City student bags paid internship in Japan

A student of Yuvaraja’s College, an autonomous constituent college of the University of Mysuru, has been selected by a prestigious Japanese university for a fully-paid four-month internship.

N S Devaki, course coordinator, five-year Integrated MSc in Molecular Biology, said, the course is a purely research-oriented one and many students from the college have done their internship in foreign universities and institutions. “But, this is the first time that a student of the course, which was started in 2005-06, has been given an opportunity to do internship with all expenses met,” she said.

V Varsha, a ninth semester student, who has recently completed her exams, would do the internship as part of her final and 10th semester. She would do her internship at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), at Onna-son, Okinawa, Japan, from January 28 to May 31. She would be a research intern at the Protein Engineering and Evolution Unit of OIST, under the supervision of professor Paola Laurino.

Devaki said, Varsha has been selected for the internship on the basis of her project ‘M6A Modification’, where M6A is a protein. “The Protein Engineering and Evolution Unit, at OIST, had two openings and Varsha had applied for it. Research students from across the world would have applied for the internship. So, we are proud that our student has been selected. Besides, an internship allowance of JPY (Japanese Yen) 2,400 per working day (nearly Rs 27,000 per month), Varsha will be provided accommodation, OIST shuttle bus pass and one direct round trip ticket from India,” she said.

Varsha said, “I have already done two internships through the Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS), one at National Brain Research Centre (NBRC) at Gurgaon in Haryana and another at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) at Kolkata, two months each. Once I join the OIST, I have to present a project there. I am presenting a project related to the one I worked on at IISER. At present, I am further researching on the project. I am also studying several research papers related to the subject,” she said.

Younger daughter of A Venkatesh Murthy and T B Gayathri couple of Ramakrishna Nagar, in the city, she studied in Raghavendra Gurukula in Kuvempu Nagar, before joining the Yuvaraja’s College. While Venkatesh Murthy is a senior veterinary inspector in Mysuru, Gayathri is an employee of the judicial department in Nanjangud.

Yuvaraja’s College

Yuvaraja’s College was established as an Intermediate College on June 24, 1928. Earlier, in 1927, then maharaja Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar sanctioned the building and the foundation-stone was laid on August 8, 1927, by Sir Brajendranath Seal, then vice chancellor. Dewan Sir Mirza Ismail, Motilal Nehru and scholar Shivashankara Shastry were present. After Independence, it was upgraded to a First Grade College. In 1954, to commemorate its silver jubilee, it was renamed as ‘Yuvaraja’s College’ signify the association of then governor Jayachamaraja Wadiyar with the college.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) conferred autonomous status to the college in 2005 and it was extended up to 2020. It was granted the status of College with Potential for Excellence by the UGC in 2010. Recently, it got the recognition for the second phase, from 2017 to 2022.