Report of 97th Science Congress, Tiruvananthapuram, 3-7 January, 2010
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Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh inaugurated 97th Science Congress on 3 January organised by Indian Science Congress Association, Kolkata and jointly hosted by Kerala University and Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Tiruvananthapuram. Dr.G.Madhavan Nair former Chairman of ISRO is General President of this Congress. PM`s serious observation about unfortunate red tape, political interference and lack of proper recognition of good work contributing to a regression in Indian science drew large attention from Media and other distinguished scientists throughout the proceedings of the congress. Prime Minister clearly set the tone for the congress by underlining the need to focus on food security, disease control, and investment in clean technologies, water resources and biodiversity. He also cautiously added that the technology of genetic modification must be given full weightage, with appropriate regulatory control based on strictly scientific criteria. Finally he appealed to explore and engage with government to liberate Indian science from the shackles and deadweight of bureaucratism and in-house favouritism to usher in the coming Decade of Innovations which Government has declared for the period 2011-2020.
Minister of Science and Technology (IC) Mr. Prithviraj Chavan expressed serious shortage of faculty followed by rapid increase in number of Institutions of higher education in the country. He stressed to generate creative solutions for addressing this challenge and suggested to remedy it by encouraging re-entry programmes for women scientists and return of Indian Diaspora. With reference to Decade of Innovations (2011-2020) he highlighted crucial aspect of Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD) which emerged as one of the important parameters for assessing the technology and innovation status of Nations. Eventually he outlined ministry`s strategy to a) Enhance synergy among academy, research and industry, b) Build new strategies for development of private-public partnerships in R&D and c) Sep-up global alliances developed during the Eleventh Plan and d) Aim at acceleration of the pace of conversion of scientific outputs to targeted socio-economic and
developmental outcomes.
At the inauguration ceremony Prime Minister honoured eminent statistician Dr. C.R. Rao with ‘The India Science Award’ instituted by the union government under the science and technology department in 2006, carries Rs.25 lakh cash prize, a citation and a gold medal. Other prominent awards winners honoured at this moment were: 1) Srinivas Ramanujan Birth Cenetenary Award to Dr. Rajinder Jeet Hans Gill,Chandigargh, 2) M.N Saha Birth Centenary Award to Prof. S.M.Chitre , University of Mumbai, 3) P.C Ray Memorial Award to Dr. Ganesh Prasad Pande, National Chemial Laboratory, 4) H.J Bhabha Memorial Award to Dr.Anilkumar, National Chemical Laboratory, 5) J.C Bose Memorial Award to Prof. N.K Gupta, IIT, Delhi, 6)Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Award to Dr.K. Radhakrishnan, Chairman, ISRO, 7) B.P.Lal Memorial Award to Dr.Lalji Singh, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, 8) Millennium Plaques Of Honour to Dr.R.Gadagkar, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc and Dr.D.Datta, BARC, 9)Excellence in Science and Technology Award to Dr.Srikumar Banerjee, Chairman,AEC, 10) Prof. R.C.Mehrotra Memorial Life Time Achievement Award to Prof. R.Ramamurthi, 11) M.K.Singal Memorial Award to Prof.Satya Deo, Harish-Chandra Research Institute, 12)CSIR Award G.M. Ramchandran Gold Medal to Dr.N.R.N. Murthy, IISc.,13) General President Gold Medal to Dr.A.Jayakrishnan, Kerala University, Dr.T.K. Alex ISRO Satellite Centre, Dr. Roger Yonchien Tsien, University of California, San Diego, Dr. John Cromwell Mather, U.S space agency’s (NASA), Prof.UR Rao, Former chairman, ISRO
Driving theme of the Science Congress was "Science and Technology Challenges of 21st Century: A National Perspective". A Special Science Programme around this theme was organised on inaugural day. Here Dr. K. Kasturirangan, Member(Science), Planning Commission, introduced two terms ‘solution science' and ‘discovery science'. According to him ‘Solution Science’ aims for scientific solution for socially relevant problems to improve the living standard of the people and ‘Discovery Science’ focuses in making scientific discoveries gain leadership position in science and technology. “Total contribution of nuclear energy should increase from the amount of three percent to ten percent by 2032” said Dr. S Banerjee, Secretary Department of Atomic Energy. He revealed that proposed Atomic Energy Parks will be set up at “Mithi Virdi (Gujarat), Jaitapur (Maharashtra),Koodamkulam (Tamil Nadu), Kovvada (Andhra Pradesh), Haripur (West Bengal).
Dr M S Swaminathan in a talk titled “Sustainable food security in an era of climate change” said, “Even a one degree celcious rise in global temperature will reduce the wheat production in India by 6 million tonnes/year which is $ 1.3 billion at current prices. Nearly 50% of the child deaths in India are due to malnutrition and about 230 million people are undernourished and the inflation in food prices have further worsened the situation. We need to establish 50 modern grain storage facilities of 1 million tonne capacity each at different parts of the country to face scarcity of food crops due to severe drought or flood conditions.” He called for renewed research on Vector Born Diseases and further debate on need to have Food Security Act ensuring prevention of imminent crisis due to prevailing chronic hunger in some parts of the country.
A Special Science Programme for 21st Century witnessed extensive discussions about future possibilities of growth of Indian Science. Dr. T. Ramasamy, Secretary DST outlined the need of ‘content flow’ in terms of publications justifying the ‘money flow’ driven by government`s plan outlays. He touched on DST`s initiatives like Promotion of University Research for Scientific Excellence(PURSE), innovation clusters and mega-science, technological mission on Winning, Augmentation and Renovation (WAR) for water.
Dr. K. Radhakrishnan Secretary Dept. of Space lauded ISRO`s role in developing cost effective launch vehicles, satellite missions. The commendable achievements by ISRO in the last 45 years include 29 launch vehicles, 54 satellite missions, 22 foreign satellites launched and 21 satellites in operation currently. He said that the imminent actions planned include indigenous supply of raw materials, zero defect systems, centres of excellence in materials research and cross- fertilization of academy and ISRO, self- reliance in space transport, in satellites, low- cost access to space, and inter- planetary exploration. He also shared the features of the future technologies under development at ISRO like RLV-TD, Semi-Cryogenic Engine, Air-Breathing Propulsion, Two-Stage-To-Orbit (TSTO) and Human space flight. He stressed the significance of Indian Space Programme for national development process highlighting the recent initiatives of ISRO regarding Cartographic satellites and other technologies capable for cyclone warning.
Dr. Shailesh Nayak, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) spoke on ‘Earth System Science Programmes'. He highlighted on the services of MoES like ocean advisory services, polar science and cryosphere, disaster support, sustainable shore stabilization, ocean mineral resources, deep ocean mining technology, hatchery technology, to name a few. MoES is preparing itself for research related to monsoon mission, high altitude cloud physics lab, mountain meteorology for Himalayas, integrated development of islands. Dr. V. K. Saraswat, DG, DRDO spoke on ‘Defence Science and Technologies'. He explained the missions of DRDO in operation to provide technological solutions to the Services to optimise combat effectiveness. Details of combat aircrafts, Unmanned Air systems like Lakshya, Nishant, Rustom, and Kaveri engine for aircraft propulsion, and main battle-tank Arjun and Arjun Mk-2 were presented. He elaborated on the electronic warfare systems for the army (Samyukta) and the navy (Sangraha), track and wheel based electronic warfare system, and for mountainous terrain. Future missions planned are Endo and Exo atmospheric ballistic missile defense; AAD (Endo) at 15km altitude with warhead, and PPV (Exo) interceptor mission at high (150km) altitude.
Dr. Samir K. Brahmachari, DG, CSIR highlighted achievements of CSIR by citing Salt parks, lavender parks, biodiversity screening, India's first parallel computer Flosolver, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library along with CSIR`s top ranking in patent filings. He emphasised on CSIR`s contribution in development of Recombinant Streptokinase and ‘first major advancement in TB therapy in 40 years by a new drug which is 23 % more cheaper than available options.’ He tried to attract attention towards new development in model of research which is Science 2.0 to be understood by another initiative of CSIR, Open Source Drug Discovery. Dr. V. M. Katoch, Director General, ICMR elaborated on the Dept. of Health Research`s aims to bring modern health technologies to the common man, and to promote innovation in diagnosis and treatment techniques. Shri M. A. Baby, Education Minister of Kerala said summarised the whole session by stressing upon the importance of science and technology by quoting Gothe— “Science and Art break all barriers”. He concluded by saying that when we develop science, we have to develop a scientific temperament too.
Public lecture by Prof. C.N. R. Rao (JNCASR) revolved around his conviction that science develops not only because of funds but because of free thinking. He discussed in detail Future of Science in India. He said, “Around 60 percent of quality research in India has happened in educational institutions. Real science happens in small laboratories across the reputed institutions across the world. Best research in fundamental sciences is being done by Engineers. So we have to revamp our curricula of science and engineering education so to accommodate new dimensions. The widening gap between India`s and developed country`s research performance is subject of deep concern. Asian counterparts China, Japan and South Korea are producing one of the largest scientific contributions. We need massive and urgent improvement in scientific performance of country so as to be visible in top one percent of best scientific work being done across the world. The real national priority at this point of time should be to join the mainstream of science. Unfortunately our value system of society does not respect science.”
Roger Tsien who is 2008 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry delivered second public lecture of the day on ‘Green Fluroscent Protein(GFP)’. GFP is a special type of protein obtained from a particular species of jelly fish that exhibits bright green fluorescence when exposed to blue light. This property makes GFP extremely useful as a report gene, which can be used to identify the presence of cells, particularly useful in locating cancer cells. The bright green fluorescence sharply defines the cancerous cells that the surgeons can easily cut away the cancers. But Prof Tsien himself did not recommend the use of GFP in humans as it involves genome transformation which is not yet perfected. He explained that it was his love for different colours, especially red and green, that inspired him in his monumental research in Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP). Prof Tsien is renowned for revolutionizing the fields of cell biology and neurobiology by allowing scientists to peer inside living cells and watch the behaviour of molecules in real time. He advised young students and researchers to keep their mind open to the beats of nature. He said, “They should try to inspire themselves by absorbing the mélange of colours and sounds that is present all around us.”
Highlight of Day two was Space Summit. Prof. U R Rao, former Chairman of ISRO while delivering a lecture on Challenges in Space said that there are nine challenges we have to combat in coming years. Those are: food security, energy security, environmental security, resource security, space security, space transportation, and search for life, exploration of the universe and colonisation of Mars. He said that the current food productivity of India, which is 1.7 tonnes/ha, should be increased to about 4 tonnes/ha by 2050 to meet the growing food requirements. This can be done by initiating a new green revolution with the application of space technology along with biological inputs. The space technology can be used for better meteorological forecasting and thus for mitigation of disasters and regular monitoring along with evolving coping strategy to counter India's energy deficit by better utilisation of energy resources and in the learning of the effects of global warming. He stressed the importance of energy security for industrial expansion, agriculture and infrastructure growth.
John C.Mather, Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist and currently senior Project Scientist, James Webb Space Centre, said that several projects were taken up by the space nations to study the origin of universe like the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite (COBE) in 1989, Wilkinson's Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) in 2001 and Planck in 2009. While delivering a lecture on the topic “From the big bang to life and the end of universe”, he shared the details of James Webb telescope, a deployable infrared-optimised space telescope that will be launched by 2014 which has a diameter of 6.5m and will be put in Lagrangian Point 2 (L2). He said that the universe is expanding and the rate of expansion has increased in the last five billion years due to an unknown phenomenon called ‘dark energy' and more needs to be learnt in this regard. Dr. Lars Parhm, DG, EUMETSAT, talked about the application of space technology in weather forecasting and disaster management. He listed out the collaborative activities undertaken by space agencies across the globe for this purpose. He talked about the cooperation between ISRO and EUMETSAT in the sharing and management of earth observation data. He said that, EUMETSAT is talking with ISRO for the sharing of ocean wind vector data from the recently launched Oceansat-2. Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, Chairman, ISRO chaired the summit.
In afternoon session of Space Summit paper ‘Future of Indian Aviation in Mission Oriented R&D’ was presented by Dr. Krishnadas Nair and Dr. C G Krishnadas Nair, the Chairman of Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL). Dr Nair said that the future of R&D in military aviation is going to be exciting with many technologies are in line for development. He also expressed concern on the lack of private investment in aviation R&D in India and said that it is the right time for private players to enter the fray. Dr. Marc Pirtcher, Director of CNES, the French space agency said that The European Space Agency will not be jumping into the human space program bandwagon. He said that all the space fairing nations should work together for the realisation of manned exploration to other planets like Mars. Dr. Pritcher, a Stanford graduate, gave an overview of the French Space Program, describing the Ariane and Vega launch vehicles. He mentioned the Indo-French cooperation missions such as Meghatropiques and Altika-Saral. Dr. Pritcher noted that the easy part of science in space has already been done and what is left is the expensive part for that all the nations should come together as Space is the future of Mankind. Mr.S.Ramakrishnan, Director of Projects, VSSC said that working in the space industry is interdisciplinary and the opportunity is equally open for all students of science and engineering. During his talks he gave the details of the Polar Satellite launch Vehicle (PSLV), Space Recovery Experiment (SRE) and Chandrayaan-1. He commented that PSLV itself could be used to send a spacecraft for interplanetary missions. He gave a description of the Indian Space Transportation Systems from the sounding rocket of 1963 to the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) and explained possibilities in the Human Space Program (HSP) would open new technical avenues for Indian industry. It is also the next logical step for a country like India which has become self sufficient in launch vehicle technology.
In Plenary session of Food and Nutritional Security Dr V. Prakash discussed “Food and Nutritional Insecurity in changing Scenario of Global Warming and Economic Recession”. He observed that the statistical evidence of global food price inflation leading to rise in malnutrition and child mortality reflects a new dangerous dimension of the recession. He put forward skill upgradation, small agriculture grid clusters, and prevention of food loss linking farmers, growers, micro industries and markets as some measures to think over seriously to increase the Food and Nutritional status of the country. Dr Malavika Vinodkumar presented the paper “Combating Micro nutrient Hunger-The Great Challenge”. She highlighted the crucial micronutrient deficiency among children, adults and workmen leading to a depression in the productivity that in turn results in a huge loss in Gross National Product. She said, “A proper birth weight of an individual is a greater right of the individual than freedom because children with low birth weight are regarded as children who lost their childhood.” She put forward Dietary diversification, Fortification and Supplementation as the ways to combat Micronutrient deficiency challenges.
Public Lecture was given by former President Dr. A.P. J. Abdul Kalam who stated his visualization of Global Human Civilization for 2050. He said that a global knowledge society backed by value system and spirit of compassion would be the backbone of his vision. In context of Indian perspective proper water management, sustainable agriculture development using organic farming practices, energy consumption and sustainability, customized healthcare for promoting enhanced longevity, balancing the greenhouse gas budget, ICT transforming into a Knowledge system Powerhouse and emergence of new global leaders focussing on multi-disciplinary action are some of the key points of his visualization. He added that scientists should start considering earth, moon and mars as an economic complex for future habitat expansion of human beings. He listed opportunities for collaboration among universities and organizations like ISRO, DAE, CSIR, etc. and industries, improve science infrastructure in schools and colleges to bring a fundamental change in both academic and research performance. He urged Indian scientists to help science to nurture and promote people with out-of-the-box thinking. Promoting his idea of an Indian Innovation Eco-System, Dr. Kalam said that the Science Congress should be one of action and should work towards this objective.
Day three started with Plenary session of Health. Dr. H.David Wilson, Dean, School of Medicine, University of Kansas said that the medical education has shifted from merely a lecture based training programme to problem based patient centred learning with increased interaction with patients and introduction of simulators and computers for learning. He outlined the history of medical education in USA starting from the 1910 Flexner report which envisioned an ideal medical school`s requirements of properly equipped modern labs, faculty teaching, appropriate funding, qualified students and vigorous university culture. He stressed the need for professionalism in doctors and the importance of integrating medical education into the healthcare system. The co-chair Dr.Surendra Parmar, Vice President of Continuing Medical Education said that impetus should be given on discovery of new drugs, developments of medicines which are safe, less toxic having less interaction with other common drugs in use. Chairman of the session Dr.Irving Zucker, Dept. of cellular & integrative physiology, University of Nebraska talked about Angiotensin II, brain and heart failure. He said that either blockade of Ang I conversion to Ang II or blockade of the Ang II type 1 receptor (AT 1) has been used to treat heart failure. Administration of these agents are effective in ameliorating disease and enhancing survival, even in patients without augmented levels of circulating Ang II. He described various experiments on AT-1 receptors and regulation of AT1 receptor expression in heart failure. Dr. Gary Sieck, President, American Physiological Society spoke on the topic ‘Targeting BDNF Signaling to promote functional recovery after cervical spinal cord injury'. He said that the mortality rates due to cervical spinal cord injury are getting higher and the incidence of this illness is about 2000 Americans every year. He concentrated mainly on the spontaneous recovery of rhythmic diaphragm muscle activity after spinal cord injury.
Dr.Harish Panth spoke about the effects of cycling dependent kinases on neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Krishnan Dromraju talked on human genetic research. Dr.O N Paramasivan talked about the advances in prosthetic surgery techniques and its benefits. He revealed that progress made in developing expendable joint which is movable in 160 degrees. Prof. Indrajit Ray talked about the need to pursue research as part of medical education. Prof. PR Sudhakaran from Kerala University said that the actual benefits of health revolution have not reached the common man. He said that basic science research should be taken up to improve the quality of existing vaccines, development of life saving drugs and genetic modifications to cope up with lifestyle diseases. Dr T.K Bose, Department of Forensic and State Medicine, NRS Medical College coordinated the plenary session. The session extended condolences to the family and friends of Dr. Krishna Agarwal, who was supposed to speak in the session but passed away in an unfortunate car accident.
Next plenary session on the same day was on Weather, Climate and Environment. This session saw the discussion about the efforts of scientists and researchers in improving our understanding and predictability of weather and climate. Prof. Roddam Narasimha, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research chaired the plenary session and gave reviewed the issues connected with climate change. He emphasized that though the problem of climate change has been a controversial issue but the problem has been accepted globally. Dr. Shailesh Nayak, secretary to MoES said, “Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate is even faster over 1993 to 2003 and has reached the level of about 3.1mm. The ocean has been absorbing more than 80 percent of heat contributing to the sea level rise. Chlorophyll plays an important role in the oceans' biological productivity and their impact on climate. Indian Ocean has a role in seasonal monsoon variability, intra seasonal oscillation, Madden-Julian oscillation, intra annual variations, decadal variability, cyclones and synoptic scale events, warming trends since the 1970s, ocean circulations, monsoon current and biogeochemistry.” He urged for an improved monitoring and understanding of the regional impacts with reliable scenarios of climate change for India with uncertainty limits and for developing better capability. Dr. R. Krishnan from Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology spoke on monsoon and its predictability in the Indian context. He gave an overview of monsoon variability, anomalous features, mid-latitude teleconnections and numerical simulations and highlighted the role of models and observational data in being able to make a sufficiently good forecast of short and long duration weather events. Answering questions from the audience, he said monsoon phenomenon in Indian context is quite unique and thus the task of predicting the monsoon onset, monsoon breaks, droughts, and rainfall is very challenging. Dr. G. Bala of the Divecha Centre for Climate Change, CAOS, IISc., Bangalore talked about “The Global Carbon Cycle” invited inquisitive attention from the audience. The remaining talks in the section dealt with various aspects of Weather, Climate and Environment, viz., Modeling, Prediction/Forecasting and Observations.
Public Lecture was given by Mr. Atul Gurtu of TIFR who unravelled the mystery surrounding the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC which is hailed the mother of all experiments would usher in a new era of particle cosmology said the eminent physicist who is India's chief spokesman of the LHC. Mr. Gurtu explained about India's involvement in this mammoth experiment. Six institutes from India are contributing in this experiment. He scoffed at the hullabaloo surrounding the experiment such as the experiment will create black holes and this will result in apocalypse. Actually only micro black holes will be created during the experiment, which will be ephemeral. LHC will attempt to simulate the birth of the Universe by colliding protons having near light speed in a tunnel of 27km in circumference. It also hopes to find the existence of the hypothetical “Gods particle” called Higgs Boson. Mr. Gurtu also presented a video showing the working of the LHC. In another spellbound talk, Dr. MGK Menon's detailed lecture about historical story of the birth of meson physics leading towards development of new branch of physics responsible for greater investigations related to secrets of outer space.
Day Four started with Plenary of Nanotechnology and Education. Dr. K M Ninan said that nanotechnology is the future of our country as it plays an important role in solving the major challenges like ensuring food security, energy security and safe surroundings that our country is facing. Dr. G Sundararajan while chairing the session said that the charm of nanotechnology is in it`s potential to allow us to scale down all designs cutting across disciplines to nanosizes. Dr. Bahadur talked about the interface of chemistry and biology in nanomaterials. He explained about novel methods of specifically targeting tumours using magnetic nanomaterials. Prof. V Ramgopal Rao talked about nanoelectromechanical sensors (NEMS) and use of NEMS biological sensor for the diagnosis of myocardial infarctions. It is christened as iSens which is a very effective, rugged and smart lab-on-chip system. He also described new generation sensors for detection of explosives like RDX, TNT etc which can act as electronic dog nose in airports. Prof. Sundara Ramaprabhu spoke on energy related applications of nanomaterials like batteries, solar cells, fuel cells, super capacitors etc. Prof Ashwini Agarwal said that nanostructure can be replicated to develop future generation self-cleaning fabrics. He shed light on the numerous researches going on in the field of textile technology. Dr. Shanti Nair talked about anti-bacterial nonmaterial coating on doorknobs. He said that nanotechnology allows one to deal with biological problems at the cellular level.
During the next plenary session on Biotechnology, Prof. G. M. Nair said that biotechnology has brought in a revolution in the form of green revolution, value addition to existing agricultural practices, global food security and improved medical facilities. However, Biotechnology or Genetic Engineering should be administered depending on the need, and bio-safety should be adequately regulated to protect the environment. He emphasized on the role of NGOs and media to support the scientists by bringing the original perspective of the latest developments in science to the masses. Dr Ajay Parida, Executive Director, M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, delivered the lead talk titled “Ensuring and Enhancing Crop Productivity in Response to Emerging Abiotic Stress Conditions”. Introducing the concept of Hybridization Technology with an anecdote from the life of George Bernard Shaw, he said precision breeding, mutation breeding, and selective hybridization are some of the techniques to achieve a revolution in agricultural practices. He outlined the challenges facing Indian agriculture like loss of cultivable land, decline in water resources, loss of bio-diversity and forests, climate change and invasion of trans-boundary pests. In the age of domestic crisis in production, BT holds the key to bio-fortification and food security and it is a wake-up call for researchers and policy makers in this area. Transgenic plants are capable of withstanding most of the adverse conditions like salinity, drought and undesirable metal content in the soil as well as enhancing the nutrient content and yield. It followed a very vibrant interaction and a panel discussion on issues ranging from “organic vs transgenic” to role of Biotechnologists in building a resurgent and secured India.
The session of University Meet focused on the theme ‘Status and future perspectives of Science Education.’ It observed that international agreements, polices and global forces are causing more good than harm to our educational system. S P Thyagarajan in his paper Research Manpower and Capacity Building dwelled into failure of the existing curriculum and the teaching practices to create a space to work horizontally and think vertically. In his paper ‘Science Education: Current Status and Perspective’, Dr. P T Manoharan discussed about compartmentalization of education , about need to have multi disciplinary mode, cross fertilization of disciplines, teaching science along with research, promotion of discussion-dialogue and decentralized evaluation. The paper Science and Technology Challenges in the Globalized Environment by Dr Ekbal presented on the background of the GATTS and Intellectual Property Rights Act. He explained how GATTS made our education system a “Public Good.”
Prof Dr Helga Nowotny in her paper ‘The ERC-a unique funding opportunity for frontier research’ explained about the administration features programmes of ERC and the annual budget. She asserted that the services ERC provided for the European research world is commendable and can be adopted. Carlo Rizzoto presented the paper on Research Infrastructural development programmes of European Forum on Research Infrastructures. He explained the concept of ‘Research infrastructure’ and gave a detailed picture of the concept from the ancient Greek times to the most modern accomplishments. Best exposure to research and research methodologies, high linkage, accurate database and better marketing facilities are the advantages of this concept. This paper provides few ideas to modify the research field of developing nation. ‘Medical Education and Research in the Globalized Environment’ was discussed by Dr. K. Radhakrishnan.He drew out the change occurred to the field of medical science from traditional medical education days to the present age of information mistakes.
Day Five witnessed the plenary on Biodiversity & Sustainable Development. Chairman Dr. R. S. Parida said that realising the significance of biodiversity conservation, the General Assembly of the United Nations has declared the year 2010 as the “International Year of Biodiversity”. The richness of India in terms of her biodiversity resources should be used and conserved and not simply be studied and documented. He further added that realising the significance of the issues of biodiversity conservation and utilization, India has been one of the few countries with a National Biodiversity Act and Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers' Protection Act. He observed collaboration among Universities, institutions and the Government as the first step in bringing the benefits of the biodiversity resources to mankind. He remarked Conservation doesn't mean not to exchange, Genetic resources should be freely exchanged taking care of the protection of rights”. Dr. Sujata Arora, Director, Ministry of Environment & Forests said that conservation of genetic diversity, species diversity and ecosystem diversity constitute the three equally important branches of biodiversity conservation. Biodiversity not only maintains ecological balance but also continues the evolutionary processes. Emphasizing that biodiversity and its value is imperfectly mapped and improperly used, she said today scientists have a better idea of the number of stars in the galaxy but not the number of species on earth.
Dr. Ghosh, Head, Centre for Environment Development, took a strong opposition to the thought that Biological Sciences is a soft science where as Physical Sciences is the real science. Dr. Ramakrishnan, Director, Zoological Survey of India, spoke on “Biodiversity Conservation” He said that the Survey is playing a important role in the mapping, documentation and conservation of zoological resources of India since its early days of formation. He concentrated primarily on the fauna on India and said public awareness & more number of taxonomists are needed to map and conserve the vast and rich bio-reserves of India. Dr. Sanjappa, Director of Botanical Survey of India, gave a broad overview of the status of Botanical explorations in India in his talk “Contribution of the Botanical Society of India in Biodiversity Documentation & Conservation”. He said that the floral and fauna resources are under great threat and in fact about 10% of the floral species in India have been classified as threatened. Unless urgent steps are taken and a suitable methodology is evolved, this would rapidly threaten the biodiversity reserve of India.
Plenary session on Information technology focussed mainly on the state of IT and IT enabled services, its relevance in the current economic crisis challenges and future scenario trends. Shri Ajay Kumar, Principal Secretary, Govt of Kerala said that in order to unleash the potential of Indian IT industry, we should work towards more inclusiveness and innovation. Dr. Shraddha V. Ingale stressed on the use of fuzzy logic in arriving at drug decision making model and nuclear research and it`s relevance in infusion pump, which is an emerging application in the field of fuzzy technology. Dr. L.M Patnaik, Director, DIAT, Pune spoke on the changing paradigms like development in computing from parallel to grid and cloud computing, in interfacing from graphical user interface to brain computer interface, in intelligence systems from artificial intelligence to computational intelligence. He noted that the main challenges of mobile computing are energy conservation, mobility and connectivity and listed the potential applications of wireless sensing in environmental conservation and statistics collection. Eventually Goldi Mishra, CDAC predicted that the computing power would increase from a mere 1 flop/s in 1941 to 1 exaflop in 2016-2018.
Dr. Anil Kakodkar, former chairman AEC chaired the plenary session on energy. He called upon the scientific community to embark on comprehensive research for innovative solutions to address the problems in the energy sector. He also spoke on the importance of developing environmental friendly techniques to extract energy from fossil fuels, necessity to make liquid fuels from non-liquid ones to cater to the needs of the transportation sector and need to strengthen the base of fast breeder reactors and AHWRs to create ground for thorium based reactors in the third stage. Dr. S K Chopra (Advisor, MNRE) quoting Jules Verne said that ‘Water is the coal of future'. He hailed the process of dissociation of water into hydrogen and oxygen as the ‘Holy Grail' in renewable energy research due to high amount of untapped energy in Hydrogen. He said, “R&D on hydrogen fuels is going into the ‘Valley of Death' as “we are extremely slow in converting R&D to products”. We have to accept the tremendous challenges in the production, storage, and transport in hydrogen power generation.”
Dr. R K Sinha, BARC during his talk on ‘Leapfrogging towards the goal of energy independence’ expressed his belief in using the plutonium based metallic fuel obtained from Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) as fuel in Fast Breeder Reactors (FBR). FBR creates nuclear fuel along with power generation producing less nuclear waste. He listed achieving rapid growth, large volume of deployment, managing nuclear waste and meeting non-electricity requirements as the major challenges in the Indian nuclear power sector. Dr. B N Bankapur, Director (Refineries), IOCL stressed on the need of more research on algae based bio fuels and ethanol form lignocellulose waste to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. Dr.H.S. Brahma, Secretary, Ministry of Power spoke on sustainable energy security in the electricity sector. Dr. Brahma asserted that despite the fact that the energy demands of our country are growing at the rate of 10 % per annum the growth in electricity generation is barely 6%. He suggested measures like change in energy mix, use of super critical technologies and smart grids as new strategies in the supply and demand chains to ensure proper utilisation of electric power. Dr P S Bhattacharya, Chairman, Coal India Ltd (CIL) talked about ‘mining with a human face' and apprised about the technology of ‘high wall mining' where coal is mined without much disturbance to the land.
About 7,000 delegates, including 2,000 students from across the country, participated in the five-day mega event, held for the first time in this picturesque coastal city and for the second time in the southern state after two decades at Kochi in 1990. About 2,000 scientific and technical papers were presented.
SupSupplements-Parallel Events
A) Third Science Communicators Meet:
This meet was organised by the initiative of Mr. Anuj Sinha, Consultant, NCSTC, DST. Mr. Pallav Bagla, Science Editor, NDTV said in invited lecture that if the information disseminating from media must be accurate and precise, the quality and demand of the news will be more appreciated than anything. He was sharing his experience of covering the Chandrayan-1 mission. He said, “The message, which the media gives, should be simple and authentic especially while dealing with science and technology, for it is the pride of a nation and the result of dedicated scientists. The young journalists should come forward with passion and quest in reporting of space events.” Mr. T.S Subrahmanian Associate Editor, Frontline said that coverage of science in media should not make the temper elude. Also, he stressed on the clarity of language & correctness of facts. In this Science Communicators Meet six lead papers and 40 other papers were invited. The meet made following observations: Much of scientific knowledge is confined to a small minority of scientists. Regular science coverage in the media is absent and only occasional and sensational science news appears in print and electronic media. Science and technology journalism has progressively developing in India, in terms of quality and quantity, but is still far behind the desired level, (estimated around 3 % against a desired level of 15 %.)
A A) Seventeenth Children Science Congress
4th January 2010: Over 3500 students from various schools from all over the country attended Children Science Congress. In his presidential address, Dr. G. Madhavan Nair stressed the “need to have passion for science cultivated from very young stage”. He exhorted the youngsters to pursue science, learn and observe the nature and thus solve the mysteries of science and thereby improve the quality of life. APJ Abdul Kalam inaugurated Children's Science Congress. In his address, he talked about how science empowers the nation by recounting his experiences while working with Dr. Vikram Sarabhai,Prof. BrahmaPrakash and Prof.Satish Dhawan in his initial years which helped him in formulating the basic qualities of a scientist. He narrated biographies of great scientists to drive home the point that people who did not fear of failure proved the words of even the brightest minds wrong. He made the youngsters repeat a great thought by Patanjali “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds”. He told them that simple question arising in the minds of great scientists like Sir C.V Raman and Sir Isaac Newton, like why sky is blue and why things fall towards earth have led to path breaking discoveries in science. He urged the young children to plant and nurture more trees for saving our environment as part of his ‘billion trees for billion people' programme. He concluded by asking the students to take an oath to pursue science as a lifetime mission and not to be disheartened by failures.
5th January 2010: Children’s science exhibition was organised by Department of Science & Technology and NCERT was inaugurated by ISRO Chairman Dr. K.Radhakrishnan. Talks on career guidance were delivered by Dr. Unnikrishnan Nair, Professor, IISER, Dr.G.M Nair, Professor, Dept. of Biotechnology and Prof. Mathai, Dept. of Mathematics. The students were taken for space museum visit and rocket launch in VSSC. Some of the noteworthy exhibits include an innovative methodology of food preservation using juice from a moss plant, pesticides for protecting garden plants using neem, tobacco etc. Many posters and projects focussed on the ill effects of pollution and pollution mitigation. An interesting proposal for energy saving is done by the students of DPS, Bihar. They propose simple steps like putting sunshades, light reflecting glasses on windows, use of CFLs and outdoor classes for saving power. Their proposals include a very simple yet effective device called earth air tunnel, which provides air at 260C at all weather conditions and could be the AC of the future. The implementation of these proposals in their school has reduced the electricity by 50%, which is equivalent to around 3500 kg of carbon footprint.
1) Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, 2) Animal, Veterinary and Fishery Sciences, 3) Anthropological and Behavioural Sciences, 4) Chemical Sciences, 5) Earth Sciences, 6) Engineering Sciences, 7) Environmental Sciences, 8) Information and Communication Science & Technology, 9) Materials Sciences, 10) Mathematical Science, 11) Medical Sciences, 12) New Biology (Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology and Biotechnology), 13) Physical Sciences & 14) Plant Sciences
The section on Earth System Sciences centred on the theme “Paradigm in 21 Century- Vision for Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation of Natural Disaster, Disaster Resilience and Development of Alternate Energy Resources”. Prof. H. S. Sharma talked on ‘Climate Change, Desertification and Water Resource Management in India’. Speakers stressed that research in Earth System Sciences must move beyond a disciplinary focus to address sustainability issues of planet Earth in the framework of complex dynamical systems. Prof. Rana Pratap spoke on “Impact Study of the Climate change on the Agriculture System of the Middle Ganga Plain Region of Bihar” and sketched the changing scenario of climate and its impact on human activities. He said that the selection of the middle Ganga plain for the study is significant given its geographical location and the dependence of the vast population of this region on mostly agricultural pursuits for their survival. Prof. S. Acharya talked on “Banded Iron Formations and Associated Manganese Formations of S.E. India and their Related Iron and Manganese Deposits”.
The Young Scientist Award Lecture by Dr. Chandrani Singh was on “Quantification of Substratum Response to two M > 4.5 Earthquakes in the Koyna-Warna Region During 2005”. The first invited lecture by Prof. Paul Robbins, University of Arizona was titled “India’s Wildlife Sanctuaries: Opportunities to Return Foresters to Forestry and Citizens to Science”. Prof. Vikram Unnithan, Germany delivered second invited lecture on “Aspects of European Oceanographic and Geological Frontier Research: From Environmental Monitoring to Resource Exploration” Prof. Unnithan's focus was on the vast, renewable and non-renewable seafloor resources present in offshore and in international waters. Referring to the deep-sea science platforms such as ESONET and NEPTUNE projects in the Europe and North-American regions he said such projects are the future of marine science and innovation. Third day session was on “Natural Hazards & Disaster Management”. Presentations were ranging from landslide hazard zonation, waste disposal, groundwater storage, disaster management in arid lands, climate change and transportation, and natural hazards and their mitigation. In fourth day session, S. Roxy, presented the paper titled “Surface Albedo and its variability with solar angle and soil moisture at Astronomical Observatory. She studied the effect of solar elevation angle on surface albedo and found that mean daily surface albedo decreases with increase of soil moisture, showing an exponential dependence on soil moisture. Prof. Md. Kavei, Iran presented work on the relationship between peak ground acceleration and modified Mercalli intensity concluding that “Earthquakes are not disasters, but we make them by our careless tasks”. Prof. Kesharwani, Dr. H.S. Gour presented his research work on the pressure dependence of electrical resistance of frozen Calcium Montmorillonite suspensions, a work on the making of synthetic diamonds. Other talks by Sri S. R. Radhakrishnan and Dr. Tessy Chacko P, concentrated on “Lidar characterization of winter aerosols in the lower atmosphere” and “Thermal Profile of Laterite soil in a tropical region” respectively. The final talk was given by Ms. S. Bora on “Spatial and temporal variation of electron density over Indian equatorial low latitudes and the effect of Solar Cycle 23”.
The session on Anthropological and Behavioural Sciences was chaired by Dr. Bensel. Mr.Aveenesh Singh, Director, Ministry of Labour and Employment, highlighted changing value and life style of youth, gender inequality, domestic violence, ageing population, psychological warfare, terrorism occupational safety and health as the important areas the Indian Anthropological sciences should study. Mr.Deva Prasad Sen Mazumdar talked on ‘Mental Illness and Mind Boosting- a new frontier’. He listed out various examples like Gene therapy for Depression, epilepsy Parkinson's disease etc. The information on the evolution of Smart Medicines and energy foods for Alzheimer's disease was a new realm of mind boosters. Dr. Devraj Kumar, Professor, Florida Atlantic University, College of Education USA talked about “Problem Based Science Learning with Nanotechnology using web-based VIDEO anchors.” He elaborated on the innovative practice of Problem Based Learning which will enhance active learning, critical thinking, group coordination, and collaborative learning.
The session on Agriculture and Forestry Sciences had presentation on Novel Botanical Fungicide Julifloravizole by M.P.Raghavendra from University of Mysore, Anirban Roytalked delivered Pran Vohra Award Lecture, on Emergence of New Recombinant Begomo virus complexes. He said, “In tropical and subtropical region of the world, white-fly transmitted Gemini viruses under the genus Begomo are emerging as a major threat to economically important crops. Genomic recombination is very frequent and takes place between species and even between genera which results in viruses' rapid diversification. Emergence and spread of recombinant begomo virus induced diseases are mostly attributed to changing climatic factors, evolution of newer viruses and variants of existing ones. These diseases pose serious threat to crop cultivation. So identification and detection of such virus is a major challenge for developing management strategies. The paper Biotechnology and Agriculture Development in India: Strategies and Challenges was presented by C.D. Mayee , Chairman, Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board, New Delhi. He said, "The Green Revolution which commenced in 1968 made India self-sufficient despite a growing population. But facing challenges like soil degradation, low factor productivity, environmental concern etc, and the strategies which assisted first Green Revolution are not helping a second round revolution. Biotechnology in that aspect helps in resolving intractable problems such as drought tolerance, pest-disease resistance, nutritional upgradation etc. In the past 20 years, Plant biotechnology, Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering made remarkable progress. A variety of traits like herbicide resistance, insect-pest and disease resistance, synthesis of Pharmaceuticals, edible vaccines have been introduced and transgenic crops being developed. Mr.C.D.Mayee professed the use of biotechnology as the driving force behind second revolution".
In the session of Homeopathy, Ayurveda and Alternate Medicine carried discussion on treatment of much dreaded Avian influenza using antimony crude mixed with proper amount of earth metals, treatment of uterus prolapse using herbal and biochemical medicines, importance of ethno-medico plants used by tribals of central India; many of them, which have become extinct. remedy in treating haemmorhoids and piles, the role of Chinese healing practice in curing fibromyalgia, a musculoskeltal disorder to a great extent. A symposium on Emerging Behavioural Strategies: National Perspective explored the new realms of Behavioural Sciences.
Session on New Biology witnessed symposium on innovative technologies on health scienes.Chaitanya Purandare presented the stem cell therapy which would be a ray of hope for those suffering from degenerative diseases like cerebral palsy, spinal cord injuries etc. Since its introduction in India, two years before, its efficacy has been proved with an amazing recovery rate of 25%, he said. The sectional programme was chaired by Mr P. K. Seth, CEO, Biotech Park, Lucknow and Mr Sandeep Saxena, Founder & CEO, Acton BioTech, Pune. Innovative technologies on various fields of health sciences including an nanosomal spectrum, antifungal drug, laser technologies in ophthalmology and on the therapeutic potential of novel natural bio-materials in wound care were discussed in this session. Another attraction of the section was the lecture on selection of the right drugs and right doses based on the genetic profile of a patient. This type of therapy will be useful for asthma, AIDS etc.
In a Symposium on Clinical Medicine and Epidemiology Dr. O N Paramasivan, disclosed progress made on PRUJ- PLASTY for the lost elbow: The Proximal Radio-ulnar Joint Utilized to replace the Ulno-humeral Joint” introduced the new outfit of medical sciences: Proximal Radio-ulnar Joint. He called this new biological salvage procedure as ‘biological joints' which is useful to restore functional elbow joint when the ulno-humeral joint is destroyed due to infection or trauma. Dr. Bipin.T.Varghese discussed “Reconstructive microsurgery in a high volume low resource cancer centre” and introduced Micro vascular reconstruction- a most modern surgical method. Flaps from the possible parts of body are dissected and are made use to correct the defective parts. He put forward the strategy for the recruitment of patients for reconstructive microsurgery to ensure the best utilization in a tertiary cancer care management and its encouraging results. Dr Saumendra Darbar presented the paper which discussed the result that ginger has significant liver and stomach protective capacity.
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