While January 1st is officially the start of the New Year, alumni of the Indian Institutes of Technology in the New England area proved that any time you get together and have fun; it surely is a New Year’s celebration. Officially called the “After New Year’s Party,” it was a social get together for the families and friends of IIT Alumni. Over 140 people attended the event which was held at the Burlington Marriott. Many local celebrities including Dev Gupta, founder of Narad Networks; Triveni Upadhayay, founder of Mayflower Communications; Amar Gupta from the Sloan School of Management; Kaplesh Kumar, former President of IAGB, and IAFPE-NE; Prem Tanden, President of Golden Club, and others attended the event. Prem Sinha, President of IITSINE, welcomed everyone. Many distinguished IIT alumni were recognized. Puran Dang, founder of IITSINE (IIT KGP) was recognized for receiving the Indus Star 2002 award while Dwarika Agarwal was recognized for receiving the distinguished alumni service award from IIT Mumbai.

The entertainment for the evening included music and dance. A professional group Yaadein directed by Harish Panchal presented hindi film songs from different eras. Ramesh Hariharan (IIT Mumbai) and his wife Radhika Hariharan, presented some popular Kishore Kumar hits. The program included a lovely Bengali folk dance number by Divya Agarwal and Ambika Melville. This was followed by a fun piece from the movie Taal presented by Anila and Sumi Sinha and a foot tapping Hrithik Roshan hit - ‘ek pal ka jina’ performed by Arun Saigal. The performances ended with a graceful dance performance – Maiyya Yashodha presented by Abritee Dhal and Abha Verma. All the perfomances were superb. The evening ended with a grand dinner and Bingo. Jayas Damodaran was master of ceremonies.

About IITSINE

IIT-SINE is an autonomous, non-profit organization made up of members affiliated in an academic or other professional capacity with any of the Indian Institutes of Technology in India. Indian Institutes of Technology includes IIT Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Gauhati and Roorkee. IITSINE provides opportunities for interaction through organizing of activities such as seminars, discussion groups, and dialogues with visiting IITians. Another important goal is to develop and nurture mutually beneficial relationships between the members and the IITs and to support the IITs in their effort to establish relationships with US based organizations.

The Agarwal IITSINE Awards Program -Initiated by the former IITSINE President Dwarika Agarwal, this award has been instituted to tap the potential of the young and the brightest. India faces problems of colossal magnitudes in many areas, which hinders development. This award was initiated to motivate students to think about some of the burning issues in India. IITSINE members feel that if young minds in India are encouraged to think about and produce solutions to these problems, India will be well on its way to achieving its great potential. The program awards cash prize to the best paper submitted on a topic that presents a viable technical solution to a problem that is currently facing India.

The 2001 award was given to Prashant Rajurkar and Amit Jain for their paper titled “Waste Minimization in a Chlor-Alkali Plant” The paper presents an analysis of different techniques used for waste minimization in one of the units of a chlor-alkali plant. The main focus of this paper is the evaluation of source reduction alternatives. It uses a criterion in which the economic performance of the process that includes all the waste related costs within an environmental accounting framework is considered. This paper also finds the various other possibilities to reuse the sludge produced in the above-mentioned unit. The award was presented to them at IIT Mumbai on December 23, 2001 at the Alumni Day by Anil Saigal and Dwarika Agarwal.

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