Dear ISMAANA members:

The ongoing surge of Corona virus pandemic has created great sense of personal and social insecurity around the world. We in USA have gone through over 8 months of off and on stay at home orders. The pandemic has inflicted high level of infection and death in USA. We express our profound sorrow for any alumni who have lost their loved ones or who are hurting due to pandemic caused economic distress. With the invention of multiple vaccines, we see the light at the end of this dark tunnel. We are hoping that by the end of summer 2021 large number of us will get vaccinated so that we can foresee life returning to a sense of normalcy.

India went through similar phases of lockdown and immense amount of hardship. We at ISMAANA raised funds to help PM cares fund to the tune of Rs. 50 Lakhs. This along with estimated collection of over Rs.59 lakhs from the college staff and India based alumni associations, made the total contribution from IIT (ISM) and alumni associations to over Rs.1.00 crores. This respectable amount helped many needy and suffering persons in India.

Due to Coronavirus, classes at IIT (ISM) are being held online with plans to hold physical classes after Holi. Post graduate students in the campus were sent back home and now are having classes online. This year Basant festival (Feb 2021) will also be held online.

We at ISMAANA continue to work on many projects to assist our alma mater as well as our north America based alumni. During the current academic year (2020-21) 39 students continued receiving merit cum means scholarships. Another 13 scholarships are being advertised for applications from new students.

In addition, 8 academic excellence awards are given to eight fourth year students in four earth science branches based on their academic performance during the first 3 years are given since 2015. More details are provided under ISMAANA scholarship programs.

Work on an innovation lab at IIT (ISM) is in the completion phase. Most of the ordered equipment has arrived. Activity is currently paused due to lockdown but expected to pick up as students return to the campus. Two projects were selected for Dr. Piyush Dutta innovation prize this year. This was the first award of innovation prize of Rs 1 Lakh sponsored by Dr Piyush Dutta (’60Mining).

After a successful seminar on waterflooding by Dr. Ganesh Thakur, ISMAANA has embarked on a series of online seminars on high value topics. Dr. Thakur is spearheading this effort with the help of Jitendra Kikani (ISMAANA), Dheeraj Kumar and 3 heads of departments of Mining, Applied Geology and Applied Geophysics. Further details are in the newsletter.

ISMAANA newsletter is being published on a regular basis to exchange communication with our North America based alumni. Our thanks to Vishal Gupta, Secretary, (vishal27@gmail.com) for this sincere effort.

An alumni database development program is ongoing for last two years with dedicated efforts of Gaurav Seth. If you know of any alumnus who is not receiving our newsletter, please let Gaurav know at smile.gaurav@gmail.com.

We started a fund-raising program in 2018 to enhance our endowment funds to continue and expand the academic excellence award program and to fund outstanding research projects at our alma mater. Additional funds are also needed to help IIT (ISM) students attend international seminars and conferences. Scarcity of funds limits us from considering many such requests during the year. Many of you have already contributed to the alumni fund. You may write your tax-deductible donation check to “Indian School of Mines Alumni” and send it to our treasurer Atul Kumar at 46 Huntsman Horn Circle, The Woodlands, TX 77380.

If you have any feedback to improve ISMAANA’s role or would like to contribute articles or news events or have any other comments, please send us a note.

Thank you.
Sincerely
Dipak Sarkar
President ISMAANA (’67 PE)
dksarkar@aol.com