Last week on 7 June, the President of AIT Prof. Said Irandoust
hosted a dinner meeting for which was attended by Thai National
Nanotechnology Center's Director, Professor Wiwut Tanthapanichakoon;
Director of the S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata,
India, Professor Arup Kumar Raychaudhuri and my colleague, Dr. Joydeep
Dutta, our Nanotechnology Center Director. The occasion was to start a
recently awarded project under the Thailand-India Inter Governmental
Programme of Cooperation in Science & Technology to which AIT has
partnered with the other two institutions.
Professor Wiwut has been supporting AIT's initiatives in
Nanotechnology Research and education over the last five years.
Discussions with Professor Arup Kumar Raychaudhuri and his colleagues
(Dr. Pal, Dr. Barnali and Mr. Sudorson) focused on possibilities of
fortifying AIT's interactions with premier Indian Institutes of
Research. Professor Raychaudhuri is a man of immense stature in the
Indian science scenario. He has previously served as von Humboldt
Fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, Professor at the Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore, as Director of the National Physical
Laboratory, New Delhi and is currently Senior Professor and Director of
the S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences.
Professor Raychaudhuri will help advise and guide to find ways in
which AIT can more prominently be introduced to the Indian S&T
funding possibilities and believes that AIT could contribute more
towards the dissemination of the Indian education and research
initiatives in the region. He mentioned about the ongoing joint
research with AIT in nanotechnology which is leading to a broader
possibility which will be discussed during the visit of Dr. Dutta to
his Institute. He also promised to assist in building stronger
institutional links with premier educational institutions in
India.