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Facilitating Physical Fitness and Athletic Glory! January 31, 2023

“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”

-John F. Kennedy

The Directorate of Sports of SRM University-AP, inaugurated the ‘‘Synthetic Tennis Court” accentuating the importance of physical fitness in everyday life and catering to rising tennis players with immense potential. Honourable Vice Chancellor, Prof. Manoj K Arora inaugurated the new court with a maiden game along with Registrar Dr R Premkumar, Director of Sports, Dr Vijay Kumar Upadhyay and Director of Communication, Mr Pankaj Belwariar. SRM AP aims at providing intensive quality training and world-class facilities for students with potential, encouraging and developing them into national and international athletes. The university showcases the significance of the seamless alignment of sports with academics to improve the physical and mental constitution of the students.
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Makar Sankranti at SRM AP – A Delightful Celebration! January 31, 2023

The year’s harvest festival was celebrated with great exuberance and ecstasy by the faculty, staff and students of SRM AP. All festivities were up in the air when all in the academic and non-academic community were adorned in their ethnic wear and came together to represent and celebrate the traditions and honour our heritage.

The Makar Sankranti/Pongal celebrations comprise various games and activities that best showcase the creative skills of the participants. The Rangoli Making contest was one of the highlights of the celebration. Rangoli, being an essential mark of celebrating festivities, is drawn in different states with different names and on different themes. Muggu in Andhra Pradesh, Kolam in Tamil Nadu, Sathiya in Gujarat, Alpana in Bengal, Mandana in Rajasthan, Osa in Odisha, Aipan in Uttarakhand, or simply the Rangoli from Maharashtra – every region has its unique way of representing their traditions, folklore and practices.

A thrilling pot-breaking contest, cup stacking contest and an adrenaline-driven tug-of-war saw active participation from our Indian and international students who were fascinated by our cultural representations and immersed themselves in various competitions. To create awareness about the nutritional value of food cooked without flame, the necessity and advantages of healthy eating and to encourage people to stay away from junk food, a Cooking without Fire/Induction contest was held.

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ECBC Five Star Rating for SRM University-AP January 31, 2023
SRM University-AP has achieved a 5 Star rating from the Andhra Pradesh Energy Conservation Building Code (APECBC) for its Phase II Research Block (Utility Extension), Phase III Hostel Block (Vedavathi) and Phase III Research Buildings. This is in continuation of the rating achieved for Phase I and Phase II buildings.

The Ministry of Power launched the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) as a first step towards promoting energy efficiency in the building sector. The main purpose of the ECBC is to provide minimum requirements for the energy-efficient design and construction of buildings. It provides futuristic advancement in building technology and reduces energy consumption and promotes low-carbon growth in the building sector.

The State government has issued an order making the Andhra Pradesh Energy Conservation Building Code (APECBC) mandatory to get building approvals for commercial and non-residential buildings with a plot area of 1,000 square meters or a built-up area of 2,000 square meters. Union Ministry of Power-led Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) has introduced the ECBC in commercial and non-residential buildings with an objective to ensure the construction of energy-efficient buildings with reduced electrical energy by 30- 40 per cent. ECBC can help reduce electricity bills for building owners and stakeholders apart from environmental benefits and help to improve the living standards of people. ECBC is one of the most cost-effective tools to curb future energy demand and deliver significant cost-energy savings.
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“Glory to a Proud Nation”- 74th Republic Day Celebrations at SRM AP January 31, 2023

SRM University-AP celebrates the 74th Republic Day of our glorious nation with immense pride and zeal in commemorating the genesis of India’s constitution. Honourable Vice Chancellor, Prof. Manoj K Arora initiated the auspicious event by unfurling the flag, proceeding with the National Anthem and March Past. He explicated the significance of paying homage to our great nation and our brave leaders whose vigilance and valour contributed to forming a secular and republic country.

“India, since its inception as an independent, democratic nation, has advanced to the forefront of the global community as a rising influential power in the domains of science and technology, economics, democratic polity and the thriving Research and Development sector. Our constitution gives us the responsibility, rights, and resources to work towards the growth of our nation. SRM University-AP aligns itself with India’s vision, providing an innovative research-oriented ecosystem for cutting-edge research and entrepreneurial learning that works in tandem with the holistic growth of the country.” said Prof Arora in his commemorative speech.

On this proud occasion, SRM AP honoured its dedicated staff and faculty who have rendered their faithful service to the university’s cause and holistic development for the past five years. Honourable Vice Chancellor felicitated the programme and awarded mementoes and certificates to the recipients for their dedicated commitment to the institute. Laurels were also presented to the winners and champions for their remarkable achievements in their respective fields at the event. Cultural programmes by the students contributed to the joyous Republic Day celebration of our rich and valiant nation.

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Blood Donation Camp at SRM University-AP: Hundreds of Blood Donors Joined in the Noble Gesture January 31, 2023
NSS Cell, Health Centre and the Directorate of Student Affairs of SRM University-AP, in Association with the Government Blood Bank, Guntur, conducted a Blood Donation Camp on Wednesday, January 25, 2023. Mr S K Kareem, Deputy Transport Commissioner, Guntur, was the Chief Guest of the programme. The Guest of Honour of the event was Dr Prabhavathi, Superintendent, Government General Hospital, Guntur. Over 100 students and faculty members donated their blood at the camp.

The guests were welcomed to the university with mementoes and bouquets by the Vice Chancellor, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, and Registrar of SRM University-AP. Mr S K Kareem lauded the significance of blood donors at a time when road accident rates are exponentially increasing. He also requested the Vice Chancellor of SRM AP to organise a road safety awareness programme for the students. “Enrol yourself in blood donor groups and be willing to donate your blood from time to time”, said Dr Prabhavathi as she explained the different occasions where sufficient availability of blood is indispensable.

Vice Chancellor of SRM AP, Prof. Manoj K Arora, motivated students to donate blood and, in addition, to do some research in the area. He stressed the importance of ensuring that the donated blood is being utilised at the right place. Prof. D Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of SRM AP, highlighted the need for regular blood donation and applauded all the blood donors. At the same time, he discussed how blood donation benefits both the donor and the receiver. Dr R Premkumar, Registrar of SRM AP; Mr Anil Kumar Nigam, Director of Student Affairs; Ms Revathy Balakrishnan, Assistant Director of Student Affairs; Dr Ch Lakshmi Rajyam, Medical Officer of SRM AP; and Dr A Lakshmana Rao, NSS Coordinator of SRM AP was also present at the occasion. Students of Samaj Seva, an initiative of the Paari School of Business at SRM AP, volunteered to assist with the blood donation camp.
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Faculty Orientation Programme 2023 January 30, 2023

The Teaching Learning Centre at SRM University-AP conducted a 4-day face-to-face Faculty Orientation programme for the newly joined faculty members from January 17 – 20, 2023. Honourable Vice Chancellor, Prof. Manoj K Arora delivered an introductory talk expounding on the larger goals of the University. The programme aimed at seamlessly aligning faculty activities with the University’s ideology & philosophy.

The workshop included a series of hands-on sessions on Active Learning, Project Based Learning, Technology-enabled learning, Outcome-based learning, Curriculum design, development and delivery, new ways of assessments, Classroom communication and Student engagement facilitated by Dr Balaguruprasad N and Dr Anupama G, faculty members of the Teaching Learning Centre.

More than 50 new faculty members attended and benefited from the programme by working together in experiential activities, creating new lessons using innovative pedagogies and designing innovative assessments among other teaching-learning practices. The participating faculty members also benefited from the University student counsellor, Ms Liza Hazarika and Dr Veena Kumar from the University of Maryland, Global Campus.

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Exploring the Potential of an Image Description Generator January 27, 2023
An Image caption generator system implies the detection of the image as well as producing the caption with natural language processing by the computer. This is a tedious job. Image caption generator systems can solve various problems, such as self-driving cars, aiding the blind, etc.

The recent research at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering proposes a model to generate the captions for an image using ResNet and Long Short-Term Memory. Assistant Professors Dr Morampudi Mahesh Kumar and Dr V Dinesh Reddy have published the paper Image Description Generator using Residual Neural Network and Long-Short-Term Memory in the Computer Science Journal of Moldova with an impact factor of 0.43.

The captions or descriptions for an image are generated from an inverse dictionary formed during the model’s training. Automatic image description generation is helpful in various fields like picture cataloguing, blind persons, social media, and various natural language processing applications.

Despite the numerous enhancements in image description generators, there is always a scope for development. Taking advantage of the larger unsupervised data or weakly supervised methods is a challenge to explore in this area, and this is already there among the future plan of the researchers. Another major challenge could be generating summaries or descriptions for short videos. This research work can also be extended to other sets of natural languages apart from English.

Abstract

Human beings can describe scenarios and objects in a picture through vision easily, whereas performing the same task with a computer is a complicated one. Generating captions for the objects of an image helps everyone to understand the scenario of the image in a better way. Instinctively describing the content of an image requires the apprehension of computer vision as well as natural language processing. This task has gained huge popularity in the field of technology, and there is a lot of research work being carried out. Recent works have been successful in identifying objects in the image but are facing many challenges in generating captions to the given image accurately by understanding the scenario. To address this challenge, we propose a model to generate the caption for an image. Residual Neural Network (ResNet) is used to extract the features from an image. These features are converted into a vector of size 2048. The caption generation for the image is obtained with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM). The proposed model was experimented with on the Flickr8K dataset and obtained an accuracy of 88.4%. The experimental results indicate that our model produces appropriate captions compared to the state of art models.
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Reservation for Communities in Sikkim: Examining the Political Demand January 27, 2023
It is a prerequisite for a country like India showcasing vast cultural, social, political and economic diversity, for adopting an unprejudiced reservation system to ensure equal and just representation of varied communities in the political decision-making process of the country. But many communities that have been historically disadvantageous(SC/ST) still struggle to receive their right to representation. Dr Ugen Bhutia, Assistant Professor, Department of Liberal Arts, has published a paper titled “The Limbu–Tamang Communities of Sikkim History and Future of Their Demand for Reservation” in the Journal Economic and Political Weekly. The paper provides a comprehensive outlook on the complex history of the communities in Sikkim and past events that have cumulated in their demand for representation in the democratic polity of the country. The future direction of the demand for reservation and its prospective outcomes have also been emulated.

Abstract

Since its merger in 1975 with the Indian union, one of the major sociopolitical issues in Sikkim has been the demand for reservation in the state legislative assembly for two communities—Limbu and Tamang. The demand of reservation for the Limbus and Tamangs crystallised in Sikkim when these communities were notified as Scheduled Tribes under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders (Amendment) Act, 2002. The history and future of this political demand has been analysed.
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Kudos to our Champions! – Silver Medal at Volleyball Championship January 20, 2023
The joyful bliss when you reap the fruits of your labour and passion is immeasurable! The Directorate of Sports proudly congratulates the Men’s Volleyball team for bagging the Silver Medal in the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana State-level Institutional Volleyball Championship held at Khammam, Telangana. The league tournament was held from January 13 to 15, 2023 and was sponsored by Techwave India Ltd. The Volleyball team displayed a fantastic performance throughout the league and furnished a grand victory over the Khammam team in the semifinals by 3-2 sets. Dr Vijay Kumar Upadhyay, Ex-Ranji Player and Director of Sports, SRM AP was the Chief Guest of the Tournament.

The team consisted of Captain – Ch Ganesh TVM Sai; Vice Captain – Ch Srinivas Rao and members N Gnana Sai Kiran, K Vivek, K Niranjan, K Bhardwaj, S Yeswanth, K Bhuvenesh, N Mahmood, K J N Venkat Sai, K Avinash, K Shri Harsha, K Balaji. They were accompanied by Coach – Tella Vamsi and Manager – Dr Abdul Mohimin.

SRM AP provides top-notch training and world-class facilities for students with potential, building them into national and international athletes. The university also celebrates the amalgamation of sports with academics improving the physical and mental constitution of the students. The university also recognises the need to provide aspiring athletes with opportunities to receive premier education. Hence the institute plans to include Sports and NCC Quota in the University Admissions in the upcoming year.
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Innovative University of the Year 2022: SRM University-AP bestowed with the title of honour January 17, 2023
SRM University-AP has been crowned as Innovative University of The Year -2022 by Academic Insights Magazine in recognition of the commendable contributions the university has made towards society and the educational fellowship. This title of honour is an annual recognition programme for private universities, which have stood out among the rest in the previous year in imbibing students with quality education and ethical values.

SRM University-AP has been embodying absolute innovation across all the disciplines and schools of the university, which is a laudable quality among the new-age universities of the country. Universities vary widely in their innovation maturity levels, and there is a substantial knowledge and experience gap within and across institutions. SRM AP is credited as the notable exception for the pathbreaking innovations made in the higher education sector. The editorial team at The Academic Insights has conducted rigorous research on various factors to choose the university of the year, with many universities participating yearly.
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