As part of Silver Jubilee celebrations, IIITH organised an interactive session with Dr. Harsh Mander, a social activist on A conversation with Harsh Mander on his new book Burning Pyres, Mass Graves and a State That Failed Its People: India’s Covid Tragedy on 5 November 5, 2023 at institutes KRB Auditorium.

Dr. Harsh Mander, a Ph.D from Vrije University, Amsterdam is an author, columnist, researcher, teacher and a human rights activist who works with survivors of mass violence, hunger, homeless persons, and street children. Dr. Mander formerly worked in the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), serving in the predominantly tribal states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for almost two decades. In 2017, he started the Karwan-e-Mohabbat campaign in solidarity with victims of communal violence. He is the author of over 25 books and writes regular columns for Indian Express, The Hindu, Scroll, The Wire, and Hindustan Times. He is currently leading the Centre for Equity Studies, a research organisation based in New Delhi and teaches courses on Poverty and Governance at IIM Ahmedabad. He also served as Special Commissioner to the Supreme Court of India in the Right to Food Campaign and was a member of the National Advisory Council of the Government of India, set up under the UPA government.

Dr. Harsh Mander is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana Award for peace work, the South Asian Minority Lawyers Award, M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award, among others. In 2022, he was shortlisted for the Nobel Peace Prize by the Peace Research Institute, Oslo.

Dr. Paul A Rosen, Project Scientist, NISAR Mission & Principal Investigator for NASA Advanced Information System Technology gave a distinguished lecture on The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Mission – The Final Stretch Toward a New Capability for Earth Science and Applications 12 October.

His talk described the mission, the measurements, and the technologies and techniques that plan to deliver over 40 Tbits of science and applications data per day to understand our ever-changing planet. NASA and ISRO are developing the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, planned for launch in early 2024. The mission will use synthetic aperture radar to map Earth’s solid surfaces every 12 days, persistently on ascending and descending portions of the orbit, over all land and ice. The mission’s primary objectives will be to study Earth land and ice deformation, and ecosystems, in areas of common interest to the US and Indian science communities.

Dr. Paul A Rosen research interests are in scientific exploration with and applications of radar, in particular interferometric methods for geodesy and surface characterization.

Dr. Paul A Rosen obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1989 and his Post-doc in Electrical Engineering in 1990 from Stanford University, Stanford, CA. He was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 2001, NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2002, and JPL Magellan Award in 2015. He is a Member of IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society and a Member of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society.

As part of IIITH’s silver jubilee celebrations, IIIT Hyderabad launched Prof Raj Reddy lecture series and the inaugural lecture was given by Dr. Vinton G Cerf on 2 September. Dr. Vinton G Cerf is the Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google, popularly known as one of the "Fathers of the Internet”. In light of Chandrayaan-3’s successful moon landing, Dr. Cerf spoke about the Solar System Internet. Here is the summary of his talk:

The Internet's origins reach back to the early 1960s as the US Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs were nearing their climax. Shortly after the Apollo 11 moon landing, the first packet switch of the Arpanet was delivered to UCLA. In the talk, some of the history of the Internet got some attention but more time was spent on the emerging Solar System Internet and its implications. In addition to the design of new protocols for deep space communication, we will also experience commercialization of space well beyond simple use of satellites for communication. This commercialization raises many very interesting questions about jurisdiction, policy, legal agreements and the like. The success of the recent Indian Moon landing underscores the pace at which this new chapter in human history is evolving.

As part of the IIITH’s silver jubilee celebrations, a fireside chat with Sri Chandrababu Naidu, former Chief Minister of United Andhra Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh was held on 23 August at Tarangani Amphitheatre.

During his visit to the campus, Sri Chandrababu Naidu viewed presentations and demos on selected research from the institute which was followed by the fireside chat – an evening conversation between Sri Chandrababu Naidu and Prof. Raj Reddy, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Turing Award winner. Sri Chandrababu Naidu interacted with faculty, students, staff and alumni of IIITH during the Q&A session