NCTP 2013 at Tezpur University

The Physics Department of Tezpur University is organizing National Conference on Theoretical Physics 2013 during February 8-12, 2013 (http://www.tezu.ernet.in/notices/events/nctp12.pdf). This was supposed to happen during October, 2012 but some unavoidable circumstances led to the postponement. In spite of this unfortunate postponement, NCTP 2013 is going to host around hundred participants from different parts of the country including thirteen invited speakers. The topics covered in the invited as well as contributed talks cover almost every area of theoretical physics. Invited speakers include Prof. Amitava Raychaudhuri (Calcutta University), Prof. D P Roy (TIFR), Prof. Rajeev Bhalerao (TIFR), Prof. Raj Gandhi (HRI), Prof. Jayant Murthy (IIA), Prof. Pushpa Khare (IUCAA), Prof. Vinod Krishan (RRI), Prof. Nikhil Chakraborty (SINP), Prof. M. Khan (Jadavpur Univ), Prof. D. K. Choudhury (Gauhati Univ), Prof. N. N. Singh (Gauhati Univ), Prof. Amarjyoti Choudhury (Tezpur Univ) and Prof. S. Ghosh (IIG, Mumbai). The conference is going to take off day after tomorrow with the keynote address by Prof Amitava Raychaudhuri in the afternoon (at 16:30 hrs). From Saturday onwards the technical sessions on Astrophysics, Cosmology, Neutrino Physics, Plasma Physics, Hadron Physics, Computational Physics will start. I hope the participants will find this conference to be of great scientific importance with a pleasant stay at Tezpur.

Adios 2012!

2012 indeed was great (to me at least), not just because the world didn't end on 21st December but for several other reasons, mostly academic though. The year took off while I was in the awesome city of Montreal, Canada. Although it was very cold, watching the snowfall and tasting so many different varieties of wines from different countries were something which made my stay there memorable. I got learn some new physics and could finish some parts of the project before leaving. The most hectic part during the first couple of months of 2012 was to write thesis and apply for postdoc positions. The job market scene was so poor that even after applying for around 40 odd positions trough AJO, I didn't get any positive response. After coming back to India in March, I submitted my thesis in the month of April without too much editing, but thankfully it didn't have to go through too many corrections after reviewer's comments came. I am thankful to the anonymous referee for reviewing my thesis just on time. That enabled my institute to hold my defense just on the deadline (a week before the convocation) and my degree was awarded in the 50th convocation of IIT Bombay. Although I could not attend convocation, getting both Masters and PhD degree was really really huge for me. Another gift from 2012 was the central government job I got in Tezpur University where I am working now. That was a big relief after so many postdoc rejections. It was also like a dream coming true that I got a job in my home state Assam and that too in Tezpur which is just 25 kilometer from my home. I also made my second trip to ICTP for the BENE 2012 workshop, participated in the TeVPA 2012 conference in Mumbai. Not just me, 2012 was a great year for Physics in general. Discovery of Higgs boson at LHC, measurement of non zero reactor mixing angle are undoubtedly the most remarkable things happened in the science this year. I hope similar excitements would continue in the year 2013 as  well, may not be from LHC which wont have any proton proton collisions until 2015, but from other experimental frontiers as well related to dark matter, neutrinos and many more. Happy New Year 2013 to all of us!