joint work of Dr Andreas Bender at the Department of Chemistry, together with Dr Basappa at the University of Bangalore and Prof Rangappa at the University of Mysore as well as further collaborators, has just appeared in MedChemComm, a medicinal chemistry journal by the Royal Society of Chemistry. The groups were collaborating on inhibitors of the STAT3 pathway, which is upregulated in many cancers such a hepatocellular carcinoma, and which represents a novel possible approach to cancer therapy.

September 2013

The Vice-Chancellor made a two-week visit to India in September, accompanied by a senior Cambridge delegation. He visited New Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai with the overarching objectives of taking Cambridge's engagement with India to a new level, and enhancing the University's profile and opportunities for partnership with Indian academia, business, and government.

The Bangalore Cambridge Innovation Network (BCIN) and AcceleratorIndia announced a new collaboration to drive UK-India cross-border commercial engagement. RiffStream#Bangalore-II – Digital innovations in Healthcare and Biotech was a specific event kicked off on 17 September as part of the BCIN. RiffStream#Bangalore-II focused on innovations in Healthcare facilitated by mobile, digital, telecoms and computing technologies, leading to new devices, technologies and processes to do more with less to increase treatment efficacy. Prior to this, on 16 September, the Vice-Chancellor had discussions with UK Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude MP at a business networking event in Bangalore organised by UKTI, and launched the Bioinnovation Prize. The prize is funded by the UK government, the winners of which will be hosted in Cambridge by IdeaSpace.

Dr Helen Mason from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) visited Prof Durgesh Tripathi, a solar astronomer at the Pune-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA). Dr Mason has collaborated with Prof Tripathi for over eight years studying the behaviour of the sun using data from various space missions and how it affects Earth. As part of the collaboration, Dr Mason delivered a talk to IUCAA students on "Our Dynamic Sun" on 19 September.

Dr Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes, Research Fellow and Affiliate Lecturer at the Centre of South Asian Studies, visited the Azim Premji University in Bangalore between 16-20 September where she organized the 'Teaching South Asian History with Visual Research Methods' workshop series for South Asian teachers and teacher educators.

August 2013

Dr Andreas Bender, Lecturer at the Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics at the Department of Chemistry, visited the School of Pharmay and Technology Management at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) in Mumbai, the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) Pune, the Institute for Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) Bangalore and the Universities of Bangalore and Mysore for both teaching drug discovery classes, and establishing and deepening existing research collaborations, funded by the Cambridge-Hamied Visiting Lectureship Programme.

July 2013

Mr Sam Pitroda, Adviser to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information, Infrastructure & Innovations, visited Cambridge on 10 July. At the Cambridge Judge Business School (CJBC), he delivered a thought-provoking lecture on "Role of Innovation and Information Infrastructure for Inclusive Growth" to a packed to capacity hall. He then met with Professor Christoph Loch (Director of CJBS), Professor Jaideep Prabhu (Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business & Enterprise and Director of the Centre for India & Global Business), and Dr Shailendra Vyakarnam (Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning) before he visited Cambridge Enterprise. There he with Dr Tony Raven (CEO) and Shirley Jamieson (Head of Marketing), and was presented with a Raspberry Pi computer by Jack Lang (Co-Founder and Chair of the Raspberry Pi Foundation). Mr Pitroda finally met with the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, where they discussed the University's longstanding relationship with India, particularly in the areas of science education and innovation.

April 2013

Professor Christoph Loch, Director, Cambridge Judge Business School, and Professor Jaideep Prabhu (Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business & Enterprise and Director of the Centre for India & Global Business) visited Delhi on 4-5 April for an executive education session on Leadership and Strategic Thinking Programme for a group of senior Indian civil servants from the Indian Administrative Service.

March 2013

The Jesus College choir visited Mumbai and Goa in March 2013 where they worked with disadvantaged communities bringing music to children living in slums in the city.

Prof CNR Rao, Head of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister of India, and a team of distinguished delegates visited Cambridge to attend an EPSRC-funded workshop on Advanced Materials for Energy, held at St John's College on 21-22 March. The workshop was part of a collaboration between teams in Cambridge (led by Prof Sir Richard Friend), JNCASR and IISc in Bangalore.

February 2013

The Vice-Chancellor made a two-day visit to India as part of the largest ever UK trade delegation led by a British Prime Minister. The Vice-Chancellor announced that "We look forward to building on the relations established on the visit to further enhance our existing Cambridge-India partnership".

January 2013

On 31 January 2013, Professor Robert Glen (Unilever Centre for Molecular Science Informatics, Department of Chemistry) delivered an invited lecture at the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Chemical Research Society of India's joint symposium at the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

December 2012

Professor Sir Mike Gregory, Head of The Institute for Manufacturing, was presented with a Lifetime Achievement award at the Society of Management's annual conference held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. The conference had a special track on food supply chains, which are the focus of a joint project between IfM and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow.

November 2012

Dr Mani Shankar Narayanan joined the International Strategy Office as the dedicated International Officer (India). He will act as the focal-point for managing the University’s various activities related with India and other South Asian partners. He will support the Schools, individual academics, and non-School institutions in developing projects and implementing plans in-line with the University’s strategies in the region, and provide administrative support for establishment of new central University projects in and with India. Mani will also monitor and analyse international developments, and provide briefings for the Vice-Chancellor, PVCs, and other University leaders including Heads of Schools and Departments, and work with these groups to facilitate opportunities for student, postdoctoral, and research funding and activity.

Before joining the ISO, Mani worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Molecular Biology at the Imperial College, London. Mani holds a PhD in Biochemistry and an MSc in Biology from the University of Oxford, and a BSc in Zoology from the University of Delhi. Prior to completing his PhD, he worked at a UN-affiliated research organization in New Delhi researching malaria, and with a conservation group in Assam studying human-wildlife conflict.

September 2012

As part of the Vice-Chancellor's visit to India, two major events took place aimed at strengthening Cambridge's long-standing ties with India and developing them for the twenty-first century.

On Monday 10 September 2012 the India-Cambridge Summit, India in the Global Age, took place at the Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi. Panels considered the future of the university, India's response to the contemporary global economic crisis, Delhi's century as India's captial city, social policy and development, art and cultural politics and ideas of Indian democracy.

The Vice-Chancellor also attended the meeting of the Bangalore-Cambridge Innovation Network, which took place at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, on 13 September 2012. The theme of the event was Science, Innovation and Entrepreneurship and it included discussions of frugal innovation, cleantech, life science, entrepreneurship, commercialisation and intellectual property and corporate innovation.

July 2012

2012 marks the third year in which the Cambridge Hamied Visiting Lectures Scheme, supported by generous donations from Dr Yusuf Hamied, has operated. The scheme supports professorial and senior level visits both to India by Cambridge academics and to Cambridge by Indian academics.

The first award announced for 2012 will support activity in India by Professor Sharon Peacock (Department of Medicine). Professor Peacock's visit, scheduled for October 2012, will build on her existing work with Dr Chiranjay Mukhopadhyay, Professor of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, Karnataka, as part of a collaborative consortium to map the bacterium responsible for melioidosis and produce a risk map for India. The visit will advance this work through a series of interactive seminars designed to provide practical training in environmental sampling methodology. This will allow the generation of preliminary data for a risk map for meliodosis across southern India and Professor Peacock will also provide assistance in the writing of the first review of meliodosis in India.

A future award will enable Dr Andreas Bender (Unilever Centre for Molecular Science Informatics, Department of Chemistry) to visit India. Dr Bender will build on his existing links in India through a series of trips that will enable him to deliver lectures, further a number of new collaborations and undertake joint research projects. The award will allow Dr Bender to visit established research contacts including Professor Nagasuma Chandra (IISc), Dr Muthukumarasamy Karthikeyan (NCL Pune), Dr Tushar Chakraborty (Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow), and Professor Prasad Bharatam (NIPER).

Senior academics, from India or Cambridge, interested in applying to the scheme are encouraged to do so using the application form foundhere.

May 2012

A team headed by Professor Sir Richard Friend (Department of Physics) has won funding from the EPSRC for a project of 12 months' duration to develop and extend research collaboration between Cambridge and Bangalore in the areas of materials for energy and sustainable manufacturing. Both Cambridge and Bangalore have broad strengths in the underpinning basic science, and both are working to bring early-stage science rapidly through to engineering and to translation to manufacturing. The global objective of this project is to develop together structures that allow the essential 'bottom up' basic science to be placed within an institution-wide context, and to enable new coordinated research between the two institutions.

Five research projects will be built off some of the current one-on-one links between researchers in Cambridge and in Bangalore (the JNCASRand the IISc) in the general area of materials for energy and sustainable manufacturing. All projects will have significant exchange of researchers from UK to India and vice versa at various career levels. These interactions will be strengthened and broadened through the networking events and workshops in both countries. The five projects involve researchers at the Departments of Physics, Materials Science and Engineering in Cambridge, and cover the following topics: (a) Advanced Optoelectronics Materials Development, (b) Nanostructured Metal-Organic Frameworks, (c) Polythiophene-based Photovoltaics, (d) The optimisation of lightweight structural parts, based on mechanical tests in-situ inside a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and (e) Sustainable Materials Processing of Strategic Metals.

September 2011

Dr Rama Jayasundar from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi spent two weeks in late August and early September in the laboratory of Dr Adrian Carpenter, Head of the Magnetic Resonance Division at the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre. Her visit was funded by the Cambridge-Hamied Visiting Lecture Scheme.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz led a delegation on a week-long visit to Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai in mid-September for a series of meetings, lectures and alumni receptions. He signed an MOU agreement with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Delhi to record a mutual interest in promoting and furthering academic links between the two institutions. In Bangalore he signed a MOU with the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) for a collaborative initiative in therapeutics and translational sciences.

The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) has announced the second round of a two-year pilot scheme for a Charles Wallace India Trust Visiting Fellowship. The CWIT fellowship at CRASSH offers funding for a term of study and residence in Cambridge during the academic year 2012-13 (October 2012 - June 2013). The deadline for applications is 31 October 2011. For further information please refer to the following website: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/page/799/charles-wallace-india-trust-visiting-fellowship.htm

July 2011

Dr Andreas Bender, a lecturer in the Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics at the Chemistry Department, visited Bangalore again this summer, as he has done for the past four summers. He gave a lecture course in the cheminformatics field at the Institute for Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) and visited the DY Patil Institute in Pune to give a plenary lecture at a chemical biology conference as well as to establish research collaborations with the institute.

March 2011

Professor Jaideep Prabhu, Director of The Centre for India & Global Business (CIGB), and Navi Radjou, Executive Director of CIGB, visited India in March 2011. They visited Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore. As part of this trip they attended the Confederation of Indian Industry's 1st Green Manufacturing Summit. They also spoke at a conference organized by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) entitled "Scaling an IT Startup to 100 Million USD". In Chennai, Navi Radjou participated in a panel discussion organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) entitled "Enabling & Unleashing India's Innovation". Prof Prabhu, Toby Norman and Parth Vaishnav (two Judge Business School MPhil students) met with the Customer Finance Manager at Nokia to discuss a detailed field based study of the impact of mobile phones on rural livelihoods. They also had discussions with the National Council of Applied Economic Research to set up a long term partnership, especially in the area of field studies examining the impact of new products on rural and urban livelihoods.

Professor Julius Lipner, Professor of Hinduism and the comparative study of Religion in the Faculty of Divinity visited Calcutta for the second half of March to carry out research to aid his translation of the last novel of the trilogy by Bengali intellectual and pioneering novelist Bankimchandra Chatterji. His visit was funded by the Cambridge India Partnership Fund (CIPF).

In early March Professor Sharon Peacock from the Department of Medicine visited Professor Chiranjay Mukhopadhyay, Professor of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, Karnataka. The visit was supported by the Cambridge India Partnership Fund (CIPF). The objective of the trip was to develop plans to support efforts to map the presence of the environmental bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei across southern India. This is the cause of an infectious disease called melioidosis, which occurs following bacterial inoculation, ingestion or inhalation of contaminated soil or water and is associated with a mortality rate in South East Asia of around 50%.

Professor Ashok Venkitaraman, the Ursula Zoellner Professor of Cancer Research in the University of Cambridge Department of Oncology, visited India between 9 and 20 March as a Cambridge-Hamied Visiting Lecturer. He gave lectures at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore; the Institute of Life Sciences, Hyderabad; the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad; and the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad.
More about the Cambridge-Hamied Visiting Lecture Scheme

February 2011

Dr Sumantra Ray (Shumone), a recently appointed Senior Clinician/Scientist at the MRC Human Nutrition Research Unit in Cambridge visited India in February 2011 supported by the Cambridge India Partnership Fund (CIPF)as well as MRC, to make headway towards building strategic partnerships for both research and action relating to Nutrition and Cardiovascular Disease in the Indian Population.
Shumone met officials from the
Indian Railways, the world's largest civilian employer in a single country, in order to explore setting up a multi-way collaboration between the UK Medical Research Council, University of Cambridge, Indian Railways Health Service (RHS) and academic partners in India, aimed at studying Nutrition and Cardiovascular Disease in the Indian population. Meetings took place at the Railway Bhavan in New Delhi and the BR Singh Hospital in Kolkata. Shumone delivered a scientific presentation to RHS Directors in New Delhi and had logistic discussions with senior staff in Kolkata. A collaborators meeting will be held in Cambridge in May 2011 to define the next steps in building this strategic partnership which has unique potential.
In addition to the above, Shumone also had discussions with Pankaj Bhadouria, a former schoolteacher and current celebrity, having become the very first winner of
'Masterchef India' in 2010. Pankaj is currently writing a 'Star Plus' cookbook which is due to be released along with her own primetime TV show on the Star TV network very soon. Shumone and Pankaj are currently exploring the possibility of a visit to the UK in order to promote healthy eating for the prevention of cardiovascular disease in the local Indian/South Asian community.

Dr Kevin Greenbank, Archivist and Administrator at the Centre of South Asian Studies visited New Delhi for a week in February, with support from the Cambridge India Partnership Fund (CIPF). He gave two presentations on the Centre's archive collections, focussing on their history and particularly recent work on the digital archive of films and oral history. He held various meetings with potential collaborators, friends of the Centre and colleagues.
News story - Images of Empire head for the classroom

Professor Jeremy Sanders, Head of the School of Physical Sciences and former Head of the Department of Chemistry was in India in early February as a Cambridge-Hamied Visiting Lecturer. In Kolkata he was guest of the distinguished physicist Professor Sushanta Dattagupta FNA, FNASc, FASc, FTWAS, the Director of the new Indian Institute for Science Education and Research (IISER Kolkata). He gave a general lecture on molecular recognition in chemistry and biology to a mixed audience that included professors of cosmology, biology, physics and chemistry, and young undergraduates. He then moved to Bhubaneswar, Orissa, for the annual conference of the Chemical Research Society of India, where he gave the prestigious Professor C.N.R. Rao Award Lecture and met the Vice-Chancellor of Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), Professor A. S. Kolaskar FNA, FNASc. He also had discussions with Professor Rao himself (Chair of the Prime Minister's Science Advisory Council) and with Dr K. N. Ganesh, a former PhD student of his who is now Director of the IISER in Pune.

January 2011

Sitikantha Das, a PhD student at the Department of Physics, Cavendish Laboratory visited India from December 2010 till January 2011 to attend the ICTS Condensed Matter Programme 2010 organised jointly by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR Mumbai) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISC Bangalore) at the Infosys campus in Mysore. His trip was supported by the Cambridge India Partnership Fund (CIPF).
Read more on Student Profiles

Leading Indian conservationist Dr Krithi Karanth, Assistant Director at the Centre for Wildlife Studies (CWS) and the Visiting Fellow at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), both in Bangalore, is the latest Cambridge-Hamied Visiting Lecturer.
News story - Strengthening Conservation ties with India

December 2010

Dr Simone Schnall, University Lecturer at the Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, visited the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMHANS) in Bangalore, Karnataka in December 2010. Following the invitation of Dr Sanjeev Jain (Head of Unit II) she gave a talk in the Department of Psychiatry entitled "Emotions and Morality". Schnall's research broadly investigates how cognitive processes and feelings interact, and she is particularly interested in embodied experiences and emotions.

Dr Alan Windle led a party of 18 Cambridge researchers for the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy to Mumbai to take part in a conference on Nano-Materials, hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

November 2010

Professor Jaideep Prabhu, the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise, and Navi Radjou, Executive Director of The Centre for India & Global Business, were in India in November.

  • November 12: In Goa, Navi Radjou gave the keynote speach for Innovate! - a conference organized by Global Logic, a global R&D service provider. Title of Navi's talk "Redesigning Your Enterprise to Win in the New Global Order"
  • November 14-16: Prof Jaideep Prabhu and Navi Radjou participated in the World Economic Forum's 2010 India Economic Summit in New Delhi. On November 16, Navi moderated a workshop at this Summit entitled "Innovating More With Less For More"
  • November 17: Prof Jaideep Prabhu and Navi Radjou spoke at a conference hosted by MART in Gurgaon (near New Delhi) entitled "INDOVATIONS: How India Is Driving Global Innovation".
  • November 18: Navi Radjou gave the keynote speach at an event hosted by Asia Society in Mumbai entitled "INDOVATIONS: Driving Global Innovations From Emerging Markets"
  • November 19: Prof Jaideep Prabhu and Navi Radjou participated in a Cambridge Judge Alumni Breakfast Seminar hosted by YES Bank in Mumbai. Title of the seminar: "Mobile Payments: A Key Lever for Driving Financial Inclusion"
  • November 26: Navi Radjou participated in a panel discussion organized by the CII in Chennai entitled "Scaling Up India's Innovation Ecosystem: Opportunities and Challenges"

In addition, during their visit to India, Prof Jaideep Prabhu and Navi Radjou also interacted with various Indian companies, multinationals, and entrepreneurs who are driving frugal and sustainable innovation across various sectors.

September 2010

The deadline for Indian postgraduate students to apply for the four-month funded Pavate Fellowship at Judge Business School, Cambridge has been extended.
News Story: Pavate Fellowship deadline extended

August 2010

PhD student David Osborne spent a period of eight weeks this summer at the AstraZeneca site in Bangalore. This is a dedicated research centre for the development of drugs for the treatment of Tuberculosis.

Teach For India (TFI) are currently looking to recruit a Campus Ambassador at the University of Cambridge. Campus Ambassadors are expected to commit approximately 2.5 hours a week to build awareness about the TFI movement, serve as a liaison between TFI and the University of Cambridge, and recruit high-potential students. TFI is a nationwide movement of outstanding college graduates who teach full-time in low-income Indian schools for two years. The graduates are transformed into life-long leaders, across sectors, in the pursuit of educational equity. Interested applicants should complete the online application form.

June 2010

One of India's most renowned scientists, Dr. Ramesh Mashelkar, gave the inaugural BP Lecture for the Centre for India & Global Business (CIGB) at Judge Business School on 21 June, on India's potential to drive 'inclusive innovation' which is fuelled by the ability of Indian entrepreneurs and corporations to create innovative solutions that deliver more value for more people at less cost and using fewer natural resources.
News story - Distinguished Indian Scientist to give inaugural BP Lecture

A group of 17 Judge Business School MBS students made a seven-day visit to India to meet with ten founders and CEOs of India's leading companies in order to learn what unique aspects these entrepreneurs and their business models have, allowing them to succeed in one of the most important emerging economies of the 21st Century. They spent four days in New Delhi and three days in Mumbai.
News story - MBAs' Indian Trip to Learn How to Succeed in Emerging Markets

Ratan Tata, Hon. K.B.E., Chairman of the Tata Group of Companies, has been made an Honorary Doctor of Law by the University of Cambridge at a traditional formal ceremony, presided over by the University Chancellor, His Royal Highness Prince Philip The Duke of Edinburgh.
News story - The Chancellor visits the University

May 2010

Dr Sharachchandra Lele of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment in Bangalore visited Cambridge in May as the third Cambridge-Hamied Visiting Lecturer to collaborate with Dr Bhaskar Vira of the Political Ecology research group in the Department of Geography.
News story - Lecture tours in India as new scheme is launched

March 2010

Professor William Jones, Head of the Department of Chemistry at Cambridge visited Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai in early March as the second Cambridge-Hamied Visiting Lecturer.
News story - Lecture tours in India as new scheme is launched

Professor Jaideep Prabhu, The Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise, and, Executive Director of the Centre for India & Global Business at Judge Business School, visited the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore between 17 March and 2 April to carry out field research. They investigated in situ the phenomenon of inclusive growth and affordable innovation that is gaining traction in India, looking at how both India and the West can take grass roots ideas and make them commercially viable for India and the rest of the world. In addition they spoke on the topic of innovation and entrepreneurship at the influential Asia Society's Asian Corporate Conference in Delhi (19 - 20 March) and the Inclusive Innovation Conference at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.

The Indian High Commissioner, His Excellency Mr Nalin Surie visited Cambridge on 4 March to meet with senior academics to discuss increasing collaboration between Cambridge and India as the country develops; he also met with the Centre for India & Global Business, and the Centre of South Asian Studies.

February 2010

Frank Kelly, Professor of the Mathematics of Systems and Master of Christ's College, visited the cities of Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai in February as the first Cambridge-Hamied Visiting Lecturer.
News story - Lecture tours in India as new scheme is launched

Sally Daultrey, Project Coordinator (Cambridge), Global Water Initiative, spent three and a half weeks in India attending a workshop on the Changing Water Cycle, organised by the Ministry of Earth Sciences and the UK Natural Environment Research Council. She attended the workshop on behalf of Professor Paul Linden of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. While there she represented research interests within the Global Water Initiative, a research collaboration initiated between Cambridge and UC San Diego which includes Professor Keith Richards (Geography) and Dr Richard Fenner (Engineering).
The workshop was to design international research programmes on the dynamics of watershed responses to environmental change, and took place on the occasion of signing of an MoU between the Governments of India and the UK for collaboration on watershed research. The workshop was chaired by Professor V.K. Gaur (
Indian Institute of Astrophysics) who is leading the programme on behalf of the Ministry.
During her visit she also had meetings with:

  • DFID/British High Commission unit on energy and climate change, to discuss the South Asia Water Initiative;
  • Sanjay Kaul, Leader, Energy & Resources for Deloitte, India to learn about a new University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun;
  • IIT Delhi, Department of Civil Engineering to discuss research collaboration with the Global Water Initiative;
  • University of Jammu Department of Geology to learn about their research efforts in Kashmir and Ladakh on renewable energy, especially geothermal, and seismic hazard mitigation; and the setting up of Institute for Energy Studies in Jammu&Kashmir;
  • Indian Meteorological Department, Srinagar to learn about new environmental sensing capacity in Kashmir;
  • The CEO of the Ladakh Environmental and Renewable Energy Agency, J&K to learn about renewable energy deployments in Ladakh and watershed management practice;
  • Dr Ajit Tyagi, Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department in New Delhi to learn about new national programmes for assessing and monitoring environmental change.

Dr Satya Dash visited Pradeep Kashyap, CEO of MART, India. Pradeep Kashyap has catalysed several public-private partnerships in India, especially in relation to rural innovation, such as Hindustan Unilever's 'Project Shakti'. Dr Dash spent two days at MART to identify interesting cases of rural business models.

January 2010

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Professor Alison Richard, was in India between 7 and 17 January, visiting Kolkata, New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune. The visit built on her previous visit last January, strengthening and celebrating important relationships with leading institutions for teaching, research and policy, and with alumni and industry in India, enhancing the ever-deepening and widening Cambridge India partnership.

Dr Matthew Juniper and colleagues from the Engineering and Mathematics departments took part in workshops in the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre of Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore (11-15 January) and the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (18-22 January) as part of a two-year EPSRC funded and Cambridge-led Indo-European network. The AIM network, which also includes the Ecole Polytechnique in France, involves more than 70 academics and aims to transfer recent theoretical advances in fluid mechanics from applied maths into engineering practice. The first of these winter workshops was hosted by Professor Rama Govindarajan and the second by Professor R. I. Sujith. Twelve academics and students from Cambridge University, Imperial College London, University College London, Manchester University and Keele University attended the workshops, along with several from Indian institutions. Some of the UK academics also visited the Indian Institutes of Technology in Bombay and Kanpur during their time in India.

Dr Dave Green visited the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) in Pune from 6-17th January, accompanied by one of his PhD students. During the trip they visited NCRA's Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope at Khodad.

On 14 January Professor Mike Gregory led a high-level seminar on 'UK-India Industrial Sustainability' in Mumbai, together with collaborators from India and from Cranfield University. The seminar brought together senior manufacturing and sustainability academics and industrialists and explored the potential for significant UK-India and Industry/University collaboration in this important field. Professor Gregory travelled to India as part of the Vice-Chancellor's visit

December 2009

Professor Colin Humphreys, Director of Research in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, helped organise the XV International Workshop on Physics of Semiconductor Devices - 2009, held in Delhi in December 2009, at which he was also an invited speaker.

Dr David Washbrook, a Research Fellow in History at Trinity College gave the Founder Day Lecture at Kannur University in Kerala on 10 December, discussing how India might reverse the declining interest in its history among its younger population.

Professor Jaideep Prabhu, the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise and Navi Radjou, Executive Director of the Centre for India and Global Business, will be visiting Bangalore, Chennai, Pondicherry, Mumbai and Pune between 14 December and 8 January, meeting leading Indian entrepreneurs and corporations on a research field trip.

Jeremy Sanders, Professor of Chemistry and Head of the School of Physical Sciences at the University of Cambridge, will be in India from 27 December 2009 until 6 January 2010. His visit will include lectures at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, as well as meetings at JNCASR in Bangalore (with Prof CNR Rao) and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Pune.

November 2009

On 3 November Sanjeev Bikhchandani, co-founder and CEO of naukri.com, was guest speaker on the subject of 'Rapid Growth Business' at Enterprise Tuesday, a series of free evening lectures and networking sessions run by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL).

Professor Yashwant Gupta from the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune, visited Dr Dave Green and his colleagues in the Astrophysics Group of the Cavendish Laboratory from 2-4 November 2009. He gave a seminar, and they discussed various radio astronomical topics of mutual interest.

Dr Gordon Johnson, President of Wolfson College, Provost of the Gates Cambridge Trust and former Chairman of the University Press Syndicate, was in India from 16 November, giving lectures at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Kolkata, and the University of Pune. The lectures were on the topics of 'The Study of India' and 'Universities and Society', and were sponsored by Cambridge University Press.

September 2009

The Centre for India & Global Business hosted a special invitation-only event entitled 'Bollywood goes Global: Opportunities for the West' on 19 September, in partnership with the Cambridge Film Trust and Blood Orange Media. The guests took a detailed look at the accelerating collaboration between the Indian and Western film sectors while key industry professionals gave an insight into how to make the most of this chance to engage with Bollywood.

August 2009

The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is showing Gandhi's Children, David MacDougall's 2005 film exploring the experiences of children at a shelter on the outskirts of Delhi. The exhibition of the film and 20 video stills will run until 30 November. More...

Three Cambridge undergraduates undertook internships at the British School in New Delhi from 10th August until 7th September. Aswin Chari, Dagna Drzazdzewska and Rebecca Mullins stayed with host families and were involved in university counselling, school projects and mentoring in the class rooms. They also had opportunities to visit areas around Delhi and elsewhere including Jaipur and Agra.

Professor Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, distinguished professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, gave a talk entitled 'A scientist in India today: to be or not to be?', at Darwin College on 7th August. Professor Bhattacharya is currently spending a sabbatical as a Visiting Fellow Commoner at Trinity College. The talk formed part of the Sakyha - Cambridge Friends of India 'Meet the Guest' Series.

Professor Alan Macfarlane's new book, Reflections on Cambridge, was launched at the British Council in New Delhi by veteran journalist Sir Mark Tully. The book is published by Social Science Press and explores the culture, customs, Colleges and politics of the University of Cambridge. Alan Macfarlane is Emeritus Professor of Anthropological Science at the Department of Social Anthropology and a Life Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.
[
News story published in The Hindu]

Kevin A. Kerr, MBA student at Judge Business School, visited BP India's office in Gurgaon as part of his research into Solar Photovoltaic Cell & Module Manufacturing: Key considerations in establishing a manufacturing facility in India or China. The field visit, which was sponsored by the Cambridge-India Partnership Fund, allowed an in-depth analysis of the issues facing potential new entrants to this market, using BP India as a case study.

MBA student Manasij Kar completed a two-month research project in India on the commercial viability of plans for utility scale photovoltaic power generation there. The visit enabled Manasij to meet with key individuals at businesses in the solar power industry, and to attend the '3rd Renewable Energy India 2009 Expo' in New Delhi.

Andreas Kalker, an undergraduate Economics student at Christ's College, was selected to participate in 'Study India', a government-funded programme giving students from UK universities a valuable experience of India. The students spent three weeks in either New Dehli or Mumbai. During the first week, lectures on diverse aspects of India were arranged, from culture or religion to the economy or transport policies in India, as well as an extensive cultural program with sightseeing. The second week involved work experience such as working with street children or in an Embassy or a public corporation. In the last week, the participants shadowed students doing their subject at the Delhi universities and attended special lectures on India. Andreas says: 'It was a great experience for all participants'. For more information, please see www.studyindia.org.uk.

July 2009

Final year Manufacturing Engineering (MET) students in the Department of Engineering went on a two-week visit to India for their annual tour, the culmination of a year-long research programme investigating the current and future development of industry in India. This year the tour focused on India's emerging manufacturing sector exploring three areas in particular:
Sustainability versus growth: Can sustainable manufacturing practices and manufacturing sector growth be achieved simultaneously?
The parallels between the service industry and manufacturing: Can India's manufacturing industry benefit from service sector expertise and replicate its success?
High-tech versus low-tech industry: Can India's ever-growing stream of engineering and technology graduates compete with the R&D reliant high-tech industries of more developed countries - or does its competitive advantage lie in the large unskilled workforce?
More...

Five recent graduates from Cambridge went to India for seven weeks through the Tata International Social Entrepreneurship Scheme (TISES). They worked as interns on ongoing corporate sustainability projects of Tata companies, including land reclamation for local farmers and water management.

Dr Dabo Guan, Judge Business School and ESRC Electricity Policy Research Group, hosted Dr Anamika Barua from The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi. They are collaborating on a project entitled 'Assessment of regional trade and virtual water flow in India'.

June 2009

Professor C.N.R. Rao gave the eleventh annual Kelly Lecture at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy on the New Museums Site on Tuesday 9 June. C.N.R. Rao is the National Research Professor and Linus Pauling Research Professor and Honorary President of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore. The Lecture was part of the Armourers and Brasiers' Cambridge Forum which is held annually with the aim of raising the profile of materials science in the UK academic and industrial communities, while being international in scope. Professor Rao spoke on 'Doing Nanoscience Research in Emerging India'. Also speaking at the event was Dr Tridibesh Mukherjee, Director, Tata Steel Group, on the nature of invention and innovation in the manufacturing industry. More...

Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, former President of India, gave a lunchtime lecture on Creative Leadership in the Global Knowledge Economy at Judge Business School on Tuesday 9 June, hosted by the Centre for India & Global Business. More...

Dr Dave Green, of the Astrophysics Group in the Cavendish Laboratory, visited the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Pune for an observing trip using the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope.

May 2009

A conference 'Innovation in India and China - How to create value from emerging markets' was held on 19th and 20th May 2009 at Judge Business School, hosted by the Centre for India & Global Business, in partnership with the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) and Blood Orange Media. Academic experts and leading business figures from around the world shared their viewpoints and experiences on how to win entry into these rapidly growing Asian markets. More...

An international workshop on the relationship between the literary cultures of Sanskrit and Tamil languages in mediaeval India took place at Wolfson College on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 May. The workshop was led by Dr Vincenzo Vergiani of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge, and Dr Whitney Cox of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

Dr Karsten Neuhoff visited the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, for one of four 'Country Study Workshops' that were part of the project 'International support for domestic action' on climate policy. This was a joint workshop between IIT Kanpur and Electricity Policy Research Group Cambridge and supported by the research network Climate Strategies.

April 2009

Nandan Nilekani, Co-Chairman and co-founder of Infosys Technologies in India spoke at Judge Business School on 24 April as part of the India Talks Series. Please see the news story for further information.

Dr Vasant Kumar of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy visited Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in mid-April to mark the start of a UK-India Education Research Initiative (UKIERI) collaboration with Professors Subramanian and Sampath there. They have research expertise in materials processing regarding sustainability, carbon mitigation, energy reduction and pollution control. The three-year project, Sustainable Materials Processing of Strategic Metals, will explore novel environmentally friendly ways of retrieving and refining metals to minimise toxic waste and other pollutants. They will engage with government, industry and fellow researchers to develop potential interests for future exploitation for joint benefit to both countries. Mutual visits (six in total, three from each side) have been planned over the next eight months.

March 2009

Judge Business School launched the Centre for India & Global Business on 10th March at an event in New Delhi. Professor Jaideep Prabhu, the first Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise at the University of Cambridge, gave the first of four inaugural lectures in the Indian capital today, before moving on to Bangalore and then Mumbai. Professor Prabhu used these lectures as an opportunity to announce the Centre, established with financial support from the BP Foundation. The Centre will be devoted to the study of India's leading role in the global economy with a vision to serve as a collaborative platform that engages multiple stakeholders from India, the UK and other countries. More...

Professor Niraja Jayal from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi was in Cambridge in March to speak at a conference organised by Dr Bhaskar Vira of the Department of Geography on the theme 'Experiencing the State: Marginalised People and the Politics of Development in India'. The conference was supported by CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities), which also sponsored the participation of two additional young scholars from India.
The conference on 12 and 13 March drew on some of the leading UK-based social scientists working on India. There were two public lectures, one by Professor Jayal on 13 March, the other by Professor Barbara Harriss-White (Oxford) on 12 March. For more details visit the website at
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/661/.

February 2009

Professor Mustansir Barma, Director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR, India) visited Cambridge on 9 February to discuss matters of common interest with members of the Cambridge community. TIFR is one of India's premier research institutions with historical and contemporary linkages with Cambridge. He met with students, post-docs and others interested in exploring early and advanced career opportunities in science research in India in general and the TIFR in particular and also with those curious about India's major expansion of science education and research.

The Cambridge India Economic Forum, a unique student-run initiative at the University of Cambridge, staged the inaugural 'Eyes on India' Summit on February 25. The Summit was aimed at educating participants on India's emerging prominence as a catalyst for worldwide economic progress.
Prominent speakers included Mr K V Kamath, CEO, ICICI Bank (India's 2nd largest bank) who delivered a keynote on his vision for India and commented on the global fraternity's Eyes on India. Additional speakers included Mr Hari Sankaran, Managing Director, IL&FS (Infrastructure development), Mr Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO, InfoEdge (Naukri.com) and Prof. Shailendra Vyakarnam, Director, Cambridge Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning and Jaideep Prabhu, the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor for Indian Business at Judge Business School. Finally Mr Anwar Hassan, Managing Director, Tata Ltd. UK discussed their relationship with Cambridge and their vision for India. The Summit also served as a platform for the launch of the UK India Business Council's Next Generation Network (East of England).

In his role as Chair of the Cambridge Central Asia Forum Dr Siddhartha Saxena from the Department of Physics spoke at an international Seminar on Eurasian Perspectives in Kolkata in early February. He also followed up on Professor Peter Littlewood's visit in January to the Saha Institute for Nuclear Physics, to design a programme of exchanges of faculty, post-docs and PhD students and to expand the current links in theoretical science.

Professor Chris Lowe (Director, Institute of Biotechnology, Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology) visited India in early February under the auspices of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and through the British Deputy High Commission in Mumbai. Professor Lowe attended a press conference alongside the British High Commissioner to India, Sir Richard Stagg, and then delivered a plenary address at the BioAsia (2009) Conference in the Hyderabad International Conference Centre (HICC) on 'The United Kingdom: A Premier League Partner for Biotechnology and Bioscience R&D, Innovation and Commercialisation'. The programme in Hyderabad included visits to Jupiter Biosciences (Mr Amitabh Kumar), attendance at a CEO Conclave at the HICC and a visit to the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), one of the constituent laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The visit continued in Bangalore with a dinner with representatives from Navya Biologicals (Mr Vinay Konaje), Aurigene (Mr CSN Murthy) and Xcyton (Dr Ravikumar), a briefing session at the British Trade Office, lunch with Microlabs (Mr Shrvanand Dhanure) and BalPharma and a short visit to the laboratories of the Indian Institute of Science (Prof Venimadhavan, CEO) and the SID Innovation Centre. The final part of the trip was conducted in Mumbai, where he met the DG of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) (Mr Tapan Ray) and a cross-section of pharmaceutical companies, including Alkem Laboratories Ltd (Mr Sandeep Singh), KPMG India (Mr Hitesh Gajaria), GSK (Mr Hasit Joshipura, Chairman) and Piramal Healthcare Ltd (Dr Somesh Sharma, Chief Scientist). Discussions with these organisations lead to a thorough understanding of the current status of the Indian pharmaceutical industry and its aspirations for the future in the global economy. It is now recognised that India has about 325 biotechnology companies with combined revenues of about £1B.

Dr R Radhakrishnan, Vice-Chancellor of Anna University, Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu), visited Cambridge in late February for discussions with Cambridge ESOL about English language training and testing for technical students in the university. Anna University has now adopted the Cambridge ESOL BULATS test as an international benchmark standard that all first year students are required to achieve. Cambridge ESOL additionally provides training support for English teachers at the university. Dr Dr Radhakrishnan also visited the Engineering Department, the Cavendish Laboratory and the Nanoscience Centre.

January 2009

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alison Richard, returned to the four Indian cities of Kolkata, New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai in January 2009, her first overseas visit in the University's 800th Anniversary year. The visit continued the conversations begun in 2008 to enhance the deepening and widening partnership between Cambridge and a diverse array of institutions in India. The programme included lectures, talks, private meetings, alumni events and a major announcement of financial support for Indian students to study at the University. Two major themes of the interactions were industry-academic partnerships and the challenges of creating sustainable environments. More...

Dr Richard Marlow of
Trinity College visited Bangalore to commemorate the restoration of the pipe organ at St Andrews Church. He also visited Chennai, and gave an organ recital and took choral workshops in both cities. Professor Marlow was director of the choir at Trinity College for 38 years and first visited India in the 1970s. In 2002, Trinity College Choir made a tour of India and was joined for part of the trip by the then Master of Trinity, Amartya Sen.

Professor Peter Littlewood, head of the Cavendish Laboratory and a theoretical physicist, visited the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and the S N Bose Institute in Kolkata in early January, discussing potential scientific projects and talking to students about the new Cambridge - India PhD studentships, for joint research opportunities in Cambridge and India, supported in part by the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust. Peter was honoured to give two lectures: 'New Condensates of Matter and Light' as the 8th C.K.Majumdar Memorial Lecture at the S.N. Bose Institute, Kolkata on 5 January; and 'Electronic Soft Matter' as the 47th Meghnad Saha Memorial Lecture at the Saha Institute, Kolkata on 7 January.

Adele Tulli, an MPhil student at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, attended the course on 'Gandhi and globalisation' held at the Bija Vidyapeeth, the Navdanya's educational initiative, in Dehra Dun, India.
There she interviewed the Navdanya founder Dr. Vandana Shiva as well as other environmentalist activists, such as Vimla Baughuna. She also met scholars such as Dr. Bina Agarwal, Professor of Economics at the Institute of Economic Growth at the
University of Delhi, who has published an often-quoted critique of Shiva's work.
Besides collecting some materials for her dissertation project, she established significant contacts with local scholars and activists, which can serve as the foundation for future internship programmes between Cambridge and several Indian institutions.

December 2008

Professor Sarah Hawkins of the Phonetics Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, was in Hyderabad from 10-14 December as part of the UK delegation invited to the 'Indo-UK Round Table Meeting on Artificial Intelligence', which was part of the British Council Building Partnerships programme. Research projects involving both countries are now under discussion. Professor Hawkins also gave a talk at the Workshop on Image and Speech Processing at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, and visited the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, to explore the feasibility of a research project on speech perception of Sinhala.

Dr Jeremy Edwards, Reader in Economics, and Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie, Professor of Economic History, both from the Cambridge Faculty of Economics, spent three weeks at the University of Mumbai in December, during which they participated in research presentations, informal symposia, and discussions with students planning doctoral studies in Cambridge. The Cambridge Economics Faculty has longstanding informal links with the Department of Economics at Mumbai University. Three Professors from the Mumbai Department of Economics have also undertaken formal visits to Cambridge. Professor Abhay Pethe was an Overseas Visiting Scholar at St John's College, Cambridge in 1991; Professor Ajit Karnik was an Overseas Visiting Scholar at St John's College, Cambridge in 1995 and Smuts Visiting Fellow in Commonwealth Studies in 2003-4; and Professor Neeraj Hatekar was Smuts Visiting Fellow in Commonwealth Studies in 1998-9.

Professor Tony Cheetham of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy was in India from 3 to 13 December visiting Bangalore for a meeting of the Advisory Board for the new International Centre for Materials Science and attending a conference to mark CNR Rao's 75th birthday. Tony also visited Kolkata and Hyderabad to give lectures.

Lord Rees, Master of Trinity College, Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Society travelled to Bangalore to lecture, and to host a reception on behalf of the Royal Society.

A symposium was held at Christ's College on 6 December to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of its most celebrated alumni, Jagadis Chandra Bose. His Excellency Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, the Indian High Commissioner, was Guest of Honour.

Professor Colin Humphreys of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy was invited to visit India from 12 to 21 December. He gave a series of talks in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. He gave an Invited Lecture at the Centennial Conference of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, the Golden Jubilee Oration at the Defence Research and Development Organisation in Delhi, and spoke at the Indian Institute of Technology and at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in Mumbai. He visited these, and a number of other, laboratories in India.

November 2008

On Friday 21 November His Excellency Mr Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, the Indian High Commissioner, visited Cambridge. He had lunch at

Sidney Sussex College hosted by the Master, Professor Dame Sandra Dawson, with a number of senior Cambridge academics, met with Faculty and students at Judge Business School and visited the Centre of South Asian Studies.

Also on Friday 21 November, Sue Swaffield, a lecturer at the Faculty of Education, gave a lecture in Mumbai on the need for education to be student-centred. The lecture was part of a conference organised by Cambridge International Examinations (CIE).

October 2008

Dr Amit Bhave from Chemical Engineering and Hughes Hall represented the University and his company, reSolutions, at the 'EUROPE-INDIA ENERGY & TRANSPORTATION CONFERENCE: Partnership for Technical Education & Business Innovation' held in Aachen on 6 & 7 October. In Dec 2007, reSolutions was selected as a part of the UKTI's British business delegation to India, aimed at showcasing technology intensive SMEs to the Indian market.

Dame Sandra Dawson with Ann Puntis, Chief Executive of University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE), welcomed participants to CIE's first Higher Education Advisory Council for India. The group will advise on all matters pertaining to progression for students with CIE qualifications into Indian higher education. The group includes representatives from major universities including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Madras, Hyderabad and Gujarat as well as representatives from the Medical Council of India and NCERT and an adviser to India's National Knowledge Commission.

Professor Vipin Srivastava, Dean of School of Physics at the University of Hyderabad, visited the Cavendish Laboratory through Professor Sam Edwards of Gonville and Caius College. Professor Srivastava has cross-disciplinary interests in cognitive science.

Dr Tim Minshall and Dr Satya Dash of the Technology Enterprise Group in the University's Institute for Manufacturing, accompanied by Martin Rigby, MD of ET Capital and David Gill, incoming director of St John's Innovation Centre, travelled to New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai in late September and early October, meeting with a range of companies, investors and public sector organisations as part of their research for a 'Funding Technology' report on India.

September 2008

Professor Peter Littlewood, Head of the Cavendish Laboratory, visited the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai with colleagues to follow up on the MOU signed last January.

Professor Arnoud De Meyer, Director of Judge Business School, visited Mumbai in late September to give a keynote speech at CII's Annual Manufacturing Summit and also met Indian industry leaders who have taken the lead in becoming innovating companies.

A senior delegation from India's Ministry of Human Resource Development, in England for the first UK India Education Forum, made a fact-finding visit to Cambridge and held discussions with Dr Kate Pretty, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for International Relations.

Jaideep Prabhu, the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise, and Director, Centre for India & Global Business, Judge Business School, visited Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore between September 12 and 22, on a research trip to understand how multinationals and Indian firms are doing innovation/R&D in India. During his trip he met with and interviewed executives from Tata Teleservices, JP Morgan, Bajaj-Allianz, and the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy in Mumbai; Google, Zenotech, Shantha Biotech, Novartis and Satyam in Hyderabad; Infosys, Yahoo, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft and Novell in Bangalore. In Mumbai he also visited the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research and in Hyderabad he visited the Indian School of Business as well.

Dr Neil Mathur of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy visited the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai in September. He reports: "I discussed a mutual interest in manganites with Dr P Bhobe, a postdoctoral researcher under Professor Nigam. Manganites are oxides of manganese which are unusual, e.g. because patches of metal can coexist with patches of insulator in the same crystal. Dr Bhobe has now sent over two manganite samples where this interesting coexistence should be pronounced. My laboratory will use these samples to grow thin films. Although the films would contain strain, any observed phase coexistence would be intrinsic. This is because thin films, unlike the bulk samples supplied by Dr Bhobe, are structurally continuous. If the initial results are promising, it is hoped that Dr Bhobe will visit Cambridge to continue the experiments."

July 2008

Professor Sir Tom Blundell, William Dunn Professor of Biochemistry and Head of the School of Biological Sciences, was at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore (IISc) for three weeks as the Ramachandran Professor.

Professor Sabhyasachi (Shobho) Bhattacharya, ex-Director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), is currently on sabbatical at the Cavendish Laboratory. He is a visiting Fellow at Trinity College.

Dr Chander Velu, Chairman of the MBA Admissions Committee, Judge Business School, was in India in August on an outreach visit to Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, and met with Judge alumni and prospective MBA students.

June 2008

A Tata Group technology delegation visited Cambridge on 27 June. The purpose of the visit was to expose Tata Technology leaders to cutting-edge research in Nanotechnology, Material Sciences, and Automotive Engineering and to meet with executives of Centre for Technology Management, and Cambridge Enterprise.

May 2008

Professor Dame Sandra Dawson was in India as part in the UK-India Round Table talks in Simla.

There was a visit by a delegation of 15 Heads of Academic Institutions from Mumbai led by the Sheriff of Mumbai, Dr Indu Shahani. The delegation visited the Judge Business School, the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, Cambridge Programme for Industry, the Nanoscience Centre and the Cavendish Laboratory.

April 2008

Professor Alan Windle, Professor of Materials Science, visited IIT-Bombay in Mumbai to sign an MOU for collaboration in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

Dr Jonathan Trevor of Judge Business School visited Mumbai to interview prospective MBA students for admission, to give a lecture to the Cambridge Society Bombay on Judge and his specialist research area, HR in Energing Economies, and to meet with Tata Group representatives.

March 2008

Dr Helen Haugh of Judge Business School visited Gujarat in connection with the Tata International Social Entrepreneurship Scheme.

January 2008

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alison Richard, and more than twenty senior academics visited New Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Mumbai to increase the visibility of a wide and deep array of existing relationships between Cambridge and India, to develop new collaborations with academic, business and policy communities, to strengthen ties with alumni, who for over a century have been a vital part of the Cambridge diaspora, and to thank those who have supported Cambridge-based trusts which provide vital funding for students from India.

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