Dear ISMAANA members:
The current outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic is creating a great sense of personal and social insecurity around the world. We in the USA have gone through over 2 months of stay at home orders. The pandemic has inflicted a high level of infection and death in the USA. We express our profound sorrow for any alumni who have lost their loved ones or who are hurting due to pandemic caused economic distress. We are hoping and praying that this pandemic would slow down and end so that life can come back to some level of normalcy.

India has gone through several weeks of national lockdown to combat this virus. This has created an immense amount of hardship among poor and disadvantaged people many of whom have lost their means of livelihood and in some cases their shelter. We at ISMAANA are helping our mother country in this time of great suffering and need. We sent a fund-raising appeal in April 2020 to our alumni, who have generously donated to this fund drive. One very generous alumnus has matched our collection 2 to 1. We have sent $67,800 in a wire transfer to IIT (ISM) the week of May 4th. This comes to approx. Rs 50 lakhs at the current exchange rate. This along with an estimated collection of over Rs.59 lakhs from the college staff and India based alumni associations makes the total contribution from IIT (ISM) and alumni associations to over Rs.1.00 crores. This respectable amount will help many needy and suffering persons in India.

We at ISMAANA continue to work on many projects to assist our alma mater as well as our North America based alumni. During the current academic year (2019-20) all 52 merit cum means scholarships were awarded to needy meritorious students. These included 25 scholarship carried forwards from last year’s recipients and 27 new awardees. While visiting Dhanbad in February 2020. Dipak Sarkar, ISMAANA President met with several scholarship recipients and took a group photograph, which is included in this newsletter.

This is in addition to 8 merit scholarship being awarded to eight fourth-year students in four earth science branches based on their academic performance during the first 3 years. More details are provided under ISMAANA scholarship programs.

Work has started to build an innovation and tinkering lab at IIT (ISM). Naresh Vashisht (PE’67) has generously agreed to fund this project estimated to cost $1.2 million. Construction of the building is completed, and more details of the project are provided in this newsletter.

ISMAANA newsletter is being published on a regular basis to exchange communication with our North America based alumni. Our thanks to Vishal Gupta, Secretary, (vishal27@gmail.com) for this sincere effort.

An alumni database development program is ongoing for the last two years with dedicated efforts of Gaurav Seth. If you know of any alumnus who is not receiving our newsletter, please let Gaurav know.

We started a fund-raising program in 2018 to enhance our endowment funds to continue and expand the merit scholarship program and to fund outstanding research projects at our alma mater. Additional funds are also needed to help IIT (ISM) students attend international seminars and conferences. The scarcity of funds limits us from considering many such requests during the year. Many of you have already contributed to the alumni fund. We seek your continuous support to enhance the ISMAANA endowment fund. You may write your tax-deductible donation check to “Indian School of Mines Alumni” and send it to our treasurer Atul Kumar at 46 Huntsman Horn Circle, The Woodlands, TX 77380.

If you have any feedback to improve ISMAANA’s role or would like to contribute articles or news events or have any other comments, please send us a note.

Thank you.
Sincerely
Dipak Sarkar
President ISMAANA (’67 PE)