SPIC MACAY Chapter

Fourteenth of November (Children’s day) was aptly chosen for the inauguration of the IIT-BBS chapter of the Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth. The event was held at the auditorium of the institute on Saturday. The event started with a talk by Dr. Kiran Seth, one of SPIC MACAY’s founders on their attempts to encourage young men and women who were more interested in western music to return back to the deep-rooted melodies of their ancestors. Even though their initial achievements were not very encouraging, the organisation blossomed and now stands tall with many branches across the world. The hallmark of the event was most certainly, the concert by Ustad Abdul Rashid Kahn, the 102 year old veteran musician whose presence that day made the event more memorable. His singing created a transcendental atmosphere, while leading the audience through his experience of music as it should be. His expertise in singing dhrupad, dhamar and thumri made the day a truly blessed experience etched permanently in our minds. His troupe, which included his grandson on the tabla, supported him well. The event concluded with a request to the students to attend classical music concerts and imbibe in themselves the good moral values the Indian value system has to offer. Everyone left; feeling contended that their valuable time was invested at the perfect place.

-- Sricharan R

Sufi Concert

On 21 August 2009, The Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth, often known by its initials (SPIC MACAY) organised a Sufi music performance by the Qutabi brothers in the IIT Bhubaneswar auditorium.

This Friday evening served as a perfect start of the weekend for the hundreds of students and faculty members, who remained hooked to the very beats of Qawwali, throughout the show. The soul stirring music and inspiring lyrics left audience mesmerised and yearning for more. Each one of the artists performed right from their souls making audience a part of their rhythmic journey. And as promised by this 700 year old classical music style, each of the listener was transported to a state of ‘wajad’-a state where one can reach out to Allah and hold on to him for the peace of his mind and soul. The intermittent quick-witted and spontaneous ‘shero-shayari’ made the auditorium to ring out with thunderous laughter and claps. And as the evening proceeded the tempo inside the auditorium shot up, ending with a standing ovation for the incredible performers and also leaving behind the song-‘Dama Dum Mast Kalandar’ on every one's lips.

-- Anurag

Novus - 2009

In the autumn of 2009, The Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar organised its first ever student symposium– NOVUS.

The young aspirants, for the first time, got an opportunity to showcase their latent talents. The first symposium in IIT Bhubaneswar was just the perfect outlet for the student’s ideas to prove their mettle. Novus-09 was the brainchild of Prof G .Panda, Head of School of Electrical Sciences.

As a new trend, the nomenclature of the symposium was left to the students as an open competition, and thus the event got the tag "NOVUS"- meaning ‘innovation’ in Latin.

NOVUS'09 was organised at the campus of IIT Bhubaneswar. The events in the symposium included paper presentation on any topic from the field of Science & Technology, but outside the IIT curricula. The symposium also consisted of an E-Magazine competition and Student Database designing aimed to enhance the software skills of the students.

The paper presentation was an intra-department competition that included both the first and second year students, in which one group could have a maximum of 2 students of the same department, whereas the e-magazine and database competition was conducted irrespective of the department and the team size was restricted to 4.

The Director, Prof Madhusudhan Chakraborty inaugurated the two day event with an inspiring speech followed by the four head of schools giving an overview of the event. This was followed by the students elucidating their papers, exploring various topics ranging from illustrative “Special theory of relativity” to innovative “Witricity” and engineering marvels like the “Bandra Worli sea link”. The interactive quiz sessions, in between the presentations, added an extra shade to the whole episode. Moreover, the guest lectures by eminent personalities added to the glamour of the event.

About a week later the results were announced and all the prize winners awarded.

Chronicling this as a significant start, we shall move on with hopes for another year of diligence, and conclude greater works to put down in our archive of success. The event will be back next year with greater events and prizes!

Winners:

Event Title Competition : Sujit Bharti (3^rd Semester)

Event Poster Competition : Himanshu and Yalla reddy (3^rd Semester)

Event Webpage Design Competition : Pradosh Kumar Sahoo and Raghav R. (3^rd Semester)

Paper Presentation: -

School of Infrastructure

1st Prize: - Anurag & Nimish Shrivastava (3^rd Semester)

2^nd Prize: - Mudit Sharma & Pradosh Kumar Sahoo (3^rd Semester)

3^rd Prize: - Rushendra Kumar & Praveen Kumar Reddy (1^st Semester)

School of Electrical Sciences

1st Prize: - K Krishna Chaitanya & Rohit Patnaik (1^st Semester)

2^nd Prize: - Mihir kr. Roy & Sumeet Keshkar (3^rd Semester)

3^rd Prize: - K Sai Santosh & TNS Nihar (1^st Semester)

School of Mechanical Sciences

1st Prize: - Shikhar Srestha & Pritish Astik (1^st Semester)

2^nd Prize: - Raghav R & Koustav Bandyopadhyay (3^rd Semester)

3^rd Prize: - Sukesh & Karthikeyan (1^st Semester)

E-Magazine Competition : - Sai Santosh, Benny Stephen, TNS Nihar, Krishna Sumanth (1^st Semester)

Student Database Competition: - Utkarsh Srivastava (3^rd Semester)

-- Rohit Khattar