TREE-PLANTATION MARKS THE OBSERVANCE OF 'EARTH-WEEK' AT AITS

Situated at a walking distance from thickly forested, low foothills, AITS is literally nestled in the lap of Himalayas. Being a part of the verdant Amrapali Institute campus, the AITS building has been carved out of mango groves that existed there from earlier on. Thus, while mature mango trees densely shade the central courtyard of AITS, the front of the building overlooks a large mango grove bordered by newly setup lawns and decorative hedges.

This, however, is not enough for the inmates of AITS. Therefore, based on the suggestion of its ecologically sensitive, nature-loving Director, Prof. Ashok Malhotra, AITS decided to observe Earth Week by holding a tree and shrub plantation drive on Saturday, 24^th April 2010. Students took up this activity very enthusiastically and the results are there for all to see and admire! Dr. Ajay Pali of AITS helped to organise the students. Vijay Singh Mahara, Bhavika Varma, Swati Kavidyal, Mohit Nagpal were amongst the students who displayed exceptional enthusiasm to organise the drive

AITS COMES OF AGE

In the decade-completion year of the venerable Amrapali Group of Institutes, its newest member, the Amrapali Institute of Technology and Sciences (AITS) is about to achieve a much awaited milestone, viz. passing out of its first batch of students. Exhibiting commendable maturity, students of the IIIrd year expressed a strong wish to bid farewell formally to students of IVth year, the passing out batch of AITS. Motivated by the current Director of AITS, Prof. Ashok Malhotra, AITS students have successfully organised various programmes during the current academic year (August 2009 onwards). Hence, it was decided to entrust completely the planning and organisation of the farewell party to students of the IIIrd year.

All faculty members of AITS and students of IIIrd and IVth years attended the well-planned and immaculately conducted farewell party, which was held on 30th April 2010. Initiating the party on Prof. Malhotra’s request, the CEO of the Institute, Dr. Sanjay Dhingra spoke to the students at length, nostalgically recalling AITS’s long journey from a nebulous idea in his mind to an Institute on the verge of presenting its students to the world at large. He expressed his desire to commend the contributions of various people who have made this dream of his a reality, most notably Prof. K. K. Pande, the founding Director of AITS.

After Dr. Dhingra’s touching address, students expressed their heartfelt gratitude to AITS and all its members for readying them for a successful career. Then, the party spirit overtook all students and everybody present had a rollicking time

SCHOLARSHIPS FOR AITS STUDENTS

Scholarships are an integral part of modern-day higher education and AITS tries its utmost to ensure that its students have as many opportunities to receive scholarships as are possible. While some scholarships are available from the Government of India and the Uttarakhand Government, Amrapali Institute has also made provision of some scholarships to be provided to those of its students who exhibit all-round excellence. Thus, in the months of March and April 2010, 46 students of AITS have received government instituted scholarships and 7 AITS students have received scholarships from Amrapali Institute.

These scholarships are in addition to the international scholarship received by a student of AITS in November 2009. AITS is constantly endeavouring to increase such opportunities for its students and as it becomes older, newer and more numerous scholarships are likely to become available to AITS students.

AITS STUDENTS EXCEL IN EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

Now in its fourth year of existence, AITS has reached the AICTE sanctioned student strength.This increase in the number of students has been accompanied with gradual maturing of senior students and their motivating, guiding and moulding their juniors. Accordingly, AITS students from the first to the fourth year have been displaying excellence in activities beyond their curriculum. This year, some of the institute’s prestigious programmes, like the fresher’s party, Abhinandan and the annual programme, Spandan, were successfully organised by the students, thereby exhibiting their organisational abilities.

The trend of AITS’ students winning competitive events across the state has also continued. At the Uttarakhand Technical University’s (UTU) annual cultural programme, Aarohan, held at Kumaun Engineering College, Dwarahat in October 2009, the AITS student’s music_band Noir, led ably by Himank Pandey (CSE – 4th Year), won the event by out-performing the competing teams by a large margin and was awarded a cash prize of Rs. 15,000/-.

With the new semester commencing at the end of January 2010, AITS students got many new opportunities to exhibit their calibre in extra-curricular activities. February 2010 saw AITS students participating in two events held at three locations.

*A team participated in Shivatech ’10, organised by Shivalik Institute, Dehradun at which Abhishek Joshi (ECE – 1st Year) was among the winners in Play With Gates, an event which required proficiency in designing logical circuits.

*This was followed by participation in Uttarakhand Technical University’s (UTU) Annual Sports Meet, held partly at Dehradun and partly in the campus of Kumaun Engineering College, Dwarahat. In the cricket tournament, which was held at Dehradun, AITS’ cricket team was among the semi-finalists. AITS teams also participated in many other events, viz. Chess, Volleyball, Basketball, carom etc. which were held at Dwarahat. Here, both the Girls’ and Boys’ teams were among the winners. The students who brought laurels to AITS in the Chess event were Manju Bajetha, Poonam Rawat, Pallavi Naithani and Chetna Arora, Gautam Grover, Rituj Chaudhary, Kuldeep Koranga and Ishan Tiwari.

*March 2010 brought a wealth of opportunities for AITS students to exhibit their mettle and they utilised these opportunities to the fullest, leaving no one in doubt about their abilities.

* The first event in which the AITS students took part was Amrapali Institute’s annual function, Spandan ’10. All the constituent institutes of the Amrapali family made special efforts to shine in the home event, thus making all competitive events in the programme closely contested ones. So much so that in the group music event, Band-War, two bands from AITS, Ozone and Noir, competed against each other, with Ozone stealing the show. Despite the intense competition in all the events held, AITS students stole the show in most of the events, the winners being:

• Solo Singing:~ 1st - Himank Pande

• Solo Dance:~ 1st - Shivam Shah and 3rd - Jeetendra Kumar

• Ad-O-Mania:~ 1st - Anubha Upret

• Band_War:~ 1st – Ozone and 1st - Noir

• Fash-N:~ 1st - Neha Joshi and 2nd - Abhishek Chauhan

Now was the turn of the prestigious Dharohar ’10, the annual cultural programme of the G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar. AITS students participated actively in many of the events held, which included Singing, Dancing, Mehandi, Rangoli, Fashion Show etc. Himank Pandey (CSE – 4th Year) led student band, Noir, convincingly won the event it competed in.

March 2010 also saw IIT – Roorkee hold Srishti ’10, a workshop-cum-competition in the field of Robotics. Due to the prestige enjoyed by IIT – Roorkee and the subject matter being of professional interest to engineering students, the programme saw active participation by students from across the country. The competing teams belonged to engineering institutes from various states, e.g. Uttar Pradesh (Bareilly, Meerut, Ghaziabad), Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal, Vidisha), Chhattisgarh (Bilaspur), Andhra Pradesh etc.

AITS’ Club Robotica, represented by Rohit Pande (3rd Year), Rituj Chaudhary (3rd Year), Himanshu Upadhyay (3rd Year) and Puneet Kumar Singh (1st Year), designed and assembled a working model of an autonomous robot with Line Following, Edge Detecting, and Obstacle Finding capabilities, which was awarded the first prize in the competition.

We congratulate all the winners and thank them for making the entire AITS proud!!

FORMAT FOR LAB SHEET

The required format for lab sheet reports is posted here. Click on the title it is a hot link

CONCLUSION OF CONFERENCE

Amrapali Group of Institutes National Conference on Identifying the Research Basis for Sustainable Development of Kumaun Region

In the Inaugural Session, held on 15th January, after the welcome address of Prof. Ashok Malhotra, Director, Amrapali Institute of Technology and Sciences, the Chief Guest, Prof.V.P.S.Arora, the Hon’ble Vice Chancellor of Kumaun University spoke at length on sustainable development, defining it an act of balancing between consumption and availability of resources. He opined that the fertile land should be reserved for food production and establishments should be built on least productive lands. The Guest of Honour, Mr. C.B. Singh, the General Manager, NHPC Tanakpur gave a visual account of the National Hydro Power Corporation and its activities. This session ended with a vote of thanks by Prof. Ashutosh Priya Awasthi, the Director of MBA Programe of Amrapali Institute.

In the Plenary Sessions, Dr. V.K. Pathak, the Hon’ble Vice Chancellor of Uttarakhand Open University expressed the need of research in the realm of interaction of people and Government for achieving sustainable development. Prof Samantray of Pantnagar University delivered an enlightening talk on the role of Information and Communication Technology on sustainable rural development and provided ample scope for the activities in this field for Computer Engineers and Researchers. Prof Ajay Rawat, the former Head of the History Department, Kumaun University, gave an illuminating account of both Himalayan Flora and Fauna diversities and suggested measures for their preservation. Prof. R.C. Pant, the former Vice Chancellor of Kumaun University in his keynote address analyzed both Biodiversity and Higher Education in depth and stressed that in higher and professional education the research is an integral part of teaching. The keynote address delivered by Prof. M .P. Singh, the Dean of Agriculture, Pantnagar University on Sustainable Development of Kumaun region was quite informative highlighting the benefits of Precision Farming.

16 th January was devoted to technical sessions. In the field of social and economic development, the contributors suggested women upliftment through a collective effort of the government, NGOs and private agencies by adopting Information & Communication Technologies as well as Natural Resource Development. For the spread of Information and Communication Technology, village High Schools were suggested as Delivery Centers and for ensuring