Good day, Litan Kumar Mohanty. I'm Arjun. I've had a look through your background and your professional record. I'm interested in hearing more about your work and how you see yourself fitting in here with our faculty. Ready to start?

Please start

I am little UH. I am working as a project uh scientist tattoo uh, NCPR Goa before uh I was working as a project scientist uh at Audience Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun.

Hello.

And, uh, before I also part of CGWB, uh, as a young professional, I worked three years over there. And uh, before that, uh, I was, uh, doing my PhD at IIT Kharagpur. So during my PhD, I, uh, my PhD topic was, uh, application of remote sensing and GIS in the glacial lake hazard mapping.

Where I uh, create a large scale database for the uh, Himalayan region where I gathered.

All the glacial related parameters, glacial lake, lake related parameters then.

All the topographic parameters, uh, so, uh, so that I can use to accomplish my further objectives, which are, uh, which are the probable of lake formation in the Himalayan region.

To identify different location where possible lake formation can be possible over the any location.

Then Glock probability mapping. So uh, I uh took almost 10,000 lakes in the Himalaya. I used machine learning and GI based overlay analysis to identify.

Which are the critical lakes going to be, uh, flawed in future? Uh, then my, uh, third and 4th object are morphodynamic study of supraglacs in one group and proglacial in one group. So, uh, so these are my PhD work. Then, uh, after my PhD, I extend my work to future, uh, estimation of future expansion rate of different glacial lakes in the Himalay.

Region. So during my first postdoctoral at Wadia Institute, I worked as a project scientist and uh, the work mostly concentrated on the long term monitoring of Gangotri Glacier. So how the basin is behaving.

Now with that, uh, there possible lake formation, uh, there I, we observed 2, uh, debris flow from Meru. So, uh, to identify different possible hazards. Also our aim, uh, so now, uh, at NCPR, I'm working as a project scientist, uh, in Indo Swiss project. So the project is all about.

Uh, small and big glaciers and their response to the present climatic conditions. So for doing this, we are mostly concentrating on the Chandra basin where we have a permanent station called Himans, where we need to stay A2 month at least, uh, uh, during October, November.

Uh, to, uh, to characterize, uh.

To study field based data over the Chandra basin.

Uh, so, so that's all, uh, uh, about my background.

So when I go for uh.

Uh, so in future, I, uh, I want to see myself, uh, Ajay, renowned, uh, researcher or professor, uh, in the field of cryospheric science, cryospheric hazard in the Himalayan region where I need to, uh, establish the.

When a particular focusing, uh, focused lab on the Chrysler hazard in the Himalayan region, uh, so early warning system, uh, and uh, identifying critical lakes, uh, morphodynamics, uh, glacial lakes, how glacier behaving in present day climatic condition that all way about my future, uh, research interest.

Thank you, Professor, for sharing your extensive professional journey and research focus. It’s clear that your work in cryospheric science and hazard mapping in the Himalayas is both impactful and forward-looking.

Sorry, uh, did you ask something? Actually, uh, I thought I missed something.

Thank.

Got it. Professor, let’s begin the verification of your skills step by step. First, could you elaborate on your understanding of Disaster Management? Specifically, how would you teach the concept of risk reduction to undergraduate students?

OK.

So, uh, there are, uh, mostly, uh, four steps of disaster management.

So I mostly work on the two, uh, first two. One is, uh, mitigation.

And preparedness. So in mitigation, yeah.

So we work on the GIS remote sensing based approach.

So where we, uh, we're going to uh, uh.

Going to produce some risk hazard related map, uh, using different, uh, thematic layers. So Aris is the, uh, is the combination of your hazard exposure and vulnerability. So how many people are staying? Uh, what's, uh, what is the age group? Most of the people are staying over there. What is the, uh, build building code?

And, uh, there are, uh, uh, whether there is costly infrastructure like hydropower plant and all these are the things we are going for vulnerability hazard is in a magnitude or intensity plus probability. So, uh, in using, uh, GIS software's data science, we can, uh, use.

MMM different thematic layer, uh, for the overlay analysis to find out risk and hazard in that location if, uh, some disaster, some disaster or hazard going to occur.

Come to the next early warning system, which I am working on, or if I got selected over here, I definitely I'll be extend, uh, uh, my uh, expertise, uh, uh, to, to create one, uh, sustainable or least cost effective.

Uh, least cost effective, uh, le warning system that can, uh, help people, uh, prison downstream of the Himalaya.

So these are the uh, uh, these are the things I can teach, uh, student and uh, also, uh, umm.

Integrating the research as well as teaching, uh, uh, teaching, uh, scale also in this, uh, department, if I got, uh, selected over here.

Thank you, Professor. You’ve highlighted GIS-based risk mapping, vulnerability analysis, and early warning systems as key teaching and research components. A follow-up: how would you ensure that students with limited technical skills grasp the foundational concepts of GIS and its application in disaster management effectively?

So are you, uh, in my teaching as well as research, I, I always prefer uh, uh, to work on the field based data or uh, working during uh, learning. Learning and uh, umm, learning and working are both 2 pillars of uh, student to make expertise, uh, expertise or easy learn. Uh, what I uh, uh, I know from my experience. So, uh, I will.

I'll, uh, I'll, uh, give some, uh, real time data, uh, S of hazard. So I'll, uh, I'll give some task how to do all these things. And they're from mostly engineering background. I'll also take help from them. So it kind of interactive research as well as teaching. Uh, so definitely we'll come off a very good solution to the hazard mitigation and Eleanor system in the.

Layer.

Good. Now moving to sociological perspectives: how would you frame the role of societal structures in disaster recovery to students, particularly when addressing inequities in resource allocation post-disaster?

Could you elaborate further on your approach, Professor? Specifically, how would you guide students in analyzing the intersection of social vulnerabilities and disaster impacts?

So first of all, I'll take a lot of class about, uh, about disaster management and mitigation, uh, uh, then, uh, response and, uh, recovery things. Uh, I'll plan accordingly. Uh, and I will, uh, go in depth, uh, to the, uh, to the student so that they can easily.

So I'll, uh, definitely, uh, before, uh, before, uh, doing VI analysis. I will, uh, get a lot of uh, uh, I'll teach a lot of things about the disaster. Then I go, uh, detail into, uh, into.

Understand. So.

Uh, into the research work, uh, uh, so it's kind of knowledge sharing. I'll get something, uh, from them definitely. And I'll, uh, I'll give something, uh, uh, something, uh, what I got during my, uh, during my 10 years of experience like, so I, I think, uh.

Uh, to understand first about glove or landslide, these are the natural hazards. So first of think how they occur origin.

So why, uh, where it going to be occurred, when it going to be occurred? So how impact, uh, it can 'cause if it happens, these are the things we, uh, get to know. Uh, if I analyze a lot of data, Uh, so I'll teach them, uh, during my past 10 years of experience working on this. So we'll kind of, uh, prepare hazard or risk map or early warning system.

So I think uh yeah, to establish early warning system, the uh, process, we need to learn.

How fast, Uh, so, uh, during my past, uh, past experience, I found uh, that uh, uh, surreal based data in the high altitude region where establishing early.

Warning system is really competitive or uh, challenging so.

Uh, so I, uh, I'll teach, uh, how to, uh, get the real time data, uh, that, uh, people cannot know, uh, above the altitude of 5000, that is some process is occurring, maybe glove, maybe avalanche, maybe debris flow. So, uh, we'll, umm, so first we'll, uh, identify the source exact time. So I'll, uh, we'll create some.

Running system that can transport the data. Uh, that some, uh, some.

Uh, something has hap happened in the high voltage region, so we should be careful about it. So maybe, uh, we, we need to go to the higher elevation, not in the valley region. Uh, like people are, uh, people are gathering during and normally they live in the low lying region. So that's the thing. I'll uh, I'll, I'll communicate with the student or it's kind of.

Uh, interactive.

Understood, Professor. Now, shifting to teaching methods: how would you structure a course to effectively balance both theory and practical lab sessions for a subject like disaster management?

So first of all, remote sensing.

UH-2, uh, I'll first, uh, teach them remote sensing, uh, multi resolution, uh, maybe spectral resolution or radiometric, then special resolution. How it work for, uh, the disaster management mitigation. First of all, uh, we'll go detail into the remote sensation, then we'll go detail into the.

GAS like.

Then, uh GIS, uh, will uh, study the location, how people are staying, uh, the Geo database like.

Population density, infrastructure density, um.

And then uh, uh.

These are the things, uh, we'll need to know special statistics, special, uh, uh, analysis tool, we'll get to hydrology tool, uh, go will go detail into this. Then rigging IDW, uh, these are the things we'll need to learn or we'll plan, uh, to study in the test. Then I will go to the modeling part modeling clock modeling. Arava flow or Hecross? How to works?

Uh, what are the input required for this, uh, and this model? These are the things we'll study. Uh, then the application part will, uh, create a lot of collaboration.

So how our, our result, our output from the research, uh, can, uh, help, uh, the local people who are going to, uh, affect if something happened in their in form of hazard.

Uh, so, uh, dash, how we can distribute the de, uh, the knowledge we acquire from the lab, how we can uh, manage to the sharing our data to the stakeholder that also part of uh, uh, disaster management, part of register management course, that's all.

Thank you, Professor. You’ve extensively described integrating technical and applied methods into your course design. Now, regarding student evaluation: how would you ensure fairness in assessing student performance, particularly in assignments involving collaborative projects?

So I'll definitely uh.

On relative scale, I'll, uh, evaluate, I'll definitely be fair while, uh, evaluating, I'll fast motivate and I'll give them chance, uh, to learn more or work more, uh, so that, uh, you will be beneficial in your future, uh, or academic growth.

That's all.

Professor, to confirm, are you requesting to end the interview? If yes, please explicitly state your confirmation.

Sorry I didn't get you.

Yes.

Let me clarify: are you ready to conclude the interview, Professor? If so, please confirm explicitly by saying "Yes, you can end the interview" or similar.