4.Sam Pitroda biography ,images.

 4.Sam Pitroda

Biography
 

Born    : 4 May 1942 (age 69)
             Titlagarh, Orissa, India

Residence :    Delhi, India

Nationality:   Indian

Alma mater:     Maharaja Sayajirao University
Illinois Institute of Technology

Occupation :    Telecom engineer, inventor, development guru, entrepreneur

Employer  :   Advisor to the Prime Minister
Known for ;    Communication revolution

Title :    Innovator

Religion:     Hinduism

Children :    2

Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda a.k.a Sam Pitroda, the telephone maverick who revolutionized the state of telecommunications in India, is indeed a name to reckon with. Yes, it was mainly because of the efforts of this inventor, technocrat, and social thinker that telecom revolution started in India. Better feted as "The father of India's communication revolution," his contributions in the domain of telecommunications not just in India but globally, have been gargantuan. With his groundbreaking innovations and novel visions, he introduced many revolutionary ideas that changed the face of telecommunication and information technology. Along with being a pioneer in telecom, Sam Pitroda has made strong case for food, clean water, and adequate shelter for the unprivileged section. Through his efforts, he has brought telephones to the rural parts of India and some of the most isolated regions in the world. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to tag Sam Pitroda as the 'telecom whiz'.



Early Life:
 

Sam Pitroda was born on May 4, 1942 in Titlagarh, Orissa, India. His parents were originally from Gujarat, but were settled in Orissa. Inspired by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, his parents send him and his brother to Gujarat to learn more about the philosophy and teachings of the great political leader. Sam Pitroda completed his schooling from Vallabh Vidyanagar in Gujarat and pursued Masters in Physics and Electronics from Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara. After completing his studies in India he went to US to obtain his Masters in Electrical Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology from Chicago.



Career:
      

All through 1960s and 1970s, Sam Pitroda was involved in making cutting-edge inventions that were to be the new face of technology later. He is the first person to introduce microprocessor in telephone and is known for his invention of first Electronic Diary. In 1974, he founded his own company called Wescom Switching. Later Rockwell international acquired Wescom and Sam Pitroda became the Vice-President of the company. During his stay in the company, Pitroda brought about numerous changes in telecommunications industry, which eventually earned him humungous recognition as telecom maverick. With more than 100 patents in his name, Sam Pitroda became one of the leading names in telecommunications and information technology. The computer-themed card game called Compucards invented in 1983, made him even more famous in the technological world. After his return to India, he established the Centre for Developments of Telematics (C-DOT), which served as an autonomous telecom and R&D organization. In 1987, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi appointed Pitroda as advisor in Indian foreign and domestic telecommunication policies. Pitroda is considered as the main hand behind Indian revolutionary telecom industry and On Public Call Offices (PCO) which brought affordable call rates for both local and international calls. In July 2009, he became the advisor to Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh in the field of Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations. With his global leadership, vision and knowledge, he is known as one of the noted entrepreneur and advisor that India will be always proud of.


Achievements and Awards: 

The knowledge and dedication of Sam Pitroda has brought him number of awards from around the world. Some of the recognized awards given to him are the Dataquest IT Lifetime Achievement Award (2002), Skoch Challenger Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 Rajiv Gandhi Global India award in 2009 Padma Bhushan award by Indian government in 2009. Pitroda was elected as World Prominent Leader by the World Network of Young Leaders and Entrepreneurs WNYLE in 2008.


Timeline:
 

1942: Sam Pitroda was born.
1974: Founded a company called Wescom.
1983: Invented the popular Compucards, which created revolution in information technology.
1987: He worked under the then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as advisor in the field of foreign and domestic telecommunication policies.
1992: His biography, 'Sam Pitroda: A Biography' was published.
1993: Established foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Tradition (FRLHT) near Bangalore, India
2009: Became the advisor to Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh in Public Information, Infrastructure and Innovations.

Sam Pitroda - IJGPS Opening Ceremony - Keynote Address

UW-Madison's Nobel Prize Winners har gobind khorana

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman speech video

Pico Iyer-Biography and images

Pico Iyer:

Born :              Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer
                        1957 (age 53–54)
                        Oxford, England
Occupation:  Essayist, novelist
Genres:          Non-fiction/fiction
Notable award(s) :    Guggenheim Fellowship, 2005
Relative(s) :    Raghavan N. Iyer (father, deceased); Nandini Iyer (mother); Hiroko Takeuchi (wife)    
Influences:       Graham Greene, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau

Har Gobind Khorana -inspiring speeches And lives

 Born:9 January 1922

 Dies at the age of 89;(10 November 2011 in USA)

About HARGOBIND KHORANA :           

Har Gobind Khorana is an Indian-American molecular biologist of Indian-Punjabi origin. Har Gobind Khorana, the Indian born biochemist, was responsible for producing the first man made gene in his laboratory. Khorana`s work is an important scientific landmark of the 20th Century. It has brought closer the day, when synthetic DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) may be introduced into the defective human tissues to bring about their repair or treat mentally retarded people and change them into more intelligent and healthy human beings. His synthesis of RNA (Ribonucleic acid), capable of replication in laboratory, is a step towards the creation of life artificially. In fact, the researches have opened up a new branch called Genetic Engineering in Science. Har Gobind Khorana, along with Robert W. Holley and Marshall W. Nirenberg, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in the year 1968. In the same year, Khorana, along with Nirenberg, was also honoured with the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, by the Columbia University. In 1966, he became a citizen of the United States and eventually was awarded the National Medal of Science.

Early Life of Har Gobind Khorana:

Har Gobind Khorana was born in Raipur, Punjab (now in Pakistan) on 9th January 1922. His father was the village Patwari or Taxation official. Khorana attended D.A.V. High School in Multan and took his M. Sc from Punjab University at Lahore. On a Government scholarship in 1945, he went to England and obtained a PhD from the University of Liverpool, in the year 1948. Har Gobind Khorana spent a year in Zurich in 1948 - 1949, as a post-doctoral fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Career of Har Gobind Khorana:
                                                                          
    Har Gobind Khorana returned to England in the year 1950 and spent two years on a fellowship at Cambridge and began research on nucleic acids under Sir Alexander Todd and Kenner. His interest in proteins and nucleic acids grew at that time. In 1952, he went to the University of British Columbia, Vancouver on a job offer and there a group began to work in the field of biologically interesting phosphate esters and nucleic acids with the inspiration from Dr. Gordon M. Shrum and Scientific counsel from Dr. Jack Campbell. Har Gobind Khorana joined the University of Wisconsin, as Professor in 1960 and co-Director of the Institute of Enzyme Research and Professor of Biochemistry from 1962 to 1970 and continued his research. In the meantime, he also attained the citizenship of US. Khorana continued research on nucleic acid synthesis and prepared the first artificial copy of a yeast gene. Har Gobind Khorana is also the first to synthesise Oligonucleotides, that is, strings of nucleotides. These custom designed pieces of artificial genes are widely used in biology labs for sequencing, cloning and engineering new plants and animals. The Oligonucleotides, thus, have become indispensable tools in biotechnology. In 1970 he became the Alfred Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA, where he continues to work.

 He left Wisconsin for MIT in 1970 and retired in 2007.

His wife died in 2001, and their daughter, Emily, died in 1978. He is survived by two children, Julie and Dave, both of Massachusetts.

Har Gobind Khorana also worked with the RNAs with three repeating units and thus produced three different strings of amino acids. In this way, Har Gobind Khorana and his team had established that the mother of all codes, the biological language common to all living organisms, is spelled out in three letter words that are each set of three nucleotides codes for a specific amino acid. Khorana was also the first to isolate DNA ligase, an enzyme that links pieces of DNA together. This invention of Dr. Khorana has become automated and commercialised. The Nobel lecture of Har Gobind Khorana was delivered on 12th of December, 1968.

Achievements of Har Gobind Khorana:

         Khorana is recipient of many awards and honours for his achievement. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in the year 1968. An intense worker of the interpretation of the genetic code and its functioning in protein synthesis, Har Gobind Khorana was also awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in the same year. He also received Distinguished Service Award from Watumull Foundation, Hawaii in 1968; American Academy of Achievement Award, Pennsylvania in 1971; Padma Vibhushan, highest Presidential Award from India in 1972; J.C.Bose Medal also in 1972 and Willard Gibbs Medal of the Chicago Section of American Chemical Society in 1973-74.

He was also elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington as well as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In the year 1971, Har Gobind Khorana became a foreign member of USSR Academy of Sciences and in 1974 Honorary Fellow of the Indian Chemical Society.

Har Gobind Khorana was married to Esther Elizabeth Sibler of Swiss origin in 1952. They have three children Julia Elizabeth, Emily Anne, and Dave Roy. Khorana is currently settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts in United States of America.

Images of Ladakh .. BIRDS IN LADAKH..

 

Monk  

 BIRDS IN LADAKH

Home of 310 bird species, the Ladakh area is marked by the diversity of its avifauna. Lying close to the Palearctic-Oriental regions and also sharing some features of the Tibetan biome, this Trans-Himalayan area lies in the Jammu & Kashmir states in the northwest corner of India and is bounded by the Himalaya and the Karakoram ranges. Starting from 2750m over sea level and going up to 7600m, Ladakh lies in the rain shadow of the mountain ranges. The landscape is desolate and barren and winter temperatures drop to (-)400C. The uniqueness of the land has resulted in Ladakh being home to some birds which are not found anywhere else in India.

Indian Himalayas -LADAKH

                                       INDIAN HIMALAYAS -LADAKH

Ladakh - The Land of High Passes:

                    Across the Kashmir Valley and over the famous Zoji La pass(Zozi La pass) lies Ladakh -- the Land of High Passes. It is amagical land, so completely different from the green landscapeof some other parts of the Himalayas. It is nature at itsextreme. A land of freezing winds and burning hot sunlight,Ladakh is a cold desert lying in the rainshadow of the GreatHimalayas and other smaller ranges. Little rain and snowreaches this dry area, where the natural forces have created afantastic landscape.

Landscape of Ladakh.

  Ladakh forms part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in India.Parts of Ladakh are under the illegal occupation of Pakistanand China, respectively. The border of Ladakh touches those ofAfghanistan, Pakistan, China, the Kashmir Valley (India) andHimachal Pradesh (India). This region is made up of twoadministrative districts -- Leh District, with its headquartersat Leh, and Kargil District, with its headquarters at Kargil --and covers a total area of about 59,000 square kilometers.

Ladakh has an average elevation of 2,700 m to 4,200 m. Thearidity of this region is due to its location in the rainshadow area of the Great Himalayas, elevation and radiation of heatfrom the bare soil. The most striking physical feature ofLadakh, however, is the parallelism of its mountain ranges. Theregion is extremely dry, with rainfall as low as 10 cm eachyear.

Icy Ladakh

In Ladakh, large rivers and their tributaries have carved deepgorges far below their steep banks. However, their water is notof much use as the terraced fields lie high above the gorges.

Until the advent of the aircraft, Ladakh could only be reachedover dangerous, high passes. The Zoji La pass connecting Ladakhto Kashmir is at 14,000 ft and is the lowest approach from thewest. The southeast approach has to cross the 18,200 ft highTanglang La. And to the north lie the Saser La and Karakorampasses, gateways to Central Asia from where trading caravansused to come for many centuries.

Unit II Biography Sir C V Raman by Shubasree Desikan

Unit II Biography Sir C V Raman by Shubasree Desikan:

 

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888-1970), Indian physicist is best known for his research on the molecular scattering of light. For his discovery of this effect, known as the Raman Effect, he was awarded the 1930 Nobel Prize for Physics.

                                                          Raman with students

Summary:
Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888-1970), internationally reputed Indian physicist, is best known for his research on the molecular scattering of light. For his discovery of this phenomenon, known as the Raman Effect, he was awarded the 1930 Nobel Prize for Physics.
Raman was born in Trichinopoly (now Tiruchirapalli) to Chandra Shekar Iyer and Parvati Ammal. Raman was an avid reader right from his childhood. Three books among the great many books that he read as a child had a lasting impression on Raman’s young mind. These three books were “Light of Asia”, “The Elements of Euclid”, and “The Sensations of Tone”. The last of these books was about sound waves. Later on, when he grew up and got an opportunity to conduct research in IACS (Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science), he chose to study musical instruments. He also published a book on the mechanical theory of the musical instruments. Thus, as Raman himself humbly admitted later, what he read in his school days paved the way for his future interests.
Raman was a precocious child – he completed his schooling when he was just eleven and joined Presidency College at thirteen for his graduation. There he failed to impress his teachers because he was not athletic like his father and looked too young to be a college student. So, when he went to attend his first English class the professor asked him if he really belonged to the junior B.A. class. But, very soon Raman proved all his teachers wrong by asserting his presence and standing first in his class. His teachers were so impressed with his brilliance that they forced Raman to sit for the ICS examinations.
The Civil Surgeon of Madras declared Raman physically unfit to travel abroad for appearing for the Indian Civil Services examination. Raman did not get disappointed because he was not at all interested in any career other than scientific research. Raman forever remained grateful to this “great man” – the Civil Surgeon of Madras! He considered this a blessing in disguise and continued his higher education choosing his favorite subject Physics for his M.A. He made most of the liberal attitude of his teachers in Presidency College and ventured into research on light waves. He achieved great heights of glory in his chosen field and became the first student from the college to publish a paper in the prestigious Philosophical Magazine. He also emerged as the top ranker in the university.
He got married to Lokasundari in 1907. Soon after, he was forced to sit for the IFS (Indian Financial Service) examination because he was not in a position to pursue research in his favorite subject due to financial difficulties. He was appointed as the Assistant Accountant General in Calcutta. There, he came across the IACS – Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science which offered laboratory facilities for the research enthusiasts. The day when Raman walked into the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science was a historic moment because it was going to be the lab of this Association where he and his team performed the legendary experiments on light, which the world knows today as “The Raman Effect”. When Raman got the first chance to study and experiment at IACS, he decided to study musical instruments. He explained the working of ektara, a simple musical instrument. Raman also studied the physical nature of musical sounds and the mechanics of various musical instruments. He made a scientific study of the functions of violin and even designed an innovative mechanical violin. He later studied the functioning of various musical instruments and published many papers on the research findings.
He was appointed as the Professor of Physics at the University of Calcutta in 1917 by Ahutosh Mookerjee, the Vice Chancellor and a philanthropist. During his voyage across the Mediterranean Sea while coming back from his European trip after participating in a conference, Raman discovered that water molecules could scatter light just like air molecules. It led him to the discovery of his famous “Raman effect”. Raman continued as a professor till 1933 and after that he was appointed head of the department of physics of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. In 1947 he became director of the Raman Research Institute, also in Bangalore. He was knighted in 1929 and was named president of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1934.

Raman Effect:
Raman Effect, a change in frequency observed when light is scattered in a transparent material. This phenomenon was discovered by the Indian physicist Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman in 1928. When monochromatic light, such as that obtained from a laser, is passed through a transparent gas, liquid, or solid and is observed with the spectroscope, the spectral line ordinarily produced by the light has associated with it lines of longer and of shorter wavelength, called the Raman spectrum. These lines are caused by photons losing or gaining energy by elastic collisions with the molecules of the transparent substance. The Raman spectrum of a particular spectral line varies with the nature of the material that scatters the light. The Raman Effect has practical importance in spectrographic chemical analysis and in the determination of the structure of molecules.

Raman Research Institute:
Raman Research Institute, institution of higher education in the city of Bangalore. The institute was founded in 1948 by Chandrasekhara Ventaka Raman, and until 1970 was run from his personal resources. On his death, the institute was reorganized, and is now mainly funded by the Indian government’s Department of Science and Technology.
The Institute has active collaboration programmes with several research institutes and universities both nationally and internationally. The institute’s library has holdings of some 18,850 volumes and 22,000 periodicals. Raman’s principal scientific interests in optics, spectroscopy, and vision are reflected in the institute’s main current research specializations, which embrace astronomy and astrophysics, condensed matter, optics, and theoretical physics.

About Haven`s Gate

                  Pictures of India - Ladakh - the Maitreya Buddha (future Buddha) at Tikse

Introduction

Pico Iyer is one of the most respected travel writers alive today. He was born in England, raised in California, and educated at Eton, Oxford, and Harvard. His essays, reviews, and other writings have appeared in Time, Conde Nast Traveler, Harper’s, the New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, and Salon.com. His books include “Video Night in Kathmandu”, “The Lady and the Monk”, “Cuba and the Night”, “Falling off the Map”, “Tropical Classical” and “The Global Soul”. They have been translated into several languages and published in Europe, Asia, South America, and North America. His latest work is “Abandon”.

Iyer visited Ladakh in 2004 and more than four chapters in “Sandwiches Should NEVER Taste Like Cow Crap” are dedicated to Ladakh – and the place still remains today as one of the highlights of Asia – barren, dry, dusty, and breathless: the world’s highest roads are there, and standing at nearly 16,000 feet on some of the higher passes, gasping for air is something not easily forgotten.

Ladakh is located between India, Pakistan, and China. The eastern portion of Ladakh, which is part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, covers an area of 59,343 sq km, and has a population of around 233,000. Pakistan controls the western segment of Ladakh, principally Gilgit, Hunza, Skardu, and Baltistan. The extreme western portion of Ladakh, the plateau of Aksai Chin, is controlled by the Chinese. The towns

of Leh and Kargil, respectively, are the two administrative centres.

Topographically, Ladakh is a highly arid and mountainous region, the highest inhabited region on Earth. The Himalaya range acts as a natural barrier to the moisture-laden monsoon clouds. This topographical feature in large part explains the aridity of the region, which comprises five distinct valleys: Dras, Suru, Zanskar, Indus, and Nubra.

         Pictures of India - Ladakh - interior of a prayer room, Tikse

Summary of “Heaven’s Gate”

Pico Iyer has written about his experiences while traveling in Ladakh, a Buddhist kingdom perched high in the Himalayas, for the New York Times’ 2008 TMagazine. His observations on the life of Ladakh, people, animals and landscape, and the uniqueness of the place are very interesting, and in particular the comparisons to Bhutan and Tibet are very interesting. He describes the marmots scrambling across their path and spots kiang – or wild asses at a distance – as he proceeds along his way to Nubra Valley. He also observes the unique two-humped Bactrian camels foraging in the dunes in the backdrop of milky white landscape. There were also seen white two storied buildings amid apricot and willow trees.
Iyer was stuck by the sudden and majestic appearance of Diskit Gompa – a Buudhist manostery – rising high into the heavens on his way to Ladakh, a traditional Buddhist city called “the world’s last Shangri La” – an imaginary and remote paradise. The author had gathered some interesting information on the place and its life through books like “Journey on Ladakh” by Andrew Harvey. Through his wide travels he had also learnt that the pastoral life still exists there untouched by any trace of modernity. During his visit to the place he found that the place is full of Indian soldiers because of the border disputes with Pakistan and that the place is also cosmopolitan in nature due to the international trade activity there. He was surprised by these because he had expected this place to have had no contacts with the outside world. He also saw men and women resembling the people of various neighboring nations.
Iyer discovered the true paradoxical nature of the place. He found at the place young people who were on the verge of forgetting their roots in an attempt to catch up with the so called modernization hanging out in the pubs and neglecting their culture and traditions. And, on the other hand he also found people, just 10 km away from Ladakh, celebrating the traditional Ladakhi festivals and sports with all the zeal and fervor. The author also observes some developmental work taking place here there on the streets of Ladakh – mainly to develop the tourism. He was also amused by the sight of the shopping malls and pizza huts. The author laments the fact that the Ladakhis these days are not only abandoning their past but also packaging their culture in an effort to attract more and more foreign tourists.
The author also describes with admiration the efforts of people like Helena Norberg-Hodge, a foreigner settled in Ladakh, to preserve the uniqueness and the purity of the place by creating environmental awareness in the locals as well as in the visiting tourists. The members of the women’s alliance set up by her were also actively taking part in the campaign started by this foreign lady.
Iyer passionately declares in a nostalgic tone that for him and many others Ladakh presents a way of retrieving the childhood ecstasy experienced by all of us and concludes saying that it truly represents the lost paradise on the earth.

1. Haven`s GATE

How Buddhism was Brought to Ladakh

 Panorama at an altitude of 4,094m. The Srinagar-Leh Road was constructed in the 1960’s and descends more than 1,000m to the rugged landscape of Ladakh.


                  Historians state that Dards made West Tibet their home in the 4th and 5th centuries. They say that these people migrated along the course of the Indus River and that they introduced irrigation and settled communities. But who were the Dards? Colonial historians placed almost all peoples and languages of the Upper Indus River into one pot and defined Tibetans as Baltis, later obscuring and simplifying distinct identities by introducing three other terms, “Dard, Dardistan, and Dardic,” which in truth do not occur in classical sources and were never mentioned before. John Mock noted that the word dard “may be a loan word from Persian via Urdu” and means “pain.” He investigated all sources (Herodotus, Strabo, Sanskrit, Puranic, and Kashmiri references) that led modern scholars to make such a mistake and wrote: “This usage of the term is curiously parallel to the Sanskrit usage, where it connoted non-specific ferocious outsiders living in the mountains beyond the borders of civilization.
 

 Mid 16th century mural of Guru Padmasambhava, with Yeshe Tsogyal and Princess Mandarava in the Temple in the Citadel of Basgo.

                                    
 
The 9-meter high image carved in the rock is referred to as Maitreya Buddha in most guidebooks, but the image is Avalokiteshvara, Lord of Compassion, since the statue has four arms. It is carved in the late Gupta period of India (8th or 9th century). Mulbek marks the western gateway from Srinagar to Ladakh.

                          It is not clear when the first Buddhist communities were established in Ladakh. The site of His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorje, writes that “Starting about the 3rd century, Buddhism began to grow and spread outside India, adjusting to local cultures and the varying conditions of different countries. Buddhism began to take root in different countries in Asia as they came in contact with Buddhism from the early 2nd century B.C.E. Buddhism became nearly extinct in India, the country of its origin

History books concede that after the eastward propagation of Buddhism in the 7th century, Ladakh and its neighbours were overrun by those fleeing westwards from the early Tibetan Tubo Kings. The chiefs of the Tubo Empire in Yarlung (which is situated in Central Tibet) had established an aristocracy and displaced the native inhabitants who had an independent state with its own language, literature, and culture; these people continue living in remote areas of Zhang Zhung in West Tibet proper, Kashmir, Ladakh, Zanskar, and the Himalayan regions of Nepal.

Under the patronage of King Trison Detsen, Khenpo Shantarakshita from India established a monastic order in Tibet by ordaining the first seven monks at Samye Monastery in the year 791. He called Guru Rinpoche to vanquish all obstructions impeding the construction and to help establish Buddhism on the Tibetan Plateau.



Guru Padmasambhava, the “Second Buddha,” travelled from Northwest India through Lahaul-Spiti, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Arunchal Pradesh and firmly established Buddhism in these lands. The site of His Holiness the Karmapa wrote, “If born in the year 732, then he would have been 54 years of age when he made the difficult journey into the Land of Snow”3  - a moment in history that denotes the first coming of Buddhism to the Himalayan region. Furthermore, “One may conclude that a major reason for so many Indian Buddhist sages coming to Central Tibet from Kashmir, and notably, the famous Padmasambhava from Uddiyana, was the simple fact that Tibet then ruled much of this region. Nothing is really reported concerning Padmasambhava’s life in Kashmir. He lived, some say, with wandering yogis and sadhus, in exile from his homeland. Others report that it was during this period that he acquired knowledge and skill in various crafts. In Kashmir he earned the name Sthiramati, ‘the Youthful Genius.
 
It is often reported that the war-like activity and expansion of the Tubo Empire in Central Tibet pressed the Himalayan peoples living in the west to block their advances on the one hand, while they were forced to fight the Muslims on the other. The Dharma Fellowship notes that between “720 and 726 the King of Baltistan moved his seat to Gilgit out of fear of the Tibetan advance. (…) Although the King of Baltistan remained loyal to his alliance with China, the nobility and peoples of Baltistan are said to have gone over to the Tibetan side. (…) Mention of tribute from the King of Kapisa in 748 ascertains that by that date Uddiyana had become a vassal state.
 

 Mural of Mahasiddhas and Lotsawas, “Great Translators,” in the Tempel of Stakne Citadel.
 

During those times, King Lalitaditya-Muktapida, who ruled between approx. 725 and 756 C.E., had united Ladakh and gave craftsmen who fled from northern India the possibility to work and build monasteries in his kingdom. Many rock reliefs from the 8th century onwards can be attributed to King Lalitaditya’s times. David Snellgrove and Tadeusz Skorpuski wrote: “Religious treasures, both Hindu and Buddhist, were plundered from all over northern India and craftsmen brought in from distant lands, thus building up what might have proved an amazingly rich heritage. But even as it was being built up, it was already being ravaged by raiding Tibetans, who were then the main power in Central Asia and scarcely yet converted to Buddhism. Moreover, Lalitaditya’s successors were unable to hold the kingdom together, and several centuries of political turmoil and disruption, of internal strife and foreign invasion must have resulted in the dissipation of what must have been an extraordinary civilization long before the country fell to a Muslim dynasty in 1337 A.D. Little more than the foundations of a Buddhist monastery, a large temple and a stupa, may still be seen at Lalitaditya’s one-time capital of Parihasapura, some 30 km north of Srinagar. Ladakh must surely have been subject to him, and thus it is to the 8th and subsequent centuries that we may attribute the Buddhist rock-reliefs, which represent the most important traces of pre-Tibetan, i.e., direct Indian Buddhist influence in Ladakh.

Nagonda Institute of Technology and Science

 About NITS:

Nagonda Institute of Technology and Science has been established in the year 2008 by Nalgonda Educational Society with the prime aim of imparting technical education. NITS is approved by AICTE and affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University. NITS campus has been inaugurated on 25th April, 2008. The first batch orientation programme held on 2nd October 2008.

In the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, “To provide scientists and technologists of the highest caliber who would engage in research, design and development to help building the nation towards self-reliance in her technological needs”.

The activities of the institute in various branches of technology and science are carried out in four branches in the first year and several other branches in fourth coming years. There is a bright scope for academic planning and research development in near future.

NITS offers B.Tech course in six branches:

Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE)
Computer Science and Engineering (CSE)
Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE)
Information Technology (IT)
Civil Engineering (CE) from 2009 - 2010 academic year
Mechanical Engineering (ME) from 2010 - 2011 academic year

Since the estabishment the institute has been doing its best in all aspects in delivering goods for the larger benifits of the students. In the coming acedamic years the institute will be equiped with mechanical and civil engineering and additional sections in the existing branches.

Apart from the regular academic curricular the institute focuses on extra curricular activities for students all round development with academic excellence.

Current Status :- Private College

Contact :-
Nalgonda Institute of Technology And Science /NITS
Hyd Road, Cherlapally
Nalgonda
Pin - 508 001
District -Nalgonda
Andhra Pradesh
India.
Phone :- (08682) 221703, 221706, 9948355522
Email :- nits.info@nitsnlg.ac.in
Website :- http://www.nitsnlg.ac.in/