DASNR
International
Student of the Week

Home Country:
India


Above: Sun Temple at Konark

Madurai , India

Madurai is the oldest inhabited city in the Indian peninsula. It is referred to with names like Koodal Maanagar, Thoongaa Nagar ( Sleepless City), Malligai Maanagar (City of Jasmine) and Athens of the East. It is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and is a municipal corporation situated on the banks of the River Vaigai in Madurai district. The corporation has received several National awards in the year 2008 for implementing development works. The city is also referred to as the Temple city. With a population of 1,108,755 according to the 2004 estimation, it is the administrative capital of Madurai district.

Madurai was the capital city of ancient Southern civilization. Madurai's cultural heritage goes back 2,500 years, and the city has been an important commercial center and has conducted trade as far as Rome and Greece since as early as 550 B.C.E.

 

India , officially the Republic of India, is a sovereign country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the east, India has a coastline of over 7500 kilometers. It borders Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Indonesia.

Home to the Indus Valley civilization and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four major world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated here, while Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's variegated culture. Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and colonised by the United Kingdom from the mid-nineteenth century, India became a modern nation-state in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by widespread use of nonviolent resistance as a means of social protest.

India has a labour force of 509.3 million, 60% of which is employed in agriculture and related industries. Major agricultural crops include rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, and potatoes. The agricultural sector accounts for 28% of GDP. Source Wikipedia

All pictures are Karthikeyan courtesy.

Karthikeyan Ramachandriya
April 06, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

This week’s international student of the week is Karthikeyan Ramachandriya Dharman. He is a Masters student in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering. Karthikeyan is from Madurai, India. He speaks Sourashtra, Tamil, Hindi, English, and Sanskrit.

Karthikeyan is member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE). He is specializing in Bioprocessing.

He came to the United States because of the many opportunities to do research, particularly in the Biological Sciences. In Karthikeyan's words “the top class faculty member help motivate students to do a quality research. Furthermore, the money allocated to education and research is enormous which definitely helps bringing out a good research. I thought the USA would be the best place to enhance my research experience.”

Above: Gopuram from Meenakshi Temple at Madurai.

After he applied and was admitted to a few Universities in the States that conduct research on biofuels, Karthikeyan chose OSU because the high qualify profile of his advisor Dr. Mark Wilkins. In addition, OSU gave him the opportunity to work as a research associate while pursuing his masters degree.

Above: Rockfort at Tiruchirapalli where Karthikeyan went for his B.Sc.

Karthikeyan likes to spend his free time watching movies, listening to music, and chatting with his friends. He is coming from a South India middle class family. His father is a Chemical Engineer who works as a Chief Manager (Research and Development) at India’s leading aluminum producer, National Aluminium Company India Ltd. Karthikeyan’s father has always encouraged him and inspired him to be an engineer. His mother is a home maker, she encourages him to take his own decisions and she has played a key role in his personal development. Karthikeyan has a younger sister who is in College in Biomedical Engineering. He is encouraging his sister to pursue a postgraduate degree in the USA. Karthikeyan has great appreciation for his friends, he stated that his friends are as close as his family. He mentioned the friendship of Deepa, Malar, Prasad, and Saravanakumar as a great gift to him. “They have been instrumental to my success so far” he said.

Karthikeyan’s future plans are to pursue a Ph.D. to be able to contribute to the research on biofuels.

Karthikeyan’ advice to students “Be perseverant during graduate life. It is always good to take failures optimistically and learn from them. Very often research gives a hard time but remember, one of the big ways you can ahead as a researcher is by resolving problem with patience.”

Advisor: Dr. Mark Wilkins

Interview by: Sandra Rodríguez

 

Above: view of the River Cauvery from Rockfort

 

 

 

 

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