Academician and member of the University Grants Commission, Sachidananda Mohanty, an alumnus of the Ashram School who has served on the governing board of the Auroville Foundation, has been nominated to the governing board of the UGC-DAE, Consortium for Scientific Research (CSR), Indore.

He was nominated by the Chairperson of the University Grants Commission (UGC), Vineet Joshi, for a three-year term.

Prof. Mohanty, former Vice-Chancellor of the Central University of Odisha, has received numerous national and international accolades, including awards from the British Council, Salzburg Global Seminar, the Katha Foundation, and the Fulbright Program. A prolific author, he has written 30 books that have been published by leading international forums, like Oxford, Routledge, and Sage publications. Prof. Mohanty is the son of the late Panchanan Mohanty, former Financial Advisor to the Government of Odisha, and noted Odia poet Bidyut Prabha Devi.

The UGC-DAE Consortium, Indore, established in 1989, is one of the Inter-University Centres set up by the UGC. As an autonomous institution, it aims to promote advanced research and teaching in areas involving sophisticated scientific infrastructure, including accelerators, lasers, and nuclear reactors.